Atlanta, GA — Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is reportedly planning to restart detaining migrants in its custody at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC), a facility notorious for human rights violations, sparking immediate concern from Georgia advocacy groups and directly-impacted community members.
The Irwin County Detention Center's contract with ICE was terminated four years ago following courageous testimony from detained women who exposed horrific abuses, including invasive gynecological procedures happening without proper informed consent. Since the initial 2020 complaints, multiple reports have documented systemic mistreatment at the facility:
- Deliberate Indifference Report
- Violence and Violation: Medical Abuse of Immigrants Detained at ICDC
- November 2022 bipartisan report from the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (PSI) which concluded that immigrant women at the Irwin County Detention Center (ICDC) were subjected to excessive, invasive, and often unnecessary gynecological procedures without informed consent.
These findings, and the collective courage of the whistleblowing nurse and immigrant women who spoke out, led to the termination of ICE’s contract with Irwin. In October 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H. Res. 1153, condemning unwanted, unnecessary medical procedures performed on immigrant women without their full, informed consent at ICDC. This resolution was co-sponsored by 225 members of Congress.
Advocates and directly-impacted community members are horrified to learn that ICE is set to resume detaining migrants at ICDC. This appalling decision represents a continuation of a broader pattern of attacks by this administration against migrant communities, including the expansion of detention without due process, militarized enforcement, and the surveillance of migrants and dissenters.
Despite these assaults, advocacy groups remain steadfast in calling for the closure of all ICE prisons and for an immigration system that upholds the humanity and dignity of all immigrants.
Communities nationwide are organizing to oppose the reopening and expansion of ICE prisons, decrying human rights abuses.
Immigrants’ rights advocates and directly-impacted community members responded with the following statements:
Formerly Detained Immigrant at ICDC:
“Hearing that the Irwin Detention Center could reopen old wounds that have never healed. That place is synonymous with pain, fear, and dehumanization. Within its walls remain the silenced screams, the invisible tears, and the dignity of so many women stripped away and treated as if we didn't matter. Irwin wasn't just a physical place: for those of us who survived, it left deep wounds we still carry in our bodies and souls. Thinking it could reopen is like reliving the trauma, as if everything we denounced and survived had no value. Closing Irwin meant a hope for justice. To speak of its reopening today is to reopen the suffering of lives forever scarred.”
Project South:
“We will continue to be in solidarity with community members inside ICE prisons, including Irwin, and we will continue to raise awareness about the human rights abuses happening inside. Just as we believed immigrant women in 2020 who were traumatized and silenced, we will continue to believe and uplift the voices of those detained– now more than ever.”
Georgia Detention Watch:
“We remain in contact with many people who survived inhumane and harsh conditions at ICDC while separated from their families, and they continue to struggle to recover from the trauma, physical health impacts, and economic fall-out caused by detention. Most of them experienced solitary confinement (aka “segregation”), which international human rights groups consider a form of torture, as punishment or to silence compaints. We also know that former employees feared for their safety at ICDC, and they were required to treat detained persons as subhuman, which can cause moral injury. It’s unconscionable that even one more person would be subjected to the daily horrors of this detention center, and that private corporations profit from it. We will resume our work of monitoring and exposing abuses until ICDC is shut down for good.”
GLAHR:
“We are appalled at the news that Irwin Detention Center will be re-opening. Having worked alongside community members, groups, and other organizations to shut it down, we know that these cages do nothing but endanger our community. They are filled with human rights abuses, undignified protocols, and harmful conditions. We demand for stakeholders and the community-at-large to take a stand against the re-opening of Irwin Detention Center.”
El Refugio:
“The reopening of ICDC should alarm us all. People at this shadow immigrant detention center have been subjected to horrific abuse, and their fundamental human rights have been systematically violated. We can not let more be put at risk. We call on Members of Congress, local officials, and community members to reject this hateful agenda. Stand with us and let's get ICE out of Ocilla and halt any other detention expansion in Georgia.”
Detention Watch Network:
“It is unconscionable to restart detention at Irwin, a facility notorious for abuse. Irwin shut down because of the bravery of those who spoke out about their experiences and years of advocacy work led by local groups documenting how inhumane and unjust the facility was. In immigration detention, deprivation of freedom, isolation, uncertainty, and abysmal conditions, including inadequate medical care and mental health services, are a lethal combination that puts lives in jeopardy. Shockingly, there have been at least 20 deaths in ICE custody since Trump’s inauguration, a record number of deaths within a calendar year since Detention Watch Network began tracking in 2006. Trump's cruel detention expansion is exacerbating these inherently inhumane conditions and expanding abuses, with increasing reports of death, medical neglect, overcrowding, lack of food, and rampant transfers. What we’re seeing now is a heightened degree of cruelty as Trump will stop at nothing to dehumanize and vilify immigrants. No one should suffer in these conditions.”
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Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.