By the American Immigration Council
The Torrance County Detention Facility is one of approximately 200 facilities across the United States where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detains immigrants with pending removal proceedings.
A report from the American Immigration Council says “this detention facility holds a notorious reputation for its inhumane living conditions and for the speed at which individuals detained there go through their removal proceedings, often without adequate legal counsel.”
The report examines data regarding people detained at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico. The approximately 2,500 people detained at Torrance over a roughly two-year period represented a total of 54 distinct nationalities spanning five different continents. However, 86% of them (that is, over 2,000) were labeled by ICE as racially white, including all people from Yemen, Iran, Mauritania, Turkey, Syria, Peru and Mali.
While the report found that non-Europeans classified as “white” spent some of the longest times in detention, the unreliability of ICE’s racial classification means it is impossible to properly investigate whether certain vulnerable populations were subject to disparate treatment.
The data also showed that ICE repeatedly repopulated the Torrance Detention Facility after several warning flags that included failed oversight agency investigations, a lawsuit, and COVID-19 outbreaks.
“This data is a microcosm of a larger problem: immigration agencies do not have a standardized way of tracking race and ethnicity. That makes it hard for the public and policymakers to better understand how different racial and ethnic groups are impacted by detention,” said Laila Khan, research associate at the American Immigration Council. “ICE should standardize how this data is recorded, and make its records public. We all need to better understand what is the reality of detention in our country, at this moment of widespread discussion about drastically ramping up deportations and detention.”
The American Immigration Council requested the data from ICE via a Freedom of Information Act request filed in December 2021, as part of the Council’s work to learn more about how Haitians are treated in Torrance. Over 100 Haitian nationals were detained in Torrance that year, following national outcry when border officers aggressively confronted Haitian migrants on horseback. Torrance has a well-documented record of inhumane conditions, abusive treatment, and failure to uphold due process, as found by legal groups and federal watchdogs. Findings in the Council’s new report reveal how throughout 2021 and into 2022, ICE ignored significant warning signs that Torrance is not equipped to house detained migrants, and continued to place vulnerable populations in the detention center.
“As political leaders call for mass deportation, which cannot happen without a dramatic expansion of detention, we need to look at how cruelty and mistreatment is the current norm in ICE facilities,” said Rebekah Wolf, director of the Immigration Justice Campaign. “Torrance is emblematic of how ICE will keep a detention center open and functioning even after there is widespread evidence of inhumane conditions and abuse. ICE must shut down Torrance and we need policies that move us away from our broken system of detention.”
The report also said Torrance County Detention Facility provides just one example of the terrible conditions in immigration detention around the U.S.
In 2021, the Torrance detention center failed an inspection that was set up by ICE itself, with advance notice. A stream of violations had been reported at the facility, including those related to safety, medical care, and adequate nutrition. Nevertheless, through 2021 and into 2022, ICE continued to detain people at the facility, where it denied them access to their attorneys for months and failed to provide interpretation services so people could understand their immigration proceedings.
The dire conditions at the Torrance center were called out in March 2022 by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. This watchdog agency found more problems including security lapses, staffing shortages, and unsanitary conditions, and recommended that ICE immediately stop housing people at the facility. ICE disregarded the warning, and in August 2022, a Brazilian national died at the facility. ICE still refuses to stop holding people at Torrance as of 2024. They have no apparent plans to do so.
The report from the council determined:
- Africans Had the Highest Lengths of Detention at Torrance: Because ICE’s race categorizations proved unreliable, researchers grouped detained individuals by continent to measure the impact geographic location has on detention lengths. The data showed that African migrants had the highest lengths of detention.
- ICE Officers Continued to Populate Torrance Despite Multiple Warnings: During the reviewed time period, ICE had substantial warning signs that Torrance was not equipped to house detained migrants through failed inspections, COVID surges, staffing shortages, and even government oversight agency reports recommending shutting the facility down. Despite these warning signs, the data showed that ICE continued to detain migrants at Torrance, putting them at risk.
- Oversight Efforts Seemingly Reduced the Detained Population at Torrance—But Only Temporarily: The data shows that between August and November 2022, a period that included the suicide of Kesley Vial at Torrance and a government report calling for the closing of Torrance, the population of Torrance consistently decreased. However, in December 2022, ICE began repopulating the facility.