Federal Reports

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.

Prior OIG work found that Medicare inappropriately paid for services that were billed as being distinct or significant and separately identifiable from other services provided on the same day. Our analysis showed that in 2018, an ophthalmology clinic in California (the Clinic) frequently billed for other services as being unrelated to, distinct from, or significant and separately identifiable from intravitreal (inside the eye) injections of the drugs Eylea and Lucentis.Our objective was to determine whether the Clinic complied with Medicare requirements when billing for intravitreal injections of Eylea and Lucentis and for other services provided on the same day as the injections.

We are proud to present the vision of the AOC OIG for the next five years that includes goals to continue efficiency and effectiveness of our internal processes and strengthens our statutory mission of independent oversight of the AOC’s programs and operations.

The Postal Service is required to maintain a safe and healthy environment for both employees and customers in accordance with its internal policies and procedures and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Our objective was to determine if Postal Service management is adhering to building maintenance, safety and security standards, and employee working condition requirements at post offices.

The EPA’s inspection frequency of Treatment, Storage, or Disposal Facilities with Resource Conservation and Recovery Act units closed with waste in place does not meet the EPA’s statutory requirement or policy.

From March through September 2020, the Postal Service separated pandemic-related expenses from daily operating expenses to determine the financial impact. These pandemic-related expenses included supplies, services, transportation expenses, and sick and annual leave expenses, among others. Some expenses, such as supplies and services, were directly tracked while others, like transportation expenses, were estimated. Our objective was to assess the impact of the pandemic on Postal Service finances.