Chronicle: Complaints of sexual abuse in private for-profit Georgia immigrant prison

• Complaints of sexual abuse in immigrant detention have become an everyday occurrence.
• Stewart Detention Center is in the eye of the storm after new complaints.
• Four Latinas claim to have been abused in that detention center.

Imprisoned immigrants are sexually abused. For years, national attention in the United States was glued to the cases of torture of Arab terror suspects at the hands of the military in the US prison in Guantánamo, Cuba. The media exposed such abuses and I hope that, now that it is happening to Hispanics, they will do exactly the same.

The Stewart Detention Center, the second largest immigration prison in the US, is being criticized by groups that defend the human rights of immigrants, and with good reason. New complaints have come to light regarding sexual abuse of the inmates.

Immigrant prisoners sexually abused by a nurse

According to the complaint filed by four women with the support of Georgia Detention Watch, Georgia Human Rights Clinic, Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR), LLC, Project South and Southern Poverty Law Center, Owings MacNorlin, Black Alliance for Just Immigration and El Refugio, a male nurse sexually assaulted them.

The complaint states that a nurse, employed by the largest prison security company in the country, CoreCivic, who worked as a subcontractor for the Immigration Customs Control Service (ICE), sexually assaulted them on multiple occasions and when they dared to complain, they were threatened by his colleagues and superiors.

Women seeking medical attention

According to the women, the repeated harassment and abuse occurred when they asked their guards for medical care due to ailments or discomfort. Since they were confined in Stewart, they had no other option than to go to the prison clinic, where the abusive nurse was almost always on duty.

All the inmates already knew that this nurse was a stalker and groper, and that nothing happened when they reported him. In fact, those who dared to report him faced retaliation and threats. Those threats included a longer stay in the compound and other legal actions.

Which of all the agencies will do something about it?

The complaint against the nurse, who has not been named and continues to work at Stewart as if nothing had happened, was filed with ICE as well as the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), Office of Inspector General (OIG), Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ), Detention Ombudsman.

The four women, through the lawyer who represents them, have also requested that the nurse’s license be suspended or at least thoroughly investigated and appropriate disciplinary measures imposed for the violations of the codes of conduct that govern the nursing practice.

Activists demand that Stewart be closed forever

The activists hope that, with this new series of accusations, the federal government will finally act and close the Stewart Detention Center or at least impose order, as happened a couple of years ago when it was discovered that they were sterilizing the prisoners without their consent at Irwin, another center that housed ICE prisoners.

During the pandemic, Stewart was the prison with the highest number of COVID-19 deaths in the entire country. For this and more, the plaintiffs believe that this center is not fit to continue housing prisoners and they ask for the immediate release of all those who are still detained there.

The torture shouldn’t be allowed to continue

Azadeh Shahshahani, Legal and Advocacy Director of Project South told MundoNow the following: «It is abhorrent that the administration has transferred immigrant women to Stewart and continues to hold them there, knowing full well that there are well-documented cases of abuse in this ICE prison. It is past time for Stewart to be closed and for all detainees to be released.»

According to the activist, Stewart has a high rate of suicides, cases of abuse of authority such as forced labor, solitary confinement, widespread exposure to the COVID-19 virus, racial discrimination, medical negligence and now, all kinds of sexual abuse, among other horrible conditions. Thanks for reading my story today, MundoNow Until next time.