The Adelanto Detention Facility, which houses immigrants from across Southern California, is among such facilities with the highest number of sexual assault complaints, an advocacy group alleges.
The facility, located in San Bernardino County’s High Desert, ranked third on a list of the five detention centers with the most such complaints, the nonprofit group Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement alleges.
It filed a complaint against the Department of Homeland Security on April 11. A group representative said Wednesday, May 10, it had not received a response from the government and is taking its complaint to Congress. Homeland Security officials said they are reviewing the complaint, but in a statement called the group’s findings “grossly inaccurate” and said the rate of such assaults are low. The company that runs the Adelanto facility says it has a “zero tolerance” approach to sexual assault and harassment.
Nationally, the Community Initiatives group found that 33,126 complaints of sexual and/or physical abuse were made against agencies under the department between January 2010 and July 2016. Of these, 247 complaints, or less than 1 percent, were formally investigated by Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General.
Agencies under the department include U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The group got the data through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The number of immigrant detainees in the U.S. has topped 40,000 in recent months, The Associated Press reported. As of November, 45 of almost 200 adult facilities in which ICE holds immigrants are privately run, with about 63 percent of detainees held in the private facilities.
“By not investigating the vast majority of these complaints, they just demonstrate a complete disregard of the nearly half a million people that they detain each year,” said Rebecca Merton, a coordinator for Community Initiatives.
A statement provided by Joanne Talbot of Homeland Security’s Office of Public Affairs, says the complaint is being reviewed to “determine if further action or recommendations are warranted.”
“During the six-year time frame covered by this report, ICE, for instance, recorded more than two million admissions to its detention facilities nationwide. While ICE’s goal is to prevent all sexual abuse among its custody population, given the volume of individuals who annually pass through its detention system, the agency believes the overall incidence of such activity is very low,” the statement said.
Merton defended the report’s findings, and said the government is “re-victimizing the victims” by not investigating these claims.
“A lot of women and children have been through sexual trauma on their journey to the U.S. and for them to relive it in the detention facilities is absolutely horrifying,” Merton said.
The report detailed 1,016 complaints of sexual abuse or assault filed to the Inspector General by immigrants in detention between May 2014 and July 2016. More than 80 percent of those who filed the complaints were men; 19 percent were women.
Of these complaints, the Inspector General investigated 24 of the cases and found two were “substantiated,” and five remained under investigation, Community Initiatives found.
The group documented sexual assault cases at 76 detention centers. According to data obtained from ICE, the five facilities with the most complaints are run by private companies. They are, starting with the center with the most complaints: Jena/Lasalle Detention Facility in Louisiana, Houston Contract Detention Facility in Texas, Adelanto Detention Facility, Northwest Detention Center in Washington and San Diego Contract Detention Facility.
Three of these facilities, including Adelanto, are run by The GEO Group. A statement from Pablo Paez, a spokesman for The GEO Group, said the company has a “zero tolerance policy towards all forms of sexual abuse and sexual harassment.”
“We take these matters with the utmost responsibility and seriousness, and we are proud of our historically strong performance record as a service provider helping meet the government’s needs … while treating our residents with the respect and dignity they deserve,” the statement read.
In the report, Community Initiatives detailed how a woman was sexually assaulted in December 2015 at the Adelanto facility.
The attack came at night by another person, who then tried to kiss her the next day in view of GEO Group officers, the report stated. She told GEO Group and ICE personnel, but got no response, the complaint alleges. She called 911.
The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department interviewed her that month, the complaint states. She later tried to commit suicide and ICE transferred her to the Santa Ana City Jail in March 2016.
According to data the group received through a public records request, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department responded to 408 emergency calls from the Adelanto facility between January 2010 and June 2016. At least five of those calls were about an alleged rape or sexual battery, the group’s report found.
The allegations are alarming to members of Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, a group that has called for closing the Adelanto prison and has protested recent deaths this year of immigrants detained there.
Coalition Director Javier Hernandez said the group has not received first-hand sexual assault complaints from Adelanto, but has protested what they see as a lack of appropriate medical care there.
MOST COMPLAINTS
These five detention centers had the most sexual and physical assault complaints between October 2012 and March 2016, an advocacy group says. Immigrant detainees filed complaints by calling the ICE Detention Reporting and Information Line.
30 calls: Jena/Lasalle Detention Facility, Louisiana
23 calls: Houston Contract Detention Facility, Texas
22 calls: Adelanto Detention Facility
19 calls: Northwest Detention Center, Washington
19 calls: San Diego Contract Detention Facility
Source: Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement