SPLC: ICE Must Finally Close Irwin Detention Center
After Past Commitment, “The Silence from DHS is Deafening”
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) issued the following statement by Maura Finn, lead attorney with the SPLC’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative regarding continuing immigration detention operations at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia despite the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) having received a directive to close the notorious facility “as soon as possible.”
“Three months ago, Secretary Mayorkas ordered the closure of this facility, which has a long and well-documented history of inflicting horrific abuse and neglect on people held there. Yet, the silence from DHS on when it will cease operations as an immigration prison is deafening for the dozens still held there.
“Enough is enough. ICE must finally close this facility and those held should be released rather than transferred to yet another abusive facility – especially amid the latest COVID-19 surges happening around the country but primarily in the Southeast.”
In announcing the directive to ICE to close two facilities, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said, “we will not tolerate the mistreatment of individuals in civil immigration detention or substandard conditions of detention.”
Nevertheless, the cruel and xenophobic system of caging of migrants flourishes.
