Violations of Detention Standards Amidst COVID-19 Outbreak at La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy, AZ

We identified violations of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention standards that threatened the health, safety, and rights of detainees. La Palma Correctional Center (LPCC) complied with the ICE detention standard regarding classification. However, detainee reports and grievances allege an environment of mistreatment and verbal abuse, including in response to peaceful detainee protests of the facility’s handling of the pandemic. In addressing the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), LPCC did not enforce ICE’s precautions including facial coverings and social distancing, which may have contributed to the widespread COVID-19 outbreak at the facility. In addition, LPCC did not meet standards for medical care, segregation, grievances, or detainee communication. We found that the medical unit was critically understaffed, took an average of 3.35 days to respond to detainee sick call requests, and neglected to refill some prescription medications. We also found the facility was not consistently providing required care for detainees in segregation and did not consistently record medication administration and daily medical visits for segregated detainees. Our grievance review revealed that LPCC did not give timely responses to most detainee grievances and, in some cases, did not respond at all. Finally, we found deficiencies in staff-detainee communication practices. Specifically, LPCC did not keep records of detainee requests and ICE did not provide a Deportation Officer visit or call schedule for detainees. We made eight recommendations to ICE’s Executive Associate Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) to ensure the Phoenix ERO Field Office overseeing La Palma addresses identified issues and ensures facility compliance with relevant detention standards. ICE concurred with three of the eight recommendations.