Thread by @mattkatz00

News: Essex County Jail in NJ, which has a $34 million contract with ICE to detain 800 immigrants, is the focus of a scathing ICE Inspector General report
that says there are "significant threats to detainee health and safety,” like a LOADED GUN that a detainee found & moldy food

Here's some slimy, discolored lunch meat and what the inspectors described as a "foul-smelling and unrecognizable" hamburger patty. When I first saw the picture I thought it was burnt toast. This is from a surprise visit last July.

Inspectors also found blood from raw chickens leaking all over the refrigerator & moldy bread that they were told was for bread pudding for detainees, who have been complaining about sickness & food poisoning. The county apparently fired the food manager...during the inspection.

Detainees filed 200 food-related grievances in the first 7 months of 2018, and they told inspectors they've been getting so sick they now buy packaged food through the commissary. Here’s a quote from a detainee: “For dinner, we were served meatballs that smell like fecal matter.”

Inspectors also found unsanitary shower stalls, ceilings leaking everywhere, including onto detainee beds...Plus mattresses in such poor condition that detainees use bed sheets to tie the seams together so the filling doesn’t come out. And, a minor indignity: No pillows.

ICE says many of these issues have been addressed, but there's going to be ongoing inspections. The county jail is run by Dems, principally county exec Joseph DiVincenzo. I'm waiting to hear back from him. I'll be on @WNYC later to talk about this. Report: oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/…

Advocates tell me Essex is worse than other detention centers in NJ in terms of access/transparency for volunteers/advocates, and conditions for detainees. Also most people at Essex don't have lawyers, because NJ doesn't fully fund them, so they're more likely to be deported.

I described this as a $34 million contract with the county jail because they have about 800 detainees, are paid $117-per-detainee, each day, so that comes out to $34 million. Could be a little more or less depending on the number of detainees in a given year.

One question I have: How are regular county inmates treated as this jail -- better or worse?

Here’s a statement from the director of the Essex County Jail in response to the report:

And here’s a statement from @ICEgov...