ICE transferred 17 immigrants between Kern County detention centers. Was it retaliation?
This story is part of the Central Valley News Collaborative — a bilingual, community journalism project funded by the Central Valley Community Foundation and with technology and training support from Microsoft Corp. The collaboration includes The Fresno Bee, Valley Public Radio, Vida en el Valle, Radio Bilingüe and the Institute for Media & Public Trust at Fresno State.
More than a dozen people were transferred from one federal immigration detention center in Kern County to another last week — a move that two detained immigrants and their attorneys are labeling as an act of retaliation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Just after midnight last Wednesday, a group of detainees at the Golden State Annex in McFarland learned they had to pack and move, according to Susan Beaty, a staff attorney with Oakland-based Centro Legal de la Raza, who advocates for Kern County detainees. An estimated 17 people were eventually transferred to the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield, Beaty said.
ICE transferred several people who had spoken out or filed grievances about the food, medical care, cleanliness, and COVID-19 precautions while at the McFarland facility, Beaty and two detained immigrants allege. The move was especially striking to Beaty, who has worked with Mesa Verde detainees for three years and said it’s “not very common” for ICE to transfer a large number of people at one time.
In response to The Fresno Bee’s questions about the number of people transferred and why, an ICE spokesperson said the agency could not comment and cited “pending litigation.” In declining to comment, the spokesperson also didn’t respond to allegations that the transfers were retaliatory.
The transfers come two weeks after eight current and former detainees filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, alleging that ICE and several of its contractors operating immigration detention centers in California had retaliated against them and other non-citizens for attempting to denounce conditions in the facilities, in violation of their First Amendment rights.
The ACLU Foundation of Northern California, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, the ACLU Foundation of San Diego & Imperial Counties, the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, and Centro Legal filed the complaint Aug. 26. The organizations have not yet received any substantive communication or response from the civil rights office, according to Vasudha Talla, director of the ACLU of Northern California’s immigrants’ rights program.
Transfer of immigrant detainees could spread COVID, attorney says
Beaty said they “can’t say for certain” that the late-night transfer of detainees was another alleged act of retaliation.
But several of those moved to Mesa Verde had voiced concerns about abuses and rights violations within the facility, as well as violations of ICE’s own standards and, Beaty said, “the fact that those folks were targeted for transfers, I think, speaks volumes.”
“There isn’t a way to prove that,” they continued, “but it’s hard to look at the facts and who they targeted and not conclude that this is retaliation for the complaint.”
Beaty also criticized ICE’s decision to transfer detainees between two potential virus hotspots as COVID-19 cases continue to surge in the Central Valley. The “extremely irresponsible” move, they said, endangers the health of facility staff and the greater community at a time when the region’s hospitals are overwhelmed.
ICE discontinued transfers of detainees amid the pandemic “unless necessary for medical evaluation, medical isolation/quarantine, clinical care, extenuating security concerns, release or removal, or to prevent overcrowding,” according to the agency’s COVID-19 Pandemic Response Requirements. The guidelines say all detainees who are transferred, removed, or released must be cleared medically.
In declining to comment for this story, ICE didn’t say whether the transfers complied with the agency’s own requirements.
ICE was holding just 21 people at the 400-bed Mesa Verde facility before it transferred the Golden State detainees to Bakersfield, according to Beaty. The facility has been operating under a population cap and other restrictions since December, when U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria determined that ICE “repeatedly acted with deliberate indifference to the safety of detainees at Mesa Verde” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
ICE detainees say transfers were act of retaliation
Francisco Martinez Gutierrez, who was detained at Golden State while his immigration case wound through the court system, was among those transferred to Mesa Verde last week.
He said he views the move as retaliation for complaints he had lodged at the McFarland facility. In one grievance, he said, he called on the detention center to provide him and others with proper attire, including shorts, for the Central Valley’s weather conditions. That request was later granted, he said. In another grievance, he raised concerns about a sewage smell seeping out of the toilets in the dormitories.
“I feel like certain individuals were targeted due to them knowing their rights and exercising their rights,” Martinez Gutierrez said from Mesa Verde on Friday.
Enrique Cristobal Meneses was one of the eight current and former detainees named in the federal complaint alleging retaliation by ICE and its contractors. ICE has detained him at Golden State since November and didn’t transfer him last week.
Cristobal Meneses said ICE’s actions have already had a chilling effect among the remaining detainees at Golden State. He recounted raising concerns about watered-down breakfast products on a recent morning and watching other detainees drop their eyes. Someone warned him, he said, to “be careful” or risk being moved to another facility, too.
But Cristobal Meneses said he’d continue speaking out and exercising his rights.
“At the end of the day, we’re all human beings and we don’t deserve to get treated the way we do,” he said.