Detainees at a Mississippi Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility reportedly got sick from a gas leak, complaining of headaches and other medical symptoms.
The Guardian reports that the Adams County Correctional Facility, which is run by the private prison contractor CoreCivic on behalf of ICE, also had a long power outage, leading to a loss of air conditioning for two days this week. This forced detainees to either roast inside cramped cells or spend hours outside in 100-degree temperatures without shade, one detainee told the publication through family members.
The high temperatures also raised tempers, with arguments and physical incidents increasing among the detainees in a facility that is understaffed, causing the publication’s source to fear for his own safety. The gas leak reportedly took place Saturday, and the source, who spoke to The Guardian anonymously, said detainees were evacuated “out into the afternoon heat for hours.”
“They were outside for hours. And when they came back in, it still smelled of gas. And then some of the men were getting headaches and symptoms of inhaled gas. They were never really told where the leak came from, how it was resolved, or was it fully resolved,” the source’s wife said. “Illness has been growing. So there are a lot of people getting sick, and they have begun putting people three to a cell that was designed for two.”
The power outage took place on Monday, and by Tuesday, electricity had only been partially restored for lighting and other operations. Air conditioning would not come on until late in the day Wednesday.
“When these things are happening, either they’re shut out outside without shade and air conditioning, and they’re not given any answers,” the detainee’s U.S. citizen wife told The Guardian. “Or a lot of the time the power was out they just had them locked in their cells, they didn’t get to leave for dinner or breakfast.”
The facility also attempted to prevent detainees from telling anyone outside of the facility about the poor conditions.
“They didn’t give them the tablet devices during that time because they didn’t want them notifying loved ones,” she said. “If they feel anyone’s organizing anything, they’ll send them to solitary.”
CoreCivic downplayed the conditions at Adams County in a statement to The Guardian, saying that the publication received “some bad information.”
“While several detainees thought they may have smelled something related to a natural gas leak, none of our staff members detected anything along these lines,” said CoreCivic’s senior director of public affairs Ryan Gustin. “Out of an abundance of caution, an on-call facility maintenance staff member came in to assess the facility for any possible gas leaks, and none were found.”
Gustin said that the power outage was due to a storm in the area, and that there were no disruptions to the air conditioning systems. He also claimed that no one at any time was refused medical treatment.
The Mississippi facility is one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country, holding more than 2,000 detainees on a 14-acre property as of March. At the time, only nine percent of detainees there had a criminal record. The poor conditions there are not unique, as poor hygiene and illness have been recorded at ICE facilities across the country, such as the Dilley family detention facility in Texas and Delaney Hall in New Jersey, which recently had its third detainee death.
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