A group of migrants locked up in the Imperial Regional Detention Center filed a federal complaint last week alleging medical negligence, retaliatory use of solitary confinement, and civil rights violations.
The complaint provides the accounts of five different men held in the federal immigration detention center to document the “torturous conditions” inside the facility. The detention center is operated by a private company called MTC, which has a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
“Complainants have experienced another deeply concerning pattern within Imperial, namely retaliation by MTC staff against individuals who raise the above concerns regarding poor conditions and abusive treatment within the facility,” the complaint states.
Donald Varela Fernandez is one of the men who spoke out. He was held in the detention center from September 2021 to Sept. 13 of this year.
During his time in custody, Fernandez said he spent five months complaining to the detention center’s medical staff about severe pain in his hips, back, shoulders and joints. At one point, he lost control of his hands.
Fernandez said the pain got so bad that he needed a cane to walk.
“I got to the point where I couldn’t go to the bathroom because of my hands,” he said. “I couldn’t pull my pants up and down. It was a struggle every time I needed to go to the bathroom.”
But the medical staff dismissed his complaints, Fernandez said.
“If you request medical help, all they do is just take you to the medical section, take your blood pressure, check your weight, give you Tylenol and send you back to your dorm,” he said.
In March, Fernandez was finally taken to a doctor in El Centro, according to his complaint. The doctor said Fernandez needed emergency spinal cord surgery.
He was transferred to the UC San Diego Medical Center for the surgery, according to the complaint.
Surgeons at UC San Diego gave Fernandez a set of instructions for his care after the surgery, he said. Those instructions included physical therapy exercises to strengthen his back and hands.
But when Fernandez returned to the detention center, staff took away his instructions and placed him in solitary confinement — where he did not have enough room to do his exercises, according to the complaint.
“They took everything away,” Fernandez said.
ICE did not respond to questions regarding the complaint. MTC issued a statement that did not directly address any of the allegations in the complaint but reaffirmed the company’s commitment to following best practices.
“Anytime a detainee expresses a concern, they are encouraged to speak with one of our staff members or file a formal grievance,” the MTC statement read. “We are committed to following the [ICE Performance Based National Detention Standards], including that, ‘no detainee shall be harassed, disciplined, punished or otherwise retaliated against for filing a complaint or grievance.’”
Lawyers and advocates who filed the complaint say what happened to Fernandez and the other migrants are not isolated incidents.
“We see that it happens again and again and again,” said PJ Podesta of the Innovation Law Lab. “Folks are locked up in solitary confinement or written up falsely, we see a clear pattern.”
The ACLU of Southern California, Centro Legal De La Raza and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice helped document and file the complaint. The organizations also filed a similar complaint against the Golden State Annex in McFarland, and the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield this week.
“We would like the oversight agencies to do a really thorough investigation, to not let the private contractors, not let ICE evade scrutiny,” Podesta said.
Podesta added that he was particularly impressed by the courage of several who put their names on the complaint despite fear of retaliation.
Fernandez said he spoke out for the benefit of people who will come after him.
“I don’t want no one else to have to go through what I had to go through in that place,” he said. “A way to help someone else is by talking about it, because if no one talks about it, no one really knows what’s going on.”
