Report: Healthcare issues at major ICE facility put people 'at serious risk'
· UPIJuly 28 (UPI) -- A new report by a court-appointed monitor says California's largest immigrant detention center places people "at serious risk of both immediate and long-term harm" because of a lack of adequate healthcare.
A federal judge ordered an inquiry into the California City Detention Facility, located in the Mojave Desert, in February after several nonprofits and law firms filed a lawsuit on behalf of plaintiffs claiming inhumane conditions and medical neglect at the facility. The lawsuit alleged that the facility denied cancer treatments, insulin for diabetics and basic disability accommodations, among many other issues, The Guardian reported.
U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney mandated that the government show it provides "constitutionally adequate" medical care in eight categories at the detention center and appointed Dr. Muthusamy Anandkumar to investigate.
Anandkumar, a physician who used to serve as a medical expert for the Department of Homeland Security, interviewed staff and patients, conducted a three-day site inspection and reviewed patient medical records and files provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates the facility, The LA Times reported.
He found that the facility provided adequate healthcare in none of the eight categories and showed "a recurring pattern of delayed identification of patient needs, delayed or missed assessments, delayed or inadequate treatment, missed or delayed medication administration and gaps in follow-up care," the report says.
The pattern "indicates broader problems in the facility's healthcare delivery rather than occasional lapses in care," Anandkumar said.
This was the first court-mandated investigation of healthcare at any ICE facility. When the detention center opened at the site of a former prison last year, it was meant to house people "in good health," staff said in Anandkumar's report. However, ICE sent many people with "complex medical needs" to the site, as the Trump administration arrested a record number of immigrants over the past year. There were more than 65,000 people in ICE custody as of mid-July.
The facility's medical team was not prepared to handle that population, the report said. Anandkumar said the center "does not appear to have adequate staffing, stable on-site management, sufficient clinical and operational oversight or an effective quality assurance process to identify and promptly address care-related problems."
In response to the report, a spokesperson for the Departmentof Homeland Security said that "ICE is regularly audited and inspected by external agencies to ensure that all ICE facilities comply with performance-based national detention standards."
A public affairs director for CoreCivic, the private prison company, said they are reviewing the report.
"While we do not generally comment on matters involving active litigation, we can share that nothing matters more to CoreCivic than the health, safety and well-being of the people in our care, and we take seriously our responsibility to respond to questions about our operations with accuracy and transparency," said Ryan Gustin, the CoreCivic spokesperson.