Immigration

We found violations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention standards undermining the protection of detainees’ rights and the provision of a safe and healthy environment.  Although the Howard County Detention Center (HCDC) generally complied with ICE detention standards regarding communication, it did not meet the standards for detainee searches, food service, and record requirements for segregation and medical grievances.  We determined HCDC excessively strip searched ICE detainees when leaving their housing unit to attend activities within the facility, in violation of ICE detention standards and the facility’s own search policy.  In addition, HCDC failed to provide detainees with two hot meals per day, as required.  For those in segregation, HCDC did not document that detainees received three meals per day and daily medical visits.  Further, HCDC did not properly document the handling of detainee medical grievances.  We made two recommendations to ICE’s Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) to ensure the Baltimore ERO Field Office overseeing HCDC addresses identified issues and ensures facility compliance with relevant detention standards.  ICE concurred with both recommendations and is implementing a corrective action plan to address the concerns we identified.

We determined that children brought to Port Isabel on July 15, 2018, waited extended periods, and in many cases overnight, to be reunited with their parents.  U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was not prepared to promptly reunify all children who arrived at Port Isabel on the first day of attempted mass reunifications.  ICE and U.S. Health and Human Services had fundamentally different understandings about the timing and pace of reunifications, and ICE personnel at Port Isabel underestimated the resources necessary to promptly out-process the parents of arriving children.  As a result, some children waited in vehicles at Port Isabel, while others waited in unused detention cells, though all children were in climate-controlled environments and had continuous access to food, water, and restrooms.  As the mass reunifications continued, ICE personnel responded to processing and space issues, which generally resulted in shorter wait times for children who arrived at Port Isabel closer to the court’s July 26, 2018 deadline.  The report contains no recommendations.

We found violations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention standards undermining the protection of detainees’ rights and the provision of a safe and healthy environment.  Although the conditions varied among the facilities and not every problem was present at each, our observations, interviews with detainees and staff, and review of documents revealed several common issues.  At three facilities, we found segregation practices infringing on detainee rights.  Detainees at all four facilities had difficulties resolving issues through the grievance and communication systems, including allegations of verbal abuse by staff.  Two facilities had issues with classifying detainees according to their risk levels, which could affect safety.  Lastly, we identified living conditions at three facilities that violate ICE standards.  We recommended the Acting Director of ICE ensure the Enforcement and Removal Operations field offices overseeing the detention facilities covered in the report address identified issues and ensure facility compliance with relevant detention standards.  We made one recommendation that will help ICE ensure compliance with detention standards. ICE concurred with the recommendation.

We surveyed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities from April 8-20, 2020 regarding their experiences and challenges managing COVID-19 among detainees in their custody and among their staff.  The facilities that responded to our survey described various actions they have taken to prevent and mitigate the pandemic’s spread among detainees.  These actions include increased cleaning and disinfecting of common areas, and isolating new detainees, when possible, as a precautionary measure.  However, facilities reported concerns with their inability to practice social distancing among detainees, and to isolate or quarantine individuals who may be infected with COVID-19.  Regarding staffing, facilities reported decreases in current staff availability due to COVID-19, but have contingency plans in place to ensure continued operations.  The facilities also expressed concerns with the availability of staff, as well as protective equipment for staff, if there were an outbreak of COVID-19 in the facility.  Overall, almost all facilities stated they were prepared to address COVID-19, but expressed concerns if the pandemic continued to spread.  At the time of our survey, 23 facilities reported having detainees who had tested positive for COVID-19; this number had risen to 48 facilities as of May 11, 2020.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office of Field operations (OFO) personnel at ports of entry had separated 60 asylum-seeking families between May 6 and July 9, 2018, despite CBP’s claim that it had separated only 7 such families.  More than half of those separations were based solely on the asylum-seeking parents’ prior non-violent immigration violations, which appeared to be inconsistent with official DHS public messaging.  After a June 27, 2018 court ruling, CBP issued specific guidance, and the ports separated fewer families in the prior months.  Despite the new guidance, we continue to have concerns about DHS’ ability to accurately identify and address all family separations due to data reliability issues.  In late June 2018, CBP modified its system for tracking aliens at the ports of entry to capture family separation data consistently, but it could not provide a reliable number of families separated before June 2018.  We made one recommendation that will help CBP’s data collection.  CBP concurred with our recommendation.

Through its Criminal Alien Program (CAP), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can successfully identify aliens charged with or convicted of crimes.  However, because ICE relies on cooperation from other law enforcement agencies, it sometimes faces challenges apprehending aliens in uncooperative jurisdictions.  ICE’s inability to detain aliens identified through CAP contributes to increased risk those aliens will commit more crimes.  Furthermore, having to arrest “at-large” aliens may put officer, detainee, and public safety at risk and strains ICE’s staffing resources.  We made four recommendations to ICE focused on improving CAP.  ICE concurred with all four recommendations and initiated corrective actions to address the findings. 

According to CBP statistics, the number of southwest border migrant apprehensions during the first seven months of FY 2019 has in general already surpassed that of the total apprehensions for each of the previous four fiscal years. At the sector level, El Paso has experienced the sharpest increase in apprehensions when comparing the first seven months of FY 2019 to the same period in FY 2018. The purpose  is to notify you of urgent issues that require immediate attention and action. Specifically, we are recommending that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) take immediate steps to alleviate dangerous overcrowding at the El Paso Del Norte Processing Center (PDT).

Within U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), Border Patrol agents are responsible for patrolling our international land borders and coastal waters surrounding Florida and Puerto Rico. We conducted this audit to determine to what extent Border Patrol agents meet workload requirements related to investigative and law enforcement activities. Border Patrol needs to manage its workforce more efficiently, effectively, and economically. CBP and Border Patrol must expedite the development and implementation of a workforce staffing model for Border Patrol as required by Congress. Without a complete workforce staffing model, Border Patrol senior managers are unable to definitively determine the operational needs for, or best placement of, the 5,000 additional agents DHS was directed to hire per the January 2017 Executive Order.

This inspection is part of an ongoing review of ICE detention facilities. While conducting an unannounced visit to the Essex County Correctional Facility using ICE’s 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards, we identified serious violations. As part of this assessment, ICE must review and ensure compliance with those standards addressing unreported security incidents, food safety, and facility conditions that include ceiling leaks, unsanitary shower stalls, bedding, and outdoor recreation areas.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracts with 106 detention facilities to detain removable aliens. In FY 2017, these 106 facilities held an average daily population of more than 25,000 detainees. Since the beginning of FY 2016, ICE has paid more than $3 billion to the contractors operating these 106 facilities. Despite documentation of thousands of deficiencies and instances of serious harm to detainees that occurred at these detention facilities, ICE rarely imposed financial penalties. ICE should ensure that detention contracts include terms that permit ICE to hold contractors to performance standards and impose penalties when those standards are not maintained.