'No Meaningful Oversight': ICE Contractor Overlooked Problems At Detention Centers
Source: NPR
'No Meaningful Oversight': ICE Contractor Overlooked Problems At Detention Centers
July 17, 2019 5:48 PM ET
Heard on All Things Considered
YUKI NOGUCHI
Last October, Osny Kidd was arrested outside his Los Angeles apartment and taken to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Adelanto, Calif.
"I was in handcuffs from feet to waist to arms. I arrived there in chains," Kidd says. Over 76 days, he says, he was strip searched, subject to filthy conditions, denied medications, and briefly placed in solitary confinement.
The treatment and conditions Kidd describes raise questions of whether the detention facility violated ICE's detention standards, based on a review of an ICE manual that details those standards. The contractor ICE hired to inspect its facilities found no problems at Adelanto in recent years.
That contractor, a private firm called the Nakamoto Group, has become a lightning rod for criticism. The Department of Homeland Security's Inspector General has repeatedly criticized the company for cutting corners on its investigations, conducting improper interviews, and producing inaccurate reports.
In one instance, the government watchdog said ICE failed to take seriously the problem of braided bed sheets hanging in detainee cells. It said similar braided sheets had been used as a noose in one suicide and in several other attempts.
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Read more:
https://www.npr.org/2019/07/17/741181529/no-meaningful-oversight-ice-contractor-overlooked-problems-at-detention-centers