Jose Ruben Hernandez Gomez hopes a new grievance database recently launched by the ACLU Foundation of Northern California for the state’s six immigration detention centers — including three in the Central Valley — will help provide “more of a concrete proof ... of how unsafe these detention centers are.”
Gomez, 33, said he was one of four hunger strikers who were forcibly removed from the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield in March amid the strike, and transferred to El Paso, Texas. Gomez spent a week in Texas before being transferred back to the Central Valley, and was released from Mesa Verde in mid-April. While detained, Gomez said he filed dozens of grievances for himself, and on behalf of his peers, but he said the formal complaints were “denied and ignored.”
The database project was “inspired by ...the concept of these grievances,” Sana Singh, an immigrants’ rights fellow at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California, told The Bee. She helped launch the database, which is the first-of-its-kind in the state.
The grievances, Singh explained, are formally filed with the facilities or directly with ICE, so officials “can’t deny their awareness of these conditions.”
When the civil rights organization began to review grievances from people in detention, Singh said, it found the majority of them were marked as unfounded. Detainees can appeal three times, but many of the grievances were also marked unfounded at the third level of appeal.
“They show that people in detention are using the avenues available to them,” she said, “and trying to make facilities safer, but these so-called procedural protections are essentially meaningless.”
The ACLU Foundation provided The Bee a sample of the grievances filed by Gomez, along with the facility’s responses. Names of staff and private information were redacted.
A spokesperson for the GEO Group, the private company that runs Mesa Verde for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said decisions on grievances follow federal requirements.
The inaction by GEO Group staffers to address issues Gomez and others had raised through the internal grievance system is what led him to take part in a hunger strike in March.
“We had nowhere to turn to,” he told The Bee. “For me, it led to go on a hunger strike so I can be heard, so there could be ... some light shed on so much darkness at the detention centers.”
Singh said the facilities play the role of defendant and judge when reviewing the grievances.
“Obviously a system like that can’t deliver justice,”she said, “or even at the minimum, the constitutional conditions of confinement.”
The GEO Group spokesperson said the adjudication of grievances for detainees in custody follow all federal standards’ requirements. The spokesperson said the process is accessible, confidential, fair and without fear of retaliation.
“As prescribed in the standards, if any detainee is dissatisfied with a facility’s response to a grievance, or if any detainee fears retaliation,” the spokesperson said, “he or she can appeal and/or communicate directly with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”
The Bee reviewed documents on the grievances filed by Gomez and the responses from staff at Mesa Verde.
On Jan. 22, Gomez filed a grievance about “dust, black particles, and insects” on top of his bunk that were “blown out of the vent” above his bed. He requested cleaning of the ventilation system, a change of air filters, and for filters to be changed more frequently. His grievance was marked unfounded.
Staff responded that after speaking with the maintenance supervisor, the facility ensures the AC units are working properly and the filters are changed monthly.
“You may remove any built-up dust on any vents near your bed with a damp rag if you so choose,” the response from staff reads.
On Feb. 19, Gomez filed a grievance about retaliation. In his grievance, he said detainees — hunger strikers and non-hunger strikers in a dorm — were told they wouldn’t be allowed to have family visits, recreational time, movie nights and commissary services. Gomez pointed out that non-hunger strikers needed access to commissary services for food and strikers needed it for hygiene products. This grievance was marked founded.
Staff responded standards indicate that “when medically advisable, a detainee on a hunger strike shall be isolated for close supervision, observation and monitoring. “
“Therefore, normal detainee activities are halted while the detainees participating in the hunger strike are under a medical observation status,” the staff’s response reads. “At the conclusion of the hunger strike, all normal activities will be reinstated.”
On April 4, Gomez filed a grievance related to unsanitary conditions in a cell where he had been in medical isolation for over two weeks. He said no one had cleaned his cell, and he had suffered a fall while cleaning on his own, moving around on his wheelchair. Gomez said he began to use a wheelchair while in Texas after suffering from post-concussion syndrome. In his grievance, he further said there was no hand soap or any other sanitizer available.
This grievance was marked unfounded.
“The responsibility of single cell sanitation is the responsibility of the individual housed in the area,” the staff’s response reads. “Liquid soap in the cell can be refilled at the request of the officer.”
An ICE spokesperson said the agency is “committed to providing for the welfare of all those entrusted to its custody and to ensuring all detainees are treated in a humane and professional manner.”
“Accordingly, all facilities that house ICE detainees must meet rigorous performance standards, which specify detailed requirements for virtually every facet of the detention environment,” the spokesperson said.
Immigrant detainees face retaliation
The database is voluntary, Singh said, and tracks grievances by immigrants in detention who mail them to the ACLU Foundation after they are formally filed with the facility.
The database will be accessible to detainees, their families, advocates and the public to track conditions in the state’s immigration detention centers, including three of them in the Central Valley.
In June, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California sued ICE after the agency failed to provide responsive records to a Freedom of Information Act request seeking grievance logs at California’s immigration detention centers.
But the ACLU Foundation in late June announced it had already received over 200 grievances since January from detainees for the database. Inadequate facility management, harassment/intimidation/bullying, and retaliation for collective action are among the top three sub-topics covered by those grievances, the new database shows.
Of the 249 grievances shared by detainees with the civil rights organization for the database, 147 were marked unfounded by facility staff, the database shows.
All of the state’s immigration centers are run by private companies, which Singh believes makes “them prone to a lack of accountability or scrutiny from the outside world.”
“This database and ... grievances kind of serve as a window to a very secretive world,” she said, “where people in power are rarely, if ever, held accountable for the abuses that occur inside.”
Gomez said his situation became worse when he was retaliated against and transferred out of state. He said doctors in Texas explained to him what the process of being forced-fed would entail: pumping liquid food through his nose, down his esophagus to his stomach.
Gomez says he broke his fast to avoid being force-fed and to be transferred back to California. He was in Texas for about a week.
He says he requested vitamins, which were denied. As a result, he says he suffered from dizziness, headaches and confusion. He fell several times and ended up with post-concussion syndrome, which are symptoms from a traumatic brain injury that last days or weeks.
An ICE spokesperson said the agency doesn’t comment on ongoing or pending litigation.
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