On February 21, 2024, a riot broke out between rival groups of detainees held for the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) at a GEO Group lockup in El Centro, California. Injuries were reported to detainees and staff of the private prison giant, but the number and extent were unclear. The prison was immediately placed on lockdown, which wasn’t completely lifted until February 29, 2024.

Detainee Malik Washington reported that violence erupted between two normally cordial groups of migrant detainees known as the Sureños and Pesos while they were playing soccer on the prison recreation yard. As GEO Group guards attempted to quell the disturbance, Washington said, their walkie-­talkies erupted with frantic calls of “code yellow” from two other areas in the prison, the Mike Unit and the Nancy Unit. That’s when he said it “became apparent that these were not just random incidents, but part of a well-­orchestrated and timed attack meant to send a clear message.”

The violence appeared to be a thumb of the nose to USMS officials, who claimed they had conducted a “thorough inspection” shortly before of areas where migrant detainees are held. Despite a three-­year-­old executive order signed by Pres. Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D) in January 2021 barring the entire federal Department of Justice (DOJ) from holding prisoners and detainees in private lockups, USMS—which is part of DOJ—secured extensions to contracts with GEO Group and other private prison operators, as PLN reported; in other cases, it has resorted to an intergovernmental agreement with a county, which is not subject to Biden’s order, and that county then contracts with the private prison operator to work around the ban. [See: PLN, Feb. 2022, p.28.]

This apparent violation of Executive Order 14006 was the subject of a letter from the American Civil Liberties Union to USMS Director Ronald L. Davis on September 18, 2023, noting that 20,827 detainees—“nearly a third” of USMS’s total—continue to be held in private lockups.  

Additional source: Davis Vanguard