Murray requests federal audit on ICE health care services after Tacoma detainee death

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) departs from a briefing for U.S. Senators at the U.S. Capitol Building on September 07, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington has formally requested that federal auditors review health care services in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities and the agency’s compliance with its own detention standards.

Murray’s Thursday letter to the Government Accountability Office was sent several months after a 61-year-old detainee, Charles Leo Daniel, died at the Northwest ICE Processing Center, a detention center in Tacoma, spurring calls for a federal investigation .

“ICE has a responsibility to maintain safe, humane conditions for detained noncitizens,” the letter reads.

An ICE spokesperson told the Standard that the agency is “firmly committed to the health, safety, and welfare of all those in its custody” and that it has “limited detention resources to secure” detainees.

Daniel had numerous medical and psychiatric issues and often refused to take medications, according to ICE’s detainee death report , which is required by Congress. The Pierce County medical examiner said in a report released last month that Daniel died of natural causes related to high blood pressure and cardiovascular disease.

Northwest ICE Processing Center is run by a Florida-based company, The GEO Group, which contracts with ICE. The company is embroiled in two separate lawsuits brought by Washington state agencies attempting to inspect the Tacoma facility .

GEO has so far blocked state inspectors from entering the detention center by arguing in court that only federal authorities have the right to review standards for detainees.

Researchers at University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights have documented a range of troubling practices at the site, including allegations of medical neglect, unsanitary food and reports of sexual assault and abuse.

Angelina Snodgrass-Godoy, director of the UW center, said that there’s already more than enough research into ICE’s practices in detention centers, including previous GAO audits. What she and advocates want to see is more action: “We don’t need more studies,” Snodgrass-Godoy said. “We need actual accountability markers [that] make sure people stop dying.”

“It’s particularly disappointing coming from Senator Murray, because she holds the purse strings,” Snodgrass-Godoy said. “She has extraordinary access to the ability to hold ICE accountable.”

Snodgrass-Godoy also pointed to a recent report from several human rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, that found that the facility has one of the highest death counts among immigration detention centers in the country.

In response to Snodgrass-Godoy’s comments, Murray’s office pointed to “numerous provisions” in the most recent Senate Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, signed into law in March, that “ensure stronger oversight of federal detention facilities.”

One provision prohibits U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from using certain funds to contract for detention services “if the facility receives less than ‘adequate’ ratings in two consecutive performance evaluations” by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility.

Hunger strikes by detainees protesting conditions are common at the Tacoma facility. La Resistencia, a group calling for the detention center’s closure, has tracked six hunger strikes this year, including one involving 40 detainees that began three days ago.

Northwest ICE Processing Center also uses solitary confinement more than any other immigration detention facility in the country, UW researchers say.

According to the researchers, Daniel’s death on March 7 happened while he was in solitary confinement and he had been put in solitary confinement for four years while in ICE custody. Daniel also spent nine years in solitary confinement while in Washington prisons , The Seattle Times reported.

Both ICE and GEO have noted Daniel requested to be put in solitary confinement. Snodgrass-Godoy said that reflects how Daniel may have felt in the facility: “I don’t think that’s people loving solitary confinement. It’s because people feel extraordinarily vulnerable.”

In a June 17 response to a March letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from several U.S. senators, including Murray and Washington Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell, the federal agency claimed it “does not use, or place, detained noncitizens in solitary confinement.”

“However, ICE does use segregation, which is a distinct practice, to ensure the welfare of detained noncitizens, as well as staff,” wrote Patrick J. Lechleitner, deputy director at ICE.

“Unlike conditions generally associated with solitary confinement, detained noncitizens in segregation experience basic living conditions akin to those provided to the general population,” he added.

What ICE calls “segregation” meets the United Nations’ definition of solitary confinement. Snodgrass-Godoy said it’s “just not true” that people in solitary confinement experience the same basic living conditions as other detainees. While they may receive the same meals and have access to phone calls, “the key difference is they’re isolated from individuals and kept in the cell for the overwhelming majority of the day,” she said.

“They’re splitting hairs and trying to distract us from the reality,” she said. “It’d be foolish to fall into that trap of obfuscation.”

Lechleitner said ICE uses two forms of “segregation.” The first is administrative, used when detained individuals are scheduled for release, waiting to hear back about various proceedings or to protect detained individuals, staff or the “security of the facility.”

The second is disciplinary, which the agency says “only serves as an effort to regulate the detained noncitizen’s behavior and is imposed for a maximum sanction of 30 days per incident, except in extraordinary circumstances.”

Nationwide data presented in Lechleitner’s letter shows the average length of stay across ICE’s facilities from 2017 to 2023 in Special Management Units — or what the agency would call “segregation” — was 29 days.

The United Nations considers solitary confinement for more than 15 consecutive days a form of torture.

ICE has placed people in Special Management Units a total of 20,675 times from 2017 to 2023 nationwide. While the agency notes that it used these units as overflow space during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, contributing to high numbers, last year saw the most placements — 3,800.

UW’s Snodgrass-Godoy said ICE’s numbers don’t line up with independent research, including her own, which often comes up with much longer average stays, based on how the data is calculated.

The letter doesn’t note ICE’s methods for coming up with the numbers, and Snodgrass-Godoy believes they may be averaging numbers across all forms of ICE detention, including jail cells, rather than focusing on detention centers similar to Northwest ICE Processing Center.

“I just think they’re throwing a bunch of categories together,” Snodgrass-Godoy said. “That doesn’t really tell you any meaningful information.”

GEO said in an April statement that Daniel’s housing status was reviewed weekly and was evaluated by the ICE Health Services Corps to “ensure that the decision to accommodate Mr. Daniel’s request to remain in a Special Management Unit was safe from a mental health perspective.”

GEO referred the Standard’s request for a statement to ICE. The ICE spokesperson said that the agency’s “national detention standards and other ICE policies require facilities to provide comprehensive medical and mental health care from the moment noncitizens arrive at a facility and throughout their time in ICE custody.”

This story has been updated.

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