Thread by @AlleenBrown

It’s true that ICE has left asylum-seekers in detention without heat in southern states after extreme weather hit last week. But the most important takeaway of my reporting on this is that much of what happened is inherent how ICE detention works. 1/

interc.pt/3dAvnih

First of all: detainees being left in frigid cold is standard at many ICE detention centers. Read this letter from January by @BklynDefender + @BronxDefenders + @LegalAidNYC about a facility in NEW JERSEY — a state that gets freezing cold every year 2/

https://twitter.com/BklynDefender/status/1355270581009186822?s=20

When I asked, ICE denied that anything was amiss at the New Jersey facility. In fact, they did the same — or offered vague and evasive responses — for every other complaint I delivered to them from detainees and advocates about losses of power, water and heat this month. 3/

ICE suggested there were no overflowing toilets nor rationed water at the South Texas Family Residential Center — despite what I heard from advocates with @ProyectoDilley who said that parents were worried for their children’s health in the cold prison. 4/

ICE told me that the Pine Prairie detention center in Louisiana never lost any heat or power, despite what detainee and father Angel Argueta Anariba told me about being left in a segregation unit with no heat for days 5/

And ICE didn’t say much about allegations from Ubaldo Ochoa Lopez, a father detained at the South Texas ICE Processing Center, that officers had actually turned on fans and thrown away blankets after people complained about the cold, apparently in retaliation. 6/

Lucia Allain of @RAICESTEXAS described the retaliation last week at the Texas ICE detention center: “If they’re hearing complaints like, ‘Oh it’s cold in here,’ they’ll be like, ‘It could be worse,’ and turn on fans.” 7/

But that’s another thing that advocates tell me is inherent to the ICE system: gaslighting. Conditions that are dangerous to detainee health are simply denied, denied, denied. 8/

“The Bronx Defenders and the providers that issued that statement have been issuing statements like that for years.” @BronxDefenders attorney @s_phia_ told me of the letter they wrote about ICE detainees lacking heat at the Bergen County Jail in NJ. 9/

Also not unusual: retaliation

In fact, Argueta Anariba, the guy left without heat in a LA segregation unit, said he believes he was placed in solitary because he complained too much about the fact that ICE officers refused to give him a special diet his health requires. 10/

Argueta Anariba is also asthmatic, by the way, yet has remained in ICE detention throughout the pandemic. 11/

.@s_phia_ and others argue that the Biden administration simply needs to release people. “There is no way that these facilities can be properly handled by an agency that continues to demonstrate a lack of real oversight consideration or care,” she told me. 12/

The situation will only get worse as the climate crisis deepens. So if the @POTUS is truly serious about environmental justice, then seriously rethinking ICE detention is imperative. 13/

The new guidelines for ICE officers that Biden released last week hold up the practice of keeping people incarcerated on highly subjective “public safety” grounds, so are unlikely to meaningfully change the system for many, many people. 14/

Asylum-seekers who have had contact with the criminal legal system will continue to be placed in prisons that are horrible for people’s health. As the climate crisis deepens, the frequency of periods of truly torturous conditions will only increase — without major changes. 15/