The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

“They are basically stuffing people like sardines in these tiny cells,” said David Blair-Loy, legal director for the local ACLU. “This isn't just saying, we're a little cramped in here. This is systematic, long-term outrageous overcrowding.”

The ACLU is seeking to join in a lawsuit filed in 2005 by a detainee at the facility that also alleged overcrowding problems. The group is trying to expand the suit to class-action status on behalf of those who are held there.

A key argument in the suit contends that people being held for immigration violations – which are violations of civil and not criminal law – are constitutionally entitled to better conditions than criminal defendants.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers California and most of the western United States and has the most immigration-related cases of any court in the country, made that finding in a 2004 case.

“This is the first case that has challenged the conditions of confinement for immigration detainees using that theory,” said Gouri Bhat, a prison rights lawyer with the ACLU in New York.

If successful, it could have wide-ranging effects on the conditions of confinement for the thousands of people held in immigration centers around the country.

Conditions in those facilities have been criticized by immigration advocates before. But Bhat said that since 2001, the number of people in detention has increased to 27,500 nationally, and conditions have not improved.

“This is the first suit of its kind that really takes aim at ICE for their practices in housing immigrant detainees,” she said.

The suit names officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private, for-profit prison company.

If the suit forces changes in the San Diego facility, “we're hopeful that will have positive ramifications across the country,” Bhat said.

Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for ICE in San Diego, said the agency does not comment on pending litigation. However, she said, the agency conducts its own audits of detention facilities “to make sure we are adhering to all our standards.”

A spokesman for Corrections Corporation of America declined comment.

The detention facility, about 4½ miles from the Otay Mesa border crossing, is in an area that has a county jail, a juvenile hall and a state prison. It opened in 1998 and houses people caught illegally crossing the border, asylum seekers and those challenging deportation orders.

Because of the backlog of immigration cases, detainees can spend months and years awaiting a decision. Since they are charged with civil crimes, they are not entitled to lawyers and exist in a kind of limbo until their cases are resolved.

Among the chief complaints in the lawsuit is the practice of putting three detainees in a 12-foot by 6-foot cell built for two. About two-thirds of detainees are housed in this manner.

The suit contends others have to sleep in beds on the floor of the common room because of overcrowding.

The conditions have led to delays in medical treatment, poor sanitation and mental health problems for detainees, according to the lawsuit.

Courts have held that people being detained under civil law violations have to be held in conditions that are superior to people held under criminal laws, Blair-Loy said.

“The government has a higher obligation to them,” he said. “They can't be held to conditions that amount to punishment.”

Doing so is a violation of the due process rights under the Fifth Amendment, Blair-Loy said.

The same facility was examined in an audit released last week by investigators with the department, which looked at conditions at five facilities across the country.

Some violations of health and safety rules were noted at the Otay Mesa facility. But the audit did not mention what the ACLU said is severe overcrowding, nor other poor conditions and abuses the ACLU outlined in its lawsuit.

Blair-Loy said the audit, which did not discuss the practice of placing three people in a two-person cell, was no more than a “whitewash.”

The overcrowding has led to increased tensions at the facility and conflicts between the guards and the detainees. The suit said that in September, a group of detainees who wanted to speak to ICE officials about the overcrowding were “abruptly tear-gassed and pepper sprayed” by guards.

That ICE detention facilities are overcrowded is “nothing remarkable,” said John Keeley of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., which favors stricter immigration policies.

The agency does not have adequate resources, he said, and the ultimate solution to the immigration issue is the enforcement of laws.

“The solution here is not to point the finger at the men and women of ICE,” Keeley said.

The lawsuit does not seek damages, but does seek a court order that will stop the overcrowding and other practices, Blair-Loy said.

“The main motivation here is to change the system,” he said. “It's not about making money, but trying to cure the inhumane conditions down there.”