The Myth of “Non-Punitive” Immigration Detention: Inhumane Conditions, Due Process Violations, and Inhumanity in New Mexico’s ICE Detention Facilities
In June and July 2023, the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center hosted students from the Colorado College Summer Activist Institute studying immigration detention law and policy. The students worked directly with people detained in ICE custody in New Mexico, including engaging in direct casework and largescale advocacy to expose human rights and due process violations at the facilities. They released their findings in a report entitled The Myth of “Non-Punitive” Immigration Detention: Inhumane Conditions, Due Process Violations, and Inhumanity in New Mexico’s ICE Detention Facilities.
The report documents severe human rights abuses against migrants and asylum seekers in ICE custody at the Torrance County Detention Facility and Cibola County Correctional Center. As detailed in the report, people held in these detention centers regularly experience serious violations of their due process rights in asylum proceedings, as well as face a myriad of other challenges and violations including lack of access to medical care, insufficient food and water, and mistreatment by ICE and prison staff. The report concludes that there is no humane way to cage migrants and asylum seekers. Instead, it recommends closure of ICE detention centers and the expansion of policies that welcome asylum seekers with dignity and supportive services as they navigate the asylum process.
“It is an outrage and an affront to humanity that ICE, CoreCivic, and the US government persist in subjecting black and brown individuals to harm and surveillance. As a Latino brown boy, it is profoundly disheartening and nauseating to see people who look like me locked up in these inhumane and unjust conditions,” says Alex Štambuk Osorio, rising Colorado College senior and co-author of the report. “ICE's reprehensible actions involve theft, deception, abuse, neglect, and a consistent violation of human rights. Inside these detention centers, asylum seekers are denied access to clean water and food and deprived of their fundamental right to due process amidst horrific conditions and abusive treatment. I hope this report serves as a catalyst to shut down all detention centers and dismantle this unjust immigration system, and I hope it contributes to the movement already being fought by amazing community organizations like NMILC.”
“Humane detention is a myth. There is no reimagining detention or improving it,” says Julia Watson, rising Colorado College junior and co-author of the report. “To say the due process, labor, and human rights violations we have witnessed in detention are horrifying is an understatement. We must come together to put an end to detention. Take a moment out of your day to read this report and recognize that the fight for immigrant justice is far from over. For every additional person that reads this article, the awareness of the issue will grow, and the voices of those in detention will be heard. That is the first step forward.”
"ICE detention serves as a site for punishment of migrants and asylum seekers, who are merely seeking safety and refuge. It’s as simple as that,” says Nico Brubaker, rising Colorado College sophomore and co-author of the report. “Private prison companies such as CoreCivic operate facilities that are designed to incarcerate as many people as possible, with little to no regard for the people they are caging. We have observed egregious violations of peoples’ rights and dignity in New Mexico’s ICE detention centers. Asylum seekers are being denied due process, adequate access to drinking water, medical care, and countless other abuses. I hope that this report encourages decision makers to acknowledge the inhumanity of ICE detention and close these facilities before any more harm is caused."
“People deserve more than having their lived experiences become reduced to a sham ‘credible fear’ process,” says Jordan McMurtry, rising junior at Colorado College and co-author of the report. “The numerous flagrant human rights violations and extremely low release rates we witnessed make clear that the immigration system is broken. This system treats humans like numbers, and forces survivors of violence through an inhumane, unjust, and rushed process. There is simply no humanity or justice in the immigration detention system.”
