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Scoop: Detainees at the largest immigrant lock-up in the New York region, the Essex County Correctional Facility in Newark, were held in their cells for days earlier this month as helmet-clad officers swept the facility for contraband, @WNYC has learned.
wnyc.org/story/immigran…
wnyc.org/story/immigran…
Immigrants were allowed 10 minutes, twice each day to leave their cells and use the shower, phone and microwave, according to attorneys and detainees. County officials said this went on for 2 days for some. Detainees said it was 5 days. The impetus? Unspecified security threat.
The lockdown came days before the inspector general for Department of Homeland Security-@DHSOIG-released a scathing report about conditions, safety & security at the facility. Essex, which is run by Dems, gets $40 million a year to hold ICE arrestees. wnyc.org/story/abandone…
The inspector general report alarmed Essex County Freeholder President @BrendanWGill, who is now scheduling the first hearing in 8 years to review the controversial contract. Advocates want ICE $ used for lawyers and to improve conditions--or for the county to cancel the contract
Torn mattresses were replaced during the lockdown, which indicated that the county was complying with some of the issues that DHS said required improvement. But then the detainees who had ripped mattresses were cited for disciplinary violations for damaging government property.
A jailed Green Card holder said he couldn't access the commissary during the lockdown, which he began relying on to purchase food after finding bugs in his meals. He said the meals provided include a "liquidy thing" known as "slop" and a "weird-looking" brown chicken.
"I’m afraid to go back to my country, but I prefer to take my chances there than be locked up [here] for one year [or] two years," another detainee told me. "I prefer to get killed in my country than be inside a jail because [they] treat me like a prisoner--I’m not a prisoner."
To hear the voices of these detainees, click play @WNYC: wnyc.org/story/immigran…
