Staff at the Otay Mesa Detention Center on Monday refused to allow Reps. Mike Levin and Sara Jacobs to speak with detainees during an oversight visit, handing them a new memo from ICE that said such visits must be requested two days in advance, with proof of consent from each detainee by name.
Levin and Jacobs were conducting an unannounced visit of the facility a little more than a month after their last pre-planned visit, during which they were also denied the opportunity to speak with anyone being held inside.
“Every time there’s a new reason or excuse,” Jacobs said after the visit, “but it is completely unacceptable that we aren’t allowed to speak to our constituents who are here.”
“I think this is part of an effort by ICE to try to come up with reasons that members of Congress should not be allowed to do oversight without prior announcement, not be allowed to meet with detainees,” Levin added.
The memo, dated Monday, was from outgoing ICE Director Todd Lyons to all ICE personnel. It said congressional visits are “disruptive and resource-intensive” and the agency is not required to facilitate meetings with detainees but would under those new requirements.
After being denied entry, several representatives sued the federal government to be able to conduct oversight visits of detention centers, and a federal court issued a stay allowing all members of Congress to perform those visits as the lawsuit proceeds.
A federal appeals court on Friday ruled against the Department of Homeland Security’s request to remove that stay – meaning those visits can continue. Lyons’ memo was issued Monday, outlining the new restrictions.
“I don’t think that’s right,” one Escondido woman said of the facility not allowing the representatives to meet with detainees. She was at the Otay Mesa Detention Center on Monday to pay her father’s bond after an immigration judge ordered him released, and asked not to be identified.
“I believe that the congressmen could make a difference in going in there and make it better for them,” she said.
She said her father is undocumented, has no criminal record and was parked outside a store in January when plainclothes agents detained him. She said he has multiple health conditions, has not been given his medication at the appropriate times and has been hospitalized four times since he was detained. The staff did not inform her family, she said: Rather, another detainee called to let them know, or they found out from their father after the fact.
“Now I’m concerned that his health condition has gotten worse and he’s not going to have a lot of time with us,” she said. “It makes me feel really sad.”
She said he also has not had his eyeglasses since he was detained, relying on the assistance of other detainees to walk, read or use the phone.
ICE did not respond to a request for comment. CoreCivic, the private prison company that runs the detention center, did not respond, either, but has repeatedly said the health, safety and well-being of detainees is its top priority.
As complaints like the Escondido woman’s about medical care, cleanliness, food and more have surfaced, several elected officials have attempted to visit the Otay Mesa Detention Center. Prior to Monday, each attempt made without prior notice had been turned away.
Levin and Jacobs said they tried the food again, drank the water after hearing complaints, and discussed policies and procedures with staff, noting the facility “continued to be clean” as it was in their visit last month.
“It’s hard to determine exactly how much of what we see is changed for our visit, whether the facilities are being cleaned up, whether we’re getting a truthful and accurate depiction of what life is really like,” Levin said, “because there’s a big disconnect, as we’ve discussed, between what we see in these oversight visits and some of the comments and some of the feedback that we’ve received from constituents.”
“If there is a requirement, a two-day notice requirement to speak with a detainee, that is going to make things more challenging for us to be able to do our oversight work in a,in a clear and transparent and effective manner,” Levin continued.
“We know they clean up when they know that we’re coming,” Jacobs added. “That’s part of why we want to do these unannounced visits, because it’s really important for us to see how the circumstances are when they’re not expecting us. But we also hope that by doing unannounced visits, that they know that we could come at any time, and that therefore the folks in there are getting treated better, that the conditions are better, because they know we could show up at any time.”