More than a month after a contract expired governing the operation of a New Mexico immigrant detention facility, local officials have yet to receive any updates from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency or the facility’s private operator CoreCivic, officials told Source New Mexico on Thursday.
The inter-governmental services agreement between Torrance County, ICE and CoreCivic expired Oct. 31 during the federal government shutdown. But even after the government reopened Nov. 13, County Manager Jordan Barela said he has neither received an updated contract from ICE nor word of when it could be renewed.
“We’ve been checking weekly, and the feedback we have received is that ICE is still evaluating the terms and conditions of a potential extension,” Barela told Source via email Thursday.
An ICE spokesperson did not respond to Source New Mexico’s request for comment on the contract. Ryan Gustin, a CoreCivic spokesperson, did not respond to questions about the contract status, but instead responded that the company is “committed to providing safe, humane and respectful care for everyone entrusted to us, and we take seriously our obligation to adhere to all applicable federal detention standards.”
Advocates for approximately 550 ICE detainees in the jail, as well as U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM), say the lack of a contract means ICE should immediately stop detaining immigrants at the facility. They point to ICE standard operating procedures that require ICE to remove detainees and equipment from the facility absent a contract, as well as long-standing issues about detainee treatment at the facility.
In a statement Thursday to Source New Mexico, Heinrich said he remains “deeply concerned about the situation” at the facility in Estancia, noting that an inspector general overseeing ICE called for the facility’s closure in 2022.
“Conditions have not improved, and now they’re purportedly running the facility without a contract,” he said. “ICE’s inaction on this contract, and refusal to meet their own minimum detention standards, is another example of the agency shunning accountability.”
Heinrich sent a letter to ICE on Nov. 7 demanding the agency identify what authority it has to continue detaining immigrants in Estancia and that it transfer ICE detainees out of the facility in the meantime. ICE had not responded to Heinrich as of Thursday, according to a spokesperson.
Meanwhile, about 30 ICE detainees signed a handwritten letter to Source New Mexico recently saying they continue to face poor conditions inside the jail, including problems accessing tablets they rely on for various necessities.
“Tablets are our only means for vital services such as communication, medical care at the center, and our only way to ‘complain’ about our various needs, not to mention our only access to legal resources for an adequate defense process for the detainees here,” the detainees wrote in Spanish.
Gustin said CoreCivic was unaware of any “recent significant outages or issues with the tablets,” but noted that staff immediately create a service ticket when they learn of technological issues.
Heinrich’s staff also previously noted non-working tablets during a visit in late May and included that in a letter to ICE that also reported complaints of verbal and physical abuse, lack of access to laundry and lack of medical care.
Previously, detainees, including Rogelio Bolufé of Cuba, said they were repeatedly denied access to the legal library and to legal aid groups, allegations that CoreCivic also denied.
The letter, which Source received Nov. 24, has signatures from inmates who say they lacked access to the tablets since Nov. 14 due to what jail operators described as a “technical failure.” It’s unclear from the letter whether the problem has been resolved, and Haymel de la Vega, Bolufé’s friend and contact, did not respond to Source’s requests Thursday for an update.
The letter’s signatories said they are from Guatemala, Honduras, Cuba, Mexico and Ecuador. One detainee who identified himself as Edin Santos of Honduras wrote that he missed his son’s birthday due to the issue.
“It was my son’s birthday, and the reason the tables weren’t working was that there was no internet,” he wrote.
