Prison Shut Over Sexual Abuse May Become ICE Detention Center | EUROtoday

A federal ladies’s jail that shut down in 2024 because of rampant sexual abuse might probably reopen as an immigration detention facility below the Trump administration.

Hundreds of girls alleged they had been repeatedly sexually assaulted by jail employees at FCI Dublin, a northern California facility so infamous for sexual violence it was dubbed “the rape club.” Ten jail guardstogether with the warden and chaplain, had been charged with sexually abusing inmates. The majority have been convicted or pleaded responsible.

Dozens of these ladies had been particularly subjected to sexual assault due to their immigration standing. A federal felony investigation revealed that jail guards “explicitly target[ed] immigrant women for abuse, leveraging the threat of deportation,” in accordance with a class motion lawsuit filed by greater than 100 ladies who had been previously incarcerated at FCI Dublin. The U.S. authorities later paid out a $116 million settlement within the go well with.

Guards allegedly checked out ladies’s recordsdata to search out out in the event that they had been undocumented, promised to assist with citizenship in the event that they did sexual favors, or threatened to alert U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the event that they reported the abuse.

The website — which has additionally been plagued with such harmful circumstances as asbestos, black mould and water contamination — might reopen as a detention middle for immigrants, as a part of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

The federal Bureau of Prisons is divesting itself of FCI Dublin and transferring it to the U.S. General Services Administration, in accordance with a letter BOP despatched to the Dublin City Council on Dec. 10. Effectively, BOP is washing their arms of the power and the encircling 87-acre property, and is handing it over to the administration, which might reassign it to a different company like DHS.

“It’s the first concrete move we’ve seen in a while where BOP is potentially making the first step toward transferring the property into the hands of DHS,” Susan Beaty, an immigration lawyer who has labored with lots of of FCI Dublin victims, instructed HuffPost.

A BOP spokesperson instructed HuffPost in July that FCI Dublin remained below the jurisdiction of the Department of Justice, and there have been no plans to reopen it. But now, the Trump administration, which has made an all-out assault on immigrant communities its prime precedence, can do no matter it desires with FCI Dublin.

A DHS spokesperson instructed HuffPost this week that the company “has nothing to announce about new detention facilities for illegal aliens at this time.” The White House referred HuffPost to DHS when reached for remark.

ICE toured FCI Dublin in February, lower than three months after the jail had shut down because of widespread sexual violence and structural, environmental hazards.

Using defunct federal prisons to help ICE isn’t a brand new tactic for the Trump administration. The federal authorities has transformed 16 shuttered prisons throughout a dozen states into ICE detention facilities, NPR reported this week.

ICE has been aggressively trying so as to add a brand new detention middle in Northern California because the company at present has no amenities within the space. Dublin ― about 45 minutes east of San Francisco ― can be a first-rate location for DHS, which tends to create ICE hubs close to metropolis facilities.

Beatriz, a survivor of sexual abuse at FCI Dublin who has since been deported, beforehand articulated how tense it could be to have to return to the jail. She talked concerning the anxiousness and panic assaults she struggles with after her time at FCI Dublin, and the way her children nonetheless don’t know what occurred to her there. Although the employees would probably be completely different if the power reopened below ICE, it could nonetheless be deeply regarding to see the crumbling constructing repurposed.

“Imagine, if I get sent back to Dublin but now for immigration?” Beatriz, who’s being recognized by a pseudonym to guard her privateness, instructed HuffPost in July from an ICE detention middle in Miami. “After everything that I went through at that place… it’s terrifying.”

Beatriz was incarcerated for over a decade on the California jail the place she says a jail guard sexually abused her for years utilizing her immigration standing. Beatriz was deported again to Mexico ― a rustic she hadn’t seen in almost 35 years — shortly after talking with HuffPost. Her three grownup kids and a number of other grandkids reside within the U.S.

The unsafe residing circumstances at FCI Dublin pose no less than one hurdle if the federal authorities pursues reopening the shuttered jail. The former director of BOP testified below oath that the power was structurally unsafe and wanted “tens of millions” in repairs to turn into liveable. BOP introduced in its letter that it’ll conduct an environmental evaluation on the power earlier than handing it again to GSA.

Immigration advocates, FCI Dublin survivors and Dublin residents are nonetheless deeply involved. There have been ongoing protests outdoors of the closed federal facility, and over 8,300 individuals signed a petition to dam the shuttered jail from reopening as a detention middle.

“Our community would be a better and safer place if this facility were simply demolished,” Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Calif.), a number one advocate for the survivors of FCI Dublin, instructed HuffPost.

The Dublin City Council unanimously handed a largely symbolic decision on Tuesday, voting towards the reopening or repurposing of the closed ladies’s jail. Nearly 40 individuals spoke in opposition to the reopening of FCI Dublin throughout the public remark portion of the council assembly.

“I’m afraid for a future where our neighbors are afraid to go outside, where my children’s classmates are kept home from school to avoid masked federal agents snatching them or their loved ones up without due process,” a Dublin resident and mom of two stated. “It feels dystopian to even express this fear to electeds [sic] in an American council chamber. Yet, here we are.”

Research exhibits that immigration arrests are increased in areas with detention facilities. An 850-bed facility, roughly the dimensions of FCI Dublin, would end in a 6.4 instances increased price of ICE arrests of residents, Stacy Suh, this system director at Detention Watch Network, famous throughout the metropolis council assembly.

Many of the ladies who got here ahead about sexual abuse at FCI Dublin, labored with federal investigators and testified in court docket towards their abusers ― just for the U.S. authorities to swiftly detain and deport them as quickly as they obtained out of jail.

Two survivors who labored with federal officers to construct a case towards former FCI Dublin guard Darrell Wayne Smith had been later detained and deported, Beaty instructed HuffPost. Two others who testified towards Smith are at present going through deportation. Smith allegedly leveraged prisoners’ immigration statuses to perpetrate sexual violence and was charged with 15 counts of sexual abuse of 5 prisoners ― essentially the most counts of the 9 different jail guards.

After being deported, the U.S. authorities subpoenaed the survivors to testify in Smith’s federal trial, forcing two of them to journey again to the U.S. after Smith’s first trial led to a deadlocked jury. His second trial additionally resulted in a deadlocked jury. Federal prosecutors dismissed all costs towards Smith in November.

The federal authorities might have supplied these ladies a U visa, which was created to encourage victims to report crimes with out the specter of deportation. Instead, the federal government selected to not shield the vast majority of immigrant survivors who got here ahead concerning the rampant sexual abuse at FCI Dublin.

“FCI Dublin is a toxic and decaying facility, and a symbol of sexual violence against incarcerated and immigrant women,” Beaty stated. “Survivors of FCI Dublin staff abuse fought for years to hold the federal government accountable and shut down the facility… Reopening the notorious Dublin prison to incarcerate immigrants would be an affront to these survivors, and would only perpetuate abuse.”