Theo Lacy Facility Outed as Among the Worst Immigration Detention Centers in the U.S.

OC WEEKLY

By Matt Corker

November 13, 2012

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2012/11/theo_lacy_jail_worst_nation.php

Theo Lacy Facility in Orange is among the worst immigration detention centers in the country.

So claims Washington, D.C.-based Detention Watch Network, which calls on President Barack Obama to reform the immigration system and with it the nation's 10 worst holding facilities, which include Theo Lacy.

The 11-acre jail between Orangewood Children's Home and Orange County Animal Shelter is the only California facility to make the 10 worst list. Theo Lacy joins Etowah County Detention Center in Alabama, Pinal County Jail in Arizona, Hudson County Jail in New Jersey, Tri-County Detention Center in Illinois, Baker County Jail in Florida, Houston Processing Center and Polk County Detention Facility in Texas, and Stewart Detention Center and Irwin County Jail in Georgia.

As the immigrant population has exploded in the U.S. over the past 15 years, facilities like these have increasingly "appalling conditions," claims Detention Watch, noting that Obama promised reform of an "inhumane system" in 2009. Things are now so bad at Theo Lacy and the other nine that the only option is to shut them down, the nonprofit watchdog maintains.

The group on Thursday will unveil to the nation's media a series of reports titled "Expose and Close" that will apparently reveal "the widespread pattern of mistreatment." Among the evidence (in the words of Detention Watch Network):

• Roberto Medina-Martinez, a 39-year-old immigrant, died at Stewart in March 2009 of a treatable heart infection. An investigation conducted following his death revealed that the nursing staff failed to refer Mr. Medina for timely medical treatment and the facility physician failed to follow internal oversight procedures.
• A man with serious emotional health problems in the Houston Processing Center in Texas was placed in solitary confinement for months at a time, a practice which the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has deemed torture.
• At Baker, Etowah and Pinal County Detention Centers and Jails, families are only able to visit with their loved ones in detention through video monitors after having driven hundreds of miles to see them.  
• At the Pinal County Jail complaints regarding sanitation include receiving food on dirty trays, worms found in food, bugs and worms found in the faucets, receiving dirty laundry, and being overcrowded with ten other men in one cell and only one toilet.

Not part of the Detention Watch Network heads up, but possibly rolled into the report, is last year's death of 55-year-old Honduran Jose Aguilar-Espinoza, who suffered a heart attack inside Theo Lacy, as my colleague Nick Schou revealed at the time.

Schou also wrote about a transgendered, gay ICE detainees suing the county last year for mistreatment at Lacy.

Among those scheduled to speak as the report is released Thursday are: Azadeh N. Shahshahani, National Security/Immigrants' Rights Project director, American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Georgia and president of National Lawyers Guild; Pedro Guzman, a former Stewart Detention Center detainee; and Bishop Minerva G. Carcaño of the United Methodist Church/Los Angeles Area.

www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com