Immigration rights advocates, including attorneys with the Southern Poverty Law Center, filed a first-of-its-kind lawsuit Monday against the Trump Administration in federal court, claiming immigrants in detention centers were denied adequate medical and mental healthcare.
The suit, filed in U.S District Court for the Central District of California, claims migrants in 158 detention centers endured delays in getting care and almost constant isolation leading to two confirmed suicides.
Both the Government Accountability Office and the Office of the Inspector General reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has failed more than once to ensure that detention centers adhere to standards of medical and mental healthcare.
The 210-page complaint cites a 2018 OIG report that says, “In 2006, [OIG] identified issues related to ICE Detention Facility inspections and implementation of corrective actions. In our 2006 report, we recommended that ICE ‘improve the inspection process and ensure that all non-compliance deficiencies are identified and corrected.’ In a Dec. 2017 report, which related to OIG’s unannounced inspections of five Detention Facilities, we identified problems in some of the same areas noted in the 2006 report.”
ICE, according to the complaint, is housing about 55,000 migrants in detention facilities, many of which are in rural areas that are already straining to provide adequate healthcare to residents.
Detention facilities in Mississippi and Louisiana could hold about 20,000 detained migrants by the year’s end, Elissa Johnson, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the lawyers filing the suit, told Politico.
“We’re hoping that this lawsuit will shine attention on the severity of the problem across the country,” Johnson said. “The issues are so pervasive.”
