Immigrant advocates condemn the reactivation of ICE contract at Irwin County Detention Center

OCILLA – Just four years after the Biden administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement severed ties with an Irwin County Detention Center over abuse, the facility is once again receiving immigrant detainees.

The Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) in Ocilla,, a south Georgia town about 60 miles east of Albany with about 3,000 residents, ended its ICE agreement in 2021 after repeated reports of abuse and medical misconduct. In 2022, Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., unveiled a nearly two-year bipartisan investigation that found female detainees at the ICDC were subjected to “invasive, and often unnecessary gynecological procedures.”

On Tuesday, Tricia McLaughlin, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s assistant public affairs secretary, confirmed to The Albany Herald that there is an intergovernmental agreement with the U.S. Marshals and Irwin County to use up to 1,200 beds at the county detention center. It has already begun taking male, adult detainees. It will not be used for families. 

In the days since finding out about the resumption of detaining migrants at ICDC, Georgia immigrant advocacy groups, many of whom fought for the ICDC’s closure, have condemned the decision. 

“The re-opening of ICDC should alarm us all,” Amilcar Valencia, the executive director of El Refugio, a Stewart County hospitality home, wrote. “People at this … immigrant detention center have been subjected to horrific abuse, and their fundamental human rights have been systematically violated. We cannot let more be put at risk.” 

Advocacy groups are calling upon members of Congress, local officials and community members to reject the decision.

Leeann Culbreath, an Episcopal priest and immigrant rights advocate in Tifton, called the decision to restart immigrant detention at Irwin unconscionable. 

For years, Culbreath was face-to-face with immigrant detainees at ICDC and their families. She began visiting detainees in 2016 with a group of other volunteers. She said many people had been transferred from Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin and had no family or friends to visit with them in Ocilla. 

“So we just started to listen to their stories,” Culbreath said. “The conditions there were inhumane for all of the years that I visited people there, and I don’t know anybody there who did not experience some kind of neglect of their rights or actual abuse: medical, physical, emotional, psychological.”

She also learned from detainees that there was no support system for their family members. 

“It was a very difficult and stressful experience for people to make that trip to such a small community in the middle of nowhere with no public transportation,” Culbreath said. “They don’t know where to stay, if they’re safe, if they can get a meal.”

So Culbreath and others opened Casa Colibrí,, a hospitality home where families of immigrant detainees could rest, eat and get connected with resources. It also housed pro bono attorneys and social workers who commuted back and forth to ICDC. The group worked with a chaplain to provide deportation or release bags with clothing and toiletries. 

While Casa Colibrí closed in 2020, this level of closeness with immigrant detainees and their families meant Culbreath heard first-hand tales of abuse, and she and others began advocating for ICDC’s closure. 

She said when the ICE contract was severed in 2021, advocates felt a mix of emotions. 

“There was elation because we believed at the time that no more people would suffer that kind of abuse at that place and that there might be a chance for justice for those who suffered abuse in that facility,” Culbreath said. “We felt like we had been screaming at a brick wall for years and finally felt heard.” 

However after the closure, ICE quickly began transferring people from Irwin to the Stewart Detention Center, a privately owned prison about 100 miles away where at least 13 people have died since 2006. 

“The justice that we hoped for and the care for survivors never materialized,” Culbreath said. 

She said some people are still fighting cases and still do not have permanent status in the U.S., and they face the possibility of being detained again or deported. 

“Women are still suffering trauma with PTSD, struggling economically, trying to rebuild their lives,” Culbreath said. “They did all the speaking out and testifying, and they haven’t gotten anything for putting themselves out there and reliving the trauma over and over again.”

She said restarting immigration detention at the ICDC just “re-traumatizes everybody.” 

“The wounds are still open,” Culbreath said. 

She said it’s too early for immigrant advocates to know how they will respond to the new immigrant detainees housed at Irwin.  

“What we do know is that advocates and formerly detained persons and their loved ones in Georgia and beyond will continue to speak out about abuses that they experience,” Culbreath said. “We want to continue to try to provide whatever support is needed for those who are detained.” 

She said advocates will continue to ensure detainees have access to legal support and will work with legislators in addressing the needs of those who have been harmed. 

“We’ll be monitoring it as best as we’re able,” Culbreath said. 

McLaughlin said the Irwin facility will be subject to inspection by the ICE Professional Responsibility Office of Detention Oversight and additional oversight by ICE’s Enforcement Removal Operations custody management.

Culbreath said immigration detention and prolonged imprisonment shouldn’t be a part of the U.S. immigration system. 

“Detention … it’s not criminal, but people are housed in prisons and they wear prison jump suits and they’re shackled when they’re transported, so they’re treated as criminals,” she said. “To not meet very basic needs, to use solitary confinement as a form of punishment or to silence dissent – that’s not humane and it can’t be made humane.”