WAREHOUSED AND FORGOTTEN
Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

June 2014

Warehoused and Forgotten:
Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System
June 2014

American Civil Liberties Union
125 Broad Street
New York, NY 10004
www.aclu.org

American Civil Liberties Union of Texas
P.O. Box 8306
Houston, TX 77288
www.aclutx.org

Cover photo © Gwoeii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
RECOMMENDATIONS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
METHODOLOGY AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
BACKGROUND. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
From ICE to BOP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Mass Incarceration and the Private Prison Industry.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Operation Streamline and the Criminalization of Immigration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
FINDINGS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Prisoners are subject to shocking mistreatment and abusive conditions.. . . . . . . . 26
Prison staff use extreme isolation arbitrarily and abusively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
BOP policies encourage overcrowding and enforced idleness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
Delayed and inadequate medical care causes needless suffering. . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Excluding non-citizen prisoners from family contact policies punishes them
and their U.S.-based families alike. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

	CAR prisons operate in the shadows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
BOP fails to subject CAR prisons to adequate oversight and accountability.. . . . 52
Isolation from attorneys, legal services, and advocacy organizations impedes
external reform efforts.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
BOP assists private prison companies’ efforts to block transparency.. . . . . . . . . 58
Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
FACILITY–SPECIFIC FINDINGS.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Reeves County Detention Center.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Eden Detention Center. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Willacy County Correctional Center. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
	Big Spring Correctional Center. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Background. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Findings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

T

oday, the United States has just 5% of the world’s population but nearly 25% of
the world’s prisoners. But it has not always been this way. Thanks to the “War on
Drugs,” irrationally harsh sentencing regimes, and a refusal to consider evidence-based
alternatives, the U.S. prison population grew by more than 700% between 1970 and
2009—far outpacing both population growth and crime rates.1
In the past decade, the growing criminalization of immigration has further contributed
to this mass incarceration crisis. According to the nonpartisan Migration Policy
Institute, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) now refers more cases for federal
criminal prosecution than the FBI.2 Nationwide, more than half of all federal criminal
prosecutions initiated in fiscal year 2013 were for unlawfully crossing the border into the
United States—an act that has traditionally been treated as a civil offense resulting in
deportation, rather than as a criminal act resulting in incarceration in a federal prison.3
This is dramatically changing who enters the federal prison system.4 The tipping point
came in 2009, when more people entered federal prison for immigration offenses than
for violent, weapons, and property offenses combined—and the number has continued to
rise each year since.5
The criminalization of immigration
also enriches the private prison
industry. Once prosecuted, noncitizen federal prisoners are mostly
segregated into thirteen “Criminal
Alien Requirement” (CAR) prisons.
The CAR prisons are unusual in three
respects: they are some of the only

U.S. PRISON POPULATION
GREW BY MORE THAN

700%
BETWEEN 1970 AND 2009

1  The Sentencing Project, The Expanding Federal Prison Population (Mar. 2011), available at http://www.sentencingproject.org/doc/
publications/inc_FederalPrisonFactsheet_March2011.pdf.
2  Doris Meissner et al., Migration Policy Institute, Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery 94 (Jan.
2013), available at http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/enforcementpillars.pdf.
3  Prosecutions for 2013, Syracuse University: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRACfed), http://tracfed.syr.edu/ (membership
required) (last visited Dec. 18, 2013).
4  More Hispanics Go to Federal Prison, USA Today, June 4, 2011, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-06-04immigration-hispanic-offenders-federal-prison_n.htm (reporting that immigration-related convictions are responsible for 87% of the
increase in the number of Latinos in federal prison over the past decade).
5  Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal Justice Statistics Program, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/fjsrc/ (last visited Feb. 3, 2014). See also
Alistair Graham Robertson et al., Grassroots Leadership, Operation Streamline: Costs and Consequences 2 (Sept. 2012), available at http://
grassrootsleadership.org/sites/default/files/uploads/GRL_Sept2012_Report-final.pdf.

2  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

federal prisons operated by for-profit companies
instead of being run as federal institutions by the
Bureau of Prisons (BOP); they house exclusively
non-citizens; and they are low-custody
institutions with lesser security requirements
than the medium and maximum-security
institutions run directly by BOP.

“

A guard said to
me: ‘When I see you,
I see $80 a day.’”

— Marc, a prisoner at GEO Group’s
Big Spring Correctional Center

Five of the nation’s thirteen CAR prisons are located in Texas. This report documents
the ACLU’s multi-year investigation into these five institutions. Until now, the CAR
prisons have not attracted the attention they deserve. Our investigation uncovered
evidence that the men held in these private prisons are subjected to shocking abuse and
mistreatment, and discriminated against by BOP policies that impede family contact and
exclude them from rehabilitative programs:
•	 Private prison contracts negotiated by BOP and BOP’s not-yet-awarded
solicitations for new private prisons provide incentives that keep facilities
overcrowded and place excessive numbers of prisoners in isolated confinement.
One current solicitation and each of the Texas CAR contracts reviewed for this
report require the prisons to use 10% of their bed space as isolation cells—nearly

n  Private prison company MTC originally operated the Willacy “tent city” prison as an
immigration detention facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In 2011,
after numerous reports of abuses, ICE removed all of its detainees from Willacy. But barely
a month later, MTC announced its new contract with BOP to run Willacy as a CAR prison.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  3

Criminal Alien Requirement Prisons in Texas

Big Spring, Texas
3,485 Prisoners

Post, Texas
1,896 Prisoners

Eden, Texas
Pecos, Texas
1,550 Prisoners
3,636 Prisoners

n  Five of the nation’s thirteen CAR prisons are
located in Texas and are home to nearly 14,000
immigrant prisoners. Until now, these privately
run federal prisons have not attracted the
attention they deserve.

Raymondville, Texas
2,981 Prisoners

double the rate of isolated confinement in BOP-managed institutions. Prisoners
have reportedly been sent to isolation cells because they complained about
food, complained about medical care, or helped others draft grievances and file
lawsuits. As one prisoner put it, “anything you do or say” can get a person locked
up in conditions of extreme isolation, spending 22 to 24 hours per day confined in
a small cell where he must eat, sleep, use the toilet, and sometimes even shower.
•	 Private prison guards at Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility reportedly call
prisoners names like “wetback” and “Mexican nigger” and send them into
isolation cells for failing to “speak English in America.”
•	 Immigrant prisoners in CAR prisons have far more limited access to
programming, drug treatment, and work opportunities than U.S. citizen prisoners
in BOP-operated institutions, even though many have deep ties to the United
States. Sergio, a 26-year-old Honduran who came to the United States with his
parents when he was eight years old and thinks of New York City as home, told
us that he feels he is treated like an animal, locked up and not given anything to
do to pass the time. “They don’t have a job for us. They don’t have any education.

4  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

They just don’t have any space for all of us. Sometimes it makes me go crazy. I
just want to do something,” he said.
•	 Medical understaffing and extreme cost-cutting measures reportedly limit
prisoners’ access to both emergency and routine medical care. Martin, a 36-yearold Cuban immigrant, told us he woke up in the middle of a severe asthma attack
one night and did not have access to his inhaler. There was no doctor on staff
that night, so he waited nearly an hour to see a nurse who did not know how to
properly intubate him.
•	 Prisoners reported severely overcrowded and squalid living conditions. At Willacy
County Correctional Center, most “dormitories” are Kevlar tents that each house
about 200 men in bunk beds that are reportedly spaced only a few feet apart.
Dante, a 38-year-old Mexican immigrant convicted of reentry, said the tents are
dirty and crawling with insects and that the toilets often overflow and always smell
foul. “Sometimes I feel suffocated and trapped,” he said. “A lot of people get very
upset and angry. Sometimes they become so frustrated that they even speak of
burning down the tents. But what’s the point? They’d build them back up.”
Problems are not limited to the CAR prisons in Texas. In 2011, the ACLU alerted BOP
staff to concerns about medical care, abusive disciplinary practices, and other issues
at the McRae CAR prison in Georgia.6 And in 2012, as many as 300 prisoners at another
CAR prison run by the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) in Natchez, Mississippi,
started a violent protest over what they described as inadequate food, poor medical
care, and mistreatment by guards. The uprising
resulted in the death of one guard and the
injury of nearly 20 other people.7

These private prisons
operate in the shadows,
effectively free from
public scrutiny.

Yet these private prisons operate in the
shadows, effectively free from public scrutiny.
By statute, most of their records are exempt
from the open records laws that apply to other
federal prisons. Meanwhile, as detailed in this
report, BOP fails to subject its private prison contractors to adequate oversight and
accountability, and it fights to avoid public disclosure of basic information about these
prisons.

6  Letter from Azadeh Shahshahani, Director, National Security/Immigrants’ Rights Project, ACLU of Georgia, to Richard A. Cohen,
Chief, Capacity and Site Selection Branch, Federal Bureau of Prisons (Aug. 8, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
7  Holbrook Mohr, Sheriff: Gang Started Prison Riot in Mississippi, Associated Press, May 21, 2012, http://bigstory.ap.org/content/sheriffgang-started-prison-riot-mississippi-0; Judith Greene & Alexis Mazon, Justice Strategies, Privately Operated Federal Prisons for Immigrants:
Expensive. Unsafe. Unnecessary (Sept. 2012), available at http://www.justicestrategies.net/sites/default/files/publications/Privately%20
Operated%20Federal%20Prisons%20for%20Immigrants%209-13-12%20FNL.pdf.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  5

n  Empty parking spots reserved for BOP monitors were a common sight at the CAR
prisons we visited. Despite the private prison industry’s record of abuse, neglect, and
misconduct, BOP fails to subject the CAR prisons to adequate oversight and accountability.
In a recent speech to the American Bar Association, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder
emphasized that “we need to ensure that incarceration is used to punish, deter, and
rehabilitate—not merely to warehouse and forget.”8 Yet as this report illustrates, we are
doing exactly that to more than 25,000 non-citizen prisoners in for-profit CAR prisons.
This practice cannot be justified on grounds of safety, fairness, or cost effectiveness.
To address the many problems with the use of CAR prisons, the ACLU calls on the U.S.
government to take the following actions, described in detail in the “Recommendations”
section:
To the Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ):
•	 Harmonize policies and procedures in BOP and private prisons;
•	 Stop using Special Housing Unit (SHU) quotas and private prison occupancy
quotas, which incentivize unnecessary use of both isolated confinement and
private prisons generally;

8  Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, Remarks at the Annual Meeting of the American Bar Association’s
House of Delegates (Aug. 12, 2013), available at http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2013/ag-speech-130812.html.

6  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

•	 Ensure that private prisons are inspected regularly, with findings publicly posted,
for compliance with all BOP policies and procedures;
•	 Strengthen oversight for existing private prisons;
•	 Strengthen accountability for existing private prisons;
•	 Reject contract bids from private companies with records of mismanagement,
abuse, or substandard care;
•	 Improve communication opportunities at private prisons to support family and
community ties;
•	 End discrimination against prisoners on the basis of citizenship;
•	 Ensure transparency of private prison operations;
•	 Stop spending taxpayer money to shield basic information about private prisons
from public disclosure as “trade secrets”; and
•	 Stop expanding the use of private, for-profit contractors.
To the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Justice:
•	 Conduct a detailed investigation of the private prisons included in this report.
To the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security (DHS) and Justice:
•	 Return immigration enforcement to civil immigration authorities, through
specified measures.
To Congress:
•	 Close the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) loophole for private prisons and
other contract detention facilities;
•	 Stop funding additional private low-security BOP beds;
•	 Request a report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on existing
private prisons; and
•	 Pass legislation to address the problems created by the U.S. Supreme Court’s
decisions in Minneci v. Pollard and Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  7

RECOMMENDATIONS
To the Bureau of Prisons, U.S. Department of Justice:
Harmonize policies and procedures in BOP and private prisons. Modify all contracts
and solicitations to require that private prisons comply with all current and future BOP
policies, procedures, program statements, and technical reference manuals, including
but not limited to those regarding:
•	 Use of Special Housing Units (SHU), particularly subsequent to intake;
•	 Provision of adequate space, staffing, and services for each prisoner;
•	 Clear and uniform grievance procedures, including a meaningful opportunity for
redress above the facility level;
•	 Access to legal resources, including confidential contact attorney visits in areas
free from auditory supervision of prison officers or staff; and
•	 All aspects of medical and mental health care.
Stop using SHU quotas and private prison occupancy quotas, which incentivize
unnecessary use of both SHU and private prisons generally. Remove SHU quotas
(identified in contracts as “minimum capacity” for the SHU, and sometimes set at 10%
of the total contracted prison beds) and occupancy quotas (identified in contracts as
“minimum occupancy guarantees,” and sometimes set at 90% of the total contracted
prison beds) from all private prison contracts and solicitations.
Ensure that private prisons are inspected regularly, with findings publicly posted,
for compliance with all BOP policies and procedures. Require regular training of all
contract staff in BOP policies and procedures.9
Strengthen oversight for existing private prisons. Enhance the role of BOP’s on9  This recommendation is not an endorsement of current BOP policies on certain issues, including isolated confinement and the
grievance process, that are problematic and require reform. See, e.g., U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-13-429, Bureau of Prisons:
Improvements Needed in Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring and Evaluation of Impact of Segregated Housing (May 2013), available at http://www.gao.
gov/products/GAO-13-429; Oversight of the Bureau of Prisons & Cost-Effective Strategies for Reducing Recidivism: Hearing Before the
S. Judiciary Comm., 113th Cong. (2013) (written statement of the ACLU), available at https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/
aclu_testimony_senate_bop_oversight_hearing-final.pdf; Reassessing Solitary Confinement II: The Human Rights, Fiscal, and Public Safety
Consequences: Hearing Before S. Judiciary Subcomm. on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Human Rights, 113th Cong. (2014) (written
statement of the ACLU), available at https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/aclu_testimony_for_solitary_ii_hearing-final.pdf.
However, those reforms are beyond the scope of this report.

8  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

site personnel at private prisons and orient oversight toward humane and effective
correctional management in addition to technical contract compliance. Require BOP
staff to review all grievances and incident reports and to routinely inspect private prisons
via unannounced visits. Continue conducting semi-annual audits. Incorporate interviews
with prisoners and non-supervisory staff into inspections and audits. Collect data
from private prisons comparable to what BOP collects for its own facilities regarding
(1) facility characteristics, practices, and population and (2) safety, security, and other
quality-of-service issues, to enable BOP to compare quality of service with BOP-run
facilities.10
Strengthen accountability for existing private prisons. Issue meaningful financial
penalties for substandard performance, and terminate contracts at facilities that have
repeat deficiencies. Decline to exercise option periods or renew contracts at facilities
that have demonstrated substandard performance.
Reject contract bids from private companies with records of mismanagement,
abuse, or substandard care. To identify such records, conduct thorough independent
investigations into the past performance of all potential contractors and significant
subcontractors, including past performance of contracts with other federal, state, or
local agencies.
Improve communication opportunities at private prisons to support family and
community ties. Set telephone rates at levels that comply with recent FCC guidance11
and are no higher than the standard per-minute flat rate used throughout the BOP
system. Provide email access to all prisoners in private prisons through CORRLinks.
Stop excluding non-citizens from BOP’s general practice of placing prisoners within
500 miles of their homes and allow them to request transfer to prisons closer to their
families upon satisfying the same good behavior requirements as other prisoners. Give
respectful consideration to the placement recommendations of sentencing judges.

10  In 2007, GAO concluded that it was unable to conduct a methodologically sound cost comparison of BOP and private facilities in
part because deficiencies in BOP data collection rendered GAO unable to conduct a quality-of-service comparison. GAO cited particular
examples of useful data that BOP collected for its own facilities but not for private facilities (such as the number of prisoners attended
to by health care professionals due to misconduct, staff turnover rates, and the experience level of the staff) and recommended that
BOP develop a cost-effective way to collect such quality-of-service data from private facilities. However, according to GAO’s report, BOP
disagreed with this recommendation on the grounds that collecting such data could increase the costs of its private prison contracts.
U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-08-6, Cost of Prisons: Bureau of Prisons Needs Better Data to Assess Alternatives for Acquiring Low and
Minimum Security Facilities (Oct. 2007), available at http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-08-6.
11  See Rates for Interstate Inmate Calling Services, Report and Order and Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, WC Docket No.
12-375, FCC 13-113 (rel. Sept. 26, 2013). See also Federal Bureau of Prisons, Long Distance Phone Rates Reduced (Feb. 12, 2014), http://
www.bop.gov/resources/news/20140212_reduced_phone_rate.jsp (last visited Feb. 28, 2014) (announcing reduced local, long distance,
and international phone rates at BOP facilities in response to FCC guidance).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  9

End discrimination against prisoners on the basis of citizenship. Provide non-citizens
in both BOP-managed facilities and private prisons with opportunities for work,
education, programming, and early release commensurate with those provided to
other prisoners. Make custody decisions without regard to citizenship by rescinding
the Deportable Alien Public Safety Factor (a BOP classification designation that makes
non-citizens presumptively ineligible for minimum-security and community corrections
placements12) and any similar policies of exclusion.
Ensure transparency of private prison operations. Develop policies that provide nongovernmental organizations and the media access to facilities. These policies should be
modeled after the directive issued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
“Stakeholder Procedures for Requesting a Detention Facility Tour and/or Visitation,”
and ICE’s Performance-Based National Detention Standard (2011) 7.2 “Interviews and
Tours.”13 Publish online all policies in use at each private prison—including admission
and orientation handbooks and facility supplements regarding visitation, legal activities,
and communication. Make all inspection reports, deficiency notices, and audits publicly
available.
Stop spending taxpayer money to shield basic information about private prisons from
public disclosure as “trade secrets.” When responding to requests for documents under
the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), do not withhold contracts, operating procedures,
operating records, monitoring documents, or other similar documents related to private
facilities under FOIA Exemption 4, the provision intended to protect trade secrets
disclosed to government agencies. In the rare circumstances where an exception may be
appropriate, the use of Exemption 4 should be supported by an individualized, detailed
written justification approved at the time of initial withholding by the relevant Regional
Director, the Chief of the BOP Acquisitions Branch, and appropriate staff in both the
Central Office and relevant Regional Office of the BOP Office of General Counsel.
Stop expanding the use of private, for-profit prison contractors. Withdraw the existing,
not-yet-awarded solicitations for new CAR prisons (CAR XIV and CAR XV). Stop soliciting
new contract beds or facilities, and develop a long-term plan for phasing out the use of
private prisons in concert with a reduction in the total federal prison population.

12  Federal Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 5100.08, Inmate Security Designation and Custody Classification Ch. 5, at 9 (2006), available
at http://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5100_008.pdf.
13  See Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Stakeholder Procedures for Requesting a Detention Facility Tour and/or Visitation, available at
https://www.ice.gov/doclib/ero-outreach/pdf/access-directive-stakeholder.pdf; Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Performance-Based
National Detention Standards, §§ 5.7, 7.2 (2011), available at http://www.ice.gov/detention-standards/2011/.

10  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

To the Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of
Justice:
Conduct a detailed investigation of the private prisons included in this report.
Investigate the five private prisons included in this report—Willacy, Reeves, Big Spring,
Dalby, and Eden—with a focus on conditions of confinement, compliance with contracts
and with BOP policy and procedures, and the effectiveness of BOP’s oversight and
accountability mechanisms.

To the U.S. Departments of Homeland Security and Justice:
Return immigration enforcement to civil immigration authorities through the following
measures:
•	 DOJ should direct U.S. Attorneys to de-prioritize 8 U.S.C. § 1325 (illegal entry)
and 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (illegal reentry) prosecutions except in specific cases where
such charges advance one of the Department’s current prosecutorial interests:
national security, violent crime, financial fraud, and protection of the most
vulnerable members of society.
•	 In the case of violent crime, DOJ should direct prosecutors to pursue § 1325 or
§ 1326 charges only against individuals who have convictions for serious, violent
felonies and whose sentences for those felonies were completed within the
previous five years.
•	 Prosecutors should exercise discretion not to pursue a § 1326 charge when
the nature of the prior removal order, prior entry conviction, or prior reentry
conviction that justifies such a charge presented significant due process
concerns.
•	 Prosecutors should exercise discretion not to pursue § 1325 and § 1326 charges
against certain vulnerable categories of individuals (for example, victims of
domestic violence and the elderly), or against individuals with significant U.S. ties
(specifically, individuals with U.S. citizen minor children residing in the United
States, veterans and members of the U.S. armed forces, and long-time lawful
permanent residents).
•	 DOJ and DHS should end the practice of appointing Border Patrol attorneys
or other DHS employees to act as Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys, or in any
prosecutorial capacity, in § 1325 and § 1326 cases.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  11

To Congress:
Close the FOIA loophole for private prisons and other detention facilities. Enact
legislation to ensure that records relating to private prisons and other detention facilities
will be subject to FOIA to the same extent as records relating to federally operated
prisons and detention facilities. Specifically, require the contracting agency to search
for and produce not only records in the agency’s possession, but also records in the
possession of the entity that operates the prison or detention facility; require the entity
to maintain records in a form that is readily reproducible and reasonably searchable
by the agency; and require the agency to make withholding decisions based on its own
independent judgment.
Stop funding additional private low-security beds. Decline to appropriate funds for new
contract beds or facilities. Instead, direct funding toward Residential Reentry Centers
and home confinement options, which could help divert low-security prisoners out of
existing facilities, reducing BOP overcrowding and eliminating the need for additional
beds.
Request a GAO report on existing private prisons. Request a report from GAO that
1) evaluates BOP’s effectiveness at monitoring private facilities to ensure compliance
with contracts and with BOP policy and procedures via meaningful oversight and
accountability mechanisms, and 2) examines the extent to which privatization actually
provides the flexibility that proponents claim, particularly with regard to responding to
changing bedspace needs, rewarding good contractor performance, and punishing poor
contractor performance.
Pass legislation to address the problems created by the Supreme Court’s decisions
in Minneci v. Pollard and Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko. Together, the Supreme
Court’s 2001 decision in Malesko and its 2012 decision in Minneci effectively bar federal
prisoners from bringing suit for violations of their constitutional rights inflicted in private
prisons, leaving inconsistent and often inadequate state tort relief as the only resort.14
As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in dissent in Malesko, immunizing private prisons
from constitutional liability incentivizes the “corporate managers of privately operated
custodial institutions to adopt cost-saving policies that jeopardize the constitutional
rights of the tens of thousands of inmates in their custody.”15 A legislative solution is
needed to restore the right of federal prisoners to access the courts, by treating private
prison employees and companies as agents of the government who can be sued for
violating the constitutional rights of people in their prisons.

14  See Minneci v. Pollard, 132 S. Ct. 617 (2012); Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61 (2001).
15  Malesko, 534 U.S. at 81 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

12  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

METHODOLOGY AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T

he American Civil Liberties Union of Texas’s investigation of conditions at the Texas
CAR prisons began in 2009, after a December 2008 uprising at the Reeves Detention
Center Complex in Pecos, Texas, made national news. Starting in 2011, the ACLU of
Texas staff began conducting interviews with individuals incarcerated in the three other
CAR prisons that then existed in Texas: Big Spring Correctional Center, Eden Detention
Center, and Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility. In 2012, the scope of our investigation
expanded to include Willacy County Correctional Center, after that former immigration
detention facility reopened its doors as a BOP CAR prison.
Over this time period, ACLU of Texas staff—later joined by ACLU national staff—
have conducted a total of twelve site visits to these CAR prisons and interviewed
approximately 270 people incarcerated in these facilities. The most recent interviews
occurred between November 2013 and January 2014 and covered Reeves, Big Spring,
Eden, Dalby, and Willacy.
A significant number of the prisoners we spoke to expressed fears of retaliation. We
have therefore used pseudonyms to protect the identity of the prisoners we interviewed
in this report.
In addition to prisoners, we interviewed
advocates, attorneys, journalists,
consular officials, and family members
of incarcerated individuals. We also
reviewed medical records, case
documents, and grievance forms relating
to individual cases.

A significant number of
the prisoners we spoke
to expressed fears of
retaliation.

The ACLU of Texas submitted FOIA requests to BOP and Texas Public Information Act
requests to Reeves County, Garza County, and the City of Eden, seeking information
about the operation and oversight of these facilities. To date, we have not received a
number of key documents we requested. BOP has produced no records whatsoever
in response to these FOIA requests. Nonetheless, we have closely reviewed hundreds
of pages of material, including facility policies, prisoner handbooks, and voluminous
contracting documents. We have also reviewed policies, contracts, monitoring reports,
and other documents obtained through the long-running FOIA litigation conducted by
Oregon attorney Stephen Raher.
Given BOP’s failure to respond to our FOIA requests, we do not have access to BOP
ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  13

documents that would confirm or contradict the statements made to us by prisoners. In
the case of deaths, prison disturbances, or staff uses of force involving large numbers
of prisoners, we have tried to independently confirm prisoner allegations with news
reports or other publicly available documents. Where we were unable to locate such
independent confirmation, we have included such allegations only if they were reported
by two or more prisoners.
Over the past four years, a veritable
army of ACLU of Texas and ACLU
national staff participated in the
research and writing of this report.
Samantha Fredrickson, Carl Takei,
and Rebecca Robertson authored
major sections of the report, relying
heavily on earlier work done by Lisa
Graybill, Krystal Gomez, Adrienna
Wong, and Kali Cohn. Christopher
Clay, Abril Davila, Astrid Dominguez,
Lisa Graybill, Krystal Gomez, Adriana Piñon, Carl Takei, and Adrienna Wong carried out
much of the hard work of investigation, such as interviews and document review. Ruthie
Epstein, Chris Rickerd, Jesselyn McCurdy, Carl Takei, and Georgeanne Usova developed
the policy recommendations based on input from many individuals and relying on work
previously done by Lisa Graybill and others. Numerous other ACLU staff also reviewed
and made valuable contributions to the report. Additionally, we thank Bob Libal and Judy
Greene for their helpful comments on the draft report.

BOP has produced no
records whatsoever in
response to FOIA requests
seeking information about
the operation and oversight
of these facilities.

A few words on terminology: Our Findings section uses the plural term “CAR prisons”
to describe two or more of the CAR prisons we investigated for this report; however,
such statements are not meant to imply that all five CAR prisons we investigated or
all thirteen CAR prisons nationwide necessarily share the same attributes. Similarly,
statements in this report that private prison companies, private prison operators, or the
private prison industry made a certain claim, engaged in a certain practice, or exhibited
a certain feature are not meant to imply that the same statement applies to all private
prison companies or operators, or that all members of the private prison industry did
the same.

14  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

BACKGROUND

Introduction: From ICE to BOP

J

ust off Highway 77, in Raymondville, Texas, nearly 3,000 non-citizen prisoners are
locked behind layers of fencing and concertina wire and crammed into a complex
dominated by ten 200-foot-long Kevlar tents. Three flags fly near the front gate: the
Texas flag, the U.S. flag, and a flag emblazoned with the logo of Management and
Training Corporation (MTC), the private prison company that runs the prison. This is
Willacy County Correctional Center: a physical symbol of everything that is wrong with
enriching the private prison industry and criminalizing immigration.

Willacy County Correctional Center began in 2006 as the Willacy County Processing
Center, a detention facility for civil immigration detainees held by ICE. Nicknamed
the “Tent City” or “Ritmo” (a portmanteau of “Gitmo” and “Raymondville”), Willacy
soon earned a reputation as one of the most inhumane such facilities in the country.16
A 2009 ACLU of Texas report described how detainees at Willacy were subjected to a
host of civil rights abuses: overcrowded living quarters infested by vermin, unsanitary
bathrooms, deprivation of natural light, and spoiled and inedible food.17 A former Willacy
nurse testified at a June 2009 Capitol Hill briefing about the “extreme temperatures,
inadequate nutrition, medical staffing shortages, and long delays for critically needed
health care” that persisted at Willacy.18 She remarked, “The level of human suffering
was just unbelievable.”19 A 2011 PBS Frontline documentary highlighted numerous
stories of racial, physical, and sexual abuse of detainees at Willacy.20
In May 2011, ICE announced it was transferring its remaining 1,000 detainees out

16  Spencer S. Hsu & Sylvia Moreno, Border Policy’s Success Strains Resources, Wash. Post, Feb. 2, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.
com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/01/AR2007020102238.html; Human Rights First, U.S. Detention of Asylum-Seekers: Seeking Protection,
Finding Prison 78-79 (June 2009), available at http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/090429-RP-hrf-asylumdetention-report.pdf.
17  ACLU of Texas, Missing the Mark: How National Security Strategies in Rio Grande Valley Border Communities Sacrifice Basic Human Rights
and Fail to Make Texans Safe 17, 18, 21, 23 (Dec. 2009), available at http://www.aclutx.org/2009/12/10/missing-the-mark-how-nationalsecurity-strategies-in-rio-grande-valley-border-communities-sacrifice-basic-human-rights-and-fail-to-make-texans-safer/.
18  US: Immigration Policy Harms Women, Families, Human Rights Watch (June 24, 2009), http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/06/24/usimmigration-policy-harms-women-families; see also Florence Dethy, Local Nurse Testifies About Detainee Abuse, Toledo Blade, June 25,
2009, http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2009/06/25/Local-nurse-testifies-about-detainee-abuse.html.
19  Dethy, supra note 18.
20  Frontline: Lost in Detention (PBS broadcast Oct. 18, 2011), transcript available at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/racemulticultural/lost-in-detention/transcript-11/.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  15

of Willacy.21 But barely a month later, MTC triumphantly announced that Willacy’s
ICE contract would be replaced by a new, $532-million contract to house immigrant
prisoners for a different agency: the Federal Bureau of Prisons.22

National CAR Map

NE Ohio Correctional Center CI

Rivers Correctional Institution

Cibola County Correctional Institution

Big Spring Correctional Center
Reeves County Detention Center I/II/III

Moshannon Valley CI

McRae Correctional Institute
D. Ray James Correctional Facility CI
Adams County Correctional Center

Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility
Eden Detention Center

Willacy County Correctional Center

n  Today, more than 25,000 immigrant prisoners languish at thirteen private prisons in
Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. GEO
owns and operates six, CCA five, and MTC two.

Today, more than 25,000 immigrant prisoners languish at Willacy and twelve other
private prisons in Texas, Georgia, New Mexico, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania.23 Known as “Criminal Alien Requirement” prisons, these for-profit prisons
are reserved for low-security non-U.S. citizens in BOP custody. And because noncitizens are ostensibly “not expected to return to U.S. communities or BOP custody,”
21  Lynn Brezoski, ICE Will Relocate Crowded Detention Center, Houston Chron., June 9, 2011, available at http://www.chron.com/disp/
story.mpl/metropolitan/7604060.html.
22  Press Release, Management & Training Corp., MTC Awarded Contract to House Federal Inmates: $532-million BOP Contract Will
Replace the Current ICE Contract in Willacy County (June 7, 2011), available at http://www.mtctrains.com/public/uploads/1/2011/6/
June%207,%202011%20News%20Release%20-%20MTC%20gets%20BOP%20contract.pdf.
23  Population Statistics, Federal Bureau of Prisons, http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp (last visited Jan. 3,
2014).

16  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

the BOP does not require the private prison companies to provide these prisoners with
the same vocational training, drug treatment, or other beneficial programs offered to
U.S. citizen prisoners at BOP-run prisons.24 Indeed, the BOP only requires these private
prisons to comply with its policies in a few areas—including maintenance of files,
classification, discipline procedures, sentence computation, health care, education,
and commissary limits. For all other areas, the facilities can develop their own policies,
leading to potentially harmful inconsistencies.25 These second-class prisoners are thus
trapped at the intersection of three disturbing trends: the national over-incarceration
crisis, prison privatization, and the criminalization of immigration.

Mass Incarceration and the Private Prison
Industry

T

he United States has just 5% of the world’s population but nearly 25% of the world’s
prisoners.26 This glut of incarceration is an historical anomaly. Thanks to the “War on
Drugs,” irrationally harsh sentencing regimes, and a refusal to consider evidence-based
alternatives, the U.S. prison population grew by more than 700% between 1970 and
2009—far outpacing both population growth and crime rates.27

Mass incarceration has fueled the growth of the modern private prison industry—a
multi-billion-dollar enterprise that depends on and profits from our national addiction to
incarceration. From 1990 to 2009, as mass incarceration accelerated, the private prison
industry grew by more than 1600%.28
This growth has fueled rising fortunes in the private prison industry. The three
corporations that operate CAR prisons nationwide—Corrections Corporation of America,
the GEO Group (GEO), and MTC—reported nearly $4 billion in revenue in 2012.29
According to the investment research firm Morningstar, the executive officers of CCA

24  U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-08-6, supra note 10, at 11.
25  Declaration of Randall G. Powers, BOP Privatization Management Branch ¶ 7, Patel v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, No. 1:09-cv-00200
(D.D.C. Sept. 8, 2010) (No. 68-8). See also infra notes 197-99 and accompanying text.
26  Devlin Barrett, Obama Administration Plans Overhaul to Cut Prison Population, Wall St. J., Aug. 12, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/
news/articles/SB10001424127887323446404579007043413137888.
27  The Sentencing Project, supra note 1.
28  ACLU, Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration 12 (Nov. 2011), available at http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/
bankingonbondage_20111102.pdf.
29  Corrections Corporation of America, 2012 Annual Report, available at http://thomson.mobular.net/thomson/7/3368/4799/; The GEO
Group, 2012 Annual Report 1, 18 (2012), available at https://materials.proxyvote.com/Approved/36159R/20130314/AR_159415/; At a Glance
Corporate Facts, Management and Training Corporation, http://www.mtctrains.com/public/uploads/1/2011/9/At-a-Glance_Corporate.pdf
(last updated Dec. 6, 2013).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  17

and GEO together received roughly $19 million in compensation in 2012.30 The private
prison industry also directs substantial sums toward lobbying efforts. According to a
2012 review of Federal Election Commission data, CCA, GEO, MTC, their political action
committees, and their employees have spent more than $32 million on federal lobbying
and campaign contributions since 2000.31

Population of Criminal Alien Requirement Prisons
Facility

Contractor

Location

Population as of
Jan. 2, 2014

Adams County Correctional Center

CCA

MS

2,410

Big Spring Correctional Center

GEO

TX

3,485

Cibola County Correctional Institution

CCA

NM

1,189

D. Ray James Correctional Facility CI

GEO

GA

2,422

Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility

MTC

TX

1,896

Eden Detention Center

CCA

TX

1,550

McRae Correctional Institute

CCA

GA

2,209

* Moshannon Valley CI

GEO

PA

1,796

NE Ohio Correctional Center CI

CCA

OH

1,505

Reeves County Detention Center I/II

GEO

TX

2,325

Reeves County Detention Center III

GEO

TX

1,311

* Rivers Correctional Institution

GEO

NC

1,408

Willacy County Correctional Center

MTC

TX

2,981

TOTAL

26,487

* Prison population is a mix of criminal aliens and prisoners from Washington, D.C.
Source: Population Statistics, Federal Bureau of Prisons, http://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/population_statistics.jsp (last visited Jan.
3, 2014).

The private prison industry has a vested interest in the continued expansion of mass
incarceration. CCA’s 2012 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission
states:

30  Corrections Corporation of America, Key Executive Compensation, Morningstar, http://insiders.morningstar.com (under “search
insiders by ticker,” search for “CXW”); The GEO Group, Inc., Key Executive Compensation, Morningstar, http://insiders.morningstar.com
(under “search insiders by ticker,” search for “GEO”) (last visited Jan. 7, 2014).
31  Private Prisons Profit from Illegal Immigrants, CBSNews.com, Aug. 2, 2012, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-private-prisons-profitfrom-illegal-immigrants.

18  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new
contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities.
The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected
by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction or parole
standards and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization
of certain activities that are currently proscribed by criminal laws. For
instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances
or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested,
convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for
correctional facilities to house them.32
The current growth in federal private prisons began in 1999 when BOP issued its first
request for proposals for a CAR contract to house up to 7,500 low-security, non-citizen
prisoners (ultimately awarded to two CCA facilities in California and New Mexico).33 Since
that first CAR contract, BOP has steadily expanded its use of private prisons to confine
non-citizens. Today, more than 25,000 “low-security criminal aliens” are incarcerated in
thirteen private prisons under CAR contracts. Five of these CAR prisons are located in
Texas, and they are home to roughly half of BOP’s segregated non-citizen population.34
Proponents of private prisons argue
that they save the government money,
but the evidence from studies of other
prison systems is mixed at best, and in
2007, GAO found that BOP did not gather
enough data to determine whether it
is cost-effective for BOP to use private
prisons.35 Moreover, BOP rejected GAO’s
recommendations to collect the data

In 2007, BOP rejected
GAO’s recommendation
to collect enough data
to determine whether it
is cost-effective for BOP
to use private prisons.

32  Corrections Corporation of America, 2012 Annual Report, supra note 29, at 28.
33  Judith Greene, Bailing Out Private Jails, Am. Prospect (Dec. 19, 2001), available at http://prospect.org/article/bailing-out-private-jails.
34  Population Statistics, supra note 23 (under “BOP facilities,” select “Texas” and click “search”). The five Texas facilities house
approximately 13,000 prisoners. As we understand it, BOP reserves these prisons primarily for non-citizens in part because many
(though, puzzlingly, apparently not all) of the CAR prisons are hearing sites or release sites under the Institution Hearing Program (IHP),
a cooperative effort by BOP, ICE, and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) to facilitate deportation, exclusion, and removal
proceedings for prisoners in BOP custody. See Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 5111.04, Institution Hearing Program (July 3, 2006),
available at http://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5111_004.pdf. Questions regarding whether the CAR prisons actually serve this apparent
purpose, and whether this purpose justifies reserving prisons for non-citizens in the first place, are outside the scope of this report.
35  Studies in Hawaii, Arizona, Utah, and New Jersey have found that private prisons do not save the government money. And while
some studies have found privatization to be cost-effective, at least one of those studies was questioned after the author was discovered
to have accepted $3 million in consulting fees from private prison companies. See Banking on Bondage, supra note 28, at 19-20 and
accompanying footnotes (discussing studies). Most recently, an industry-funded study became the subject of an ethics inquiry by Temple
University officials. Matt Stroud, Study Funded by Private Prison Dollars Praises Private Prisons; No Comment, Says Public University, In
These Times, Jan. 9, 2014, http://inthesetimes.com/prison-complex/entry/16079/temple_study_funded_by_private_prison_dollars_
praises_private_prisons (last visited Feb. 25, 2014).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  19

required to perform a methodologically sound analysis.36 BOP officials flatly stated to
GAO that “they have not considered, nor do they plan to consider alternatives besides
contracting for low and minimum security facilities.”37 Indeed, BOP has repeatedly
insisted that they are required to use private prisons for these low-custody prisoners—
but BOP has never been able to identify for advocates requesting this information a
statute or regulation to this effect.
In its fiscal year 2014 budget, BOP requested $691 million from Congress to pay private
prison companies, including an increase of $26 million from fiscal year 2013 to house
1,000 additional prisoners.38 And last year, BOP issued a new solicitation for nearly 4,000
additional CAR private-prison beds.39 Although BOP’s fiscal year 2015 budget does not
request further increases in private prison spending for the coming year, the agency
expressed its long-term commitment to using private prisons to house the “low security,
short-term, sentenced criminal aliens” in its custody.40

Operation Streamline and the
Criminalization of Immigration

B

OP’s reliance on private prisons is unlikely to end any time soon. If current
prosecution trends continue, it is likely that BOP will further increase its use of
private prisons for immigrants.

Although BOP refers to the individuals it consigns to CAR prisons as “criminal aliens,”
many were convicted only of immigration offenses like unlawfully crossing the border.41
Traditionally, federal authorities have handled such cases through the comprehensive
enforcement scheme available under civil immigration laws. In recent years, however,
federal policies that demand aggressive use of the criminal justice system for
immigration enforcement have caused the number of criminal prosecutions for unlawful
border crossing to skyrocket.

36  U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO 08-6, supra note 10, at 18-19, 30.
37  Id. at 15.
38  U.S. Dep’t of Justice, FY 2014 Performance Budget: Congressional Submission; Federal Prison System 86-87, available at http://www.
justice.gov/jmd/2014justification/pdf/bop-se-justification.pdf; U.S. Dep’t of Justice, FY 2014 Budget Request: Prisons and Detention 2,
available at http://www.justice.gov/jmd/2014factsheets/prisons-detention.pdf.
39  CAR XV Solicitation Number RFP-PCC-0022, Fed Biz Opps, available at https://www.fbo.gov/
index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=3d3a58aefa1911d9fd8b8ea5d38801b6&tab=core&_cview=1 (last visited on Jan. 8, 2014).
40  U.S. Dep’t of Justice, FY 2015 Performance Budget: Congressional Submission; Federal Prison System, Salaries and Expenses 55-56,
available at http://www.justice.gov/jmd/2015justification/pdf/bop-se-justification.pdf.
41  Unlawful presence in the United States is not, by itself, a crime. However, entering the country without inspection is a federal
misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison, and re-entering the country after being deported is a felony that can lead to two
years of imprisonment for people with no prior criminal records, and up to 20 years for people with more significant criminal records. 8
U.S.C. §§ 1325-1326 (2011); 18 U.S.C. § 3559 (2011).

20  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Chief among these programs is Operation Streamline, a “zero-tolerance” policy jointly
instituted by the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Justice in
2005 and now implemented in every Southwest border state except California.42 Under
Streamline, in addition to being processed for deportation, apprehended migrants are
referred by DHS to DOJ for federal prosecution.43 Since the program began, a rising tide
of both misdemeanor and felony immigration prosecutions has strained the resources
of federal courts, created serious due process problems, and—most relevant to this
report—swelled the flow of immigrants into jails and federal prisons.44

Prisoners entering federal prison, 1998–2011 (by offense)
35,000
30,000
Drug offense
25,000

Immigration offenses

145% increase

20,000
15,000
10,000

Weapon offenses
Property offenses
Public-order offenses
Violent offenses
Missing Unknown

5,000

11

10

20

09

20

08

20

07

20

06

20

05

20

04

20

03

20

02

20

01

20

00

20

99

20

19

19

98

0

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal Justice Statistics Program, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/fjsrc/ (last visited Feb. 7, 2014)

42  See Tara Buentello et al., Grassroots Leadership, Operation Streamline: Drowning Justice and Draining Dollars along the Rio Grande 2 (July
2010), available at http://grassrootsleadership.org/sites/default/files/uploads/OperationStreamline.pdf; Joanna Lydgate, Assembly-Line
Justice: A Review of Operation Streamline 1 (2010), available at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Operation_Streamline_Policy_Brief.pdf.
43  Joanna Lydgate, supra note 42. See generally Oversight Hearing on the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys, H. Subcomm. on Commercial
and Administrative Law, 110th Cong. (2008) (written statement of Heather Williams, First Ass’t Fed. Public Defender, Dist. Ariz., Tuscon),
available at http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/Williams080625.pdf; Federal Criminal Enforcement and Staffing: How Do the Obama
and Bush Administrations Compare?, TRAC Reports (Feb. 2, 2011), http://trac.syr.edu/tracreports/crim/245/.
44  A recent ACLU issue brief explained that under Operation Streamline, misdemeanor illegal entry defendants face a myriad of due
process problems, including little or no access to their attorneys and a trial that combines the initial appearance, plea, and sentencing
into a mass hearing for 70 to 80 defendants at a time each day. The issue brief also described the impact of illegal entry and reentry
prosecutions on the federal courts. ACLU, Immigration Reform Should Eliminate Operation Streamline, available at https://www.aclu.org/files/
assets/operation_streamline_issue_brief.pdf (last visited Jan. 8, 2014).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  21

“

Most people here
came to provide for their
family .... They treat
us like we’re Charles
Manson or something.”

23,700

PRISONERS IN BOP CUSTODY
FOR IMMIGRATION OFFENSES

– Edgar, prisoner at Big Spring
Correctional Center45
Not everyone in the CAR prisons is
incarcerated for an immigration offense; these prisons also contain substantial
numbers of people serving time for drug-related offenses and a small number of people
sentenced for other offenses.46 However, criminal prosecutions of immigrants for
crossing the border are dramatically changing who enters the federal prison system.
The tipping point came in 2009 when, for the first time, more people entered federal
prison for immigration offenses than for violent, weapons, and property offenses
combined—and the number has continued to rise since then.47 By 2012, BOP was holding
23,700 people convicted of immigration offenses in its custody on a daily basis—more
than the total state prison populations of Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode
Island, and Vermont combined.48
In fiscal year 2013, 97,384 people were prosecuted for federal immigration offenses,
an increase of 367% from 2003.49 According to the nonpartisan Migration Policy
Institute, U.S. Customs and Border Protection now refers more cases for federal
criminal prosecution than the FBI.50 Nationwide, more than half of all federal criminal
prosecutions initiated in fiscal year 2013 were for illegal entry or reentry into the United
45  Interview with Edgar, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
46  According to 2010 statistics (the most recent available), 43% of non-citizens in federal custody were serving a sentence for an
immigration offense, 47% were serving a sentence for a drug-related offense, and 10% were serving a sentence for another category of
offense. Mark Motivans, BJS Statistician, Immigration Offenders in the Federal Judicial System, 2010, at 35 (July 2012, rev. Oct. 22, 2013),
available at http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/iofjs10.pdf. Anecdotally, all but a handful of the prisoners we interviewed for this report
were serving sentences for immigration or drug-related offenses, with the majority being immigration offenses.
47  Bureau of Justice Statistics, Federal Justice Statistics Program, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/fjsrc/ (last visited Feb. 3, 2014). See also
Alistair Graham Robertson et al., supra note 5, at 2.
48  E. Ann Carson & Daniela Golinelli, BJS Statisticians, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2012: Trends in Admissions and
Releases, 1991-2012, at 39, 43 (Dec. 2013), available at http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p12tar9112.pdf.
49  At nearly 100,000 Immigration Prosecutions Reach All Time High, Trac Reports (Nov. 25, 2013), http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/
reports/336/.
50  Doris Meissner et al., supra note 2, at 94.

22  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

States.51 The vast majority of these prosecutions take place in the four Operation
Streamline jurisdictions, where they dominate federal criminal dockets: in fiscal
year 2013, illegal entry and reentry prosecutions accounted for 80% of all federal
prosecutions in Arizona and New Mexico, 83% of all federal prosecutions in the Western
District of Texas, and a whopping 88% of all federal prosecutions in the Southern District
of Texas.52 According to news reports, the increasing focus on immigration prosecutions
has siphoned resources away from prosecution of other crimes, eroded morale among
federal prosecutors near the border, and overloaded the federal court system.53
Judge Ruben Castillo, who has served on the U.S. Sentencing Commission since 1999,
remarked on this trend: “There is a use of criminal justice resources that doesn’t make
sense.”54 “The expense of prosecuting illegal entry and reentry cases (rather than
deportation) on aliens without any significant criminal history is simply mind-boggling,”
Judge Sam Sparks of the Western District of Texas wrote in a 2010 order.55
One constituency clearly stands to benefit. An executive of CCA stated in a 2009 investors
meeting:
Let me just make a brief comment on Operation Streamline…. Before
this initiative was put in place, only a small percentage of [il]legal
persons crossing the U.S.-Mexico border were prosecuted....We are now
experiencing significant numbers to further be in place in custody as a
result of Operation Streamline.56
He continued:

51  Prosecutions for 2013, Syracuse University: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRACfed), http://tracfed.syr.edu/ (membership
required) (last visited Dec. 18, 2013).
52  Arizona Prosecutions for 2013, Syracuse University: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRACfed), http://tracfed.syr.edu/
(membership required) (last visited Dec. 18, 2013); New Mexico Prosecutions for 2013, Syracuse University: Transactional Records Access
Clearinghouse (TRACfed), http://tracfed.syr.edu/ (membership required) (last visited Dec. 18, 2013); Texas West Prosecutions for 2013,
Syracuse University: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRACfed), http://tracfed.syr.edu/ (membership required) (last visited Dec.
18, 2013); Texas South Prosecutions for 2013, Syracuse University: Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRACfed), http://tracfed.syr.
edu/ (membership required) (last visited Dec. 18, 2013).
53  Joe Palazzolo, Border Laws Put Judge on Map, Wall St. J., May 31, 2013, available at http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/
SB10001424127887323336104578499480108652610; Solomon Moore, Push on Immigration Crimes Is Said to Shift Focus, N.Y.
Times, Jan. 11, 2009, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/us/12prosecute.html?pagewanted=all; Lillian Reid, US
Marshal Sees Threat in Mexican Mafia, Not Illegal Immigration, Verde Indep., Oct. 10, 2012, available at http://verdenews.com/main.
asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=50575. See also Solomon Moore, Study Shows Sharp Rise in Latino Federal Convicts, N.Y.
Times, Feb. 18, 2009, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/us/19immig.html?_r=0; Joanna Lydgate, supra note 42.
54  Garance Burke, Latinos Form New Majority of Those Sentenced to Federal Prison, Huffington Post, Sept. 6, 2011, http://www.
huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/09/hispanic-majority-prison_n_955823.html.
55  U.S. v. Ordones-Soto, No. 1:09-CR-00590-SS (W.D. Tex. Feb. 5, 2010), Steven Kreytak, Federal Judge Questions Immigration
Prosecutions, Austin Am.-Statesman, Feb. 6, 2010, http://www.statesman.com/news/news/local/federal-judge-questions-immigrationprosecutions-1/nRkNB/.
56  Corrections Corporation of America Q1 2009 Earnings Call Transcript, Seeking Alpha (May 7, 2009), available at http://seekingalpha.
com/article/136300-corrections-corporation-of-america-q1-2009-earnings-call-transcript.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  23

We believe that the Federal Bureau of Prisons continues to see value in using
the private sector to meet their capacity needs and will continue to provide a
meaningful opportunity for the industry for the foreseeable future.57
The tragic and all-too-predictable consequences of criminalizing immigration and
entrusting the lives of tens of thousands of immigrant prisoners to private prison
companies—for-profit entities that must answer first to their shareholders—are detailed
in the Findings section below.

Who is imprisoned for illegal
reentry?
JAIME moved to the United States with his parents when he was three years
old, and he and his parents became legal permanent residents. Five years
ago, Jaime was charged with a minor drug crime. His criminal attorney told
him to accept a plea bargain because he had never been arrested before and
would only receive probation. Unfortunately, after Jaime pleaded guilty, he was
deported. He returned to his hometown in Texas to rejoin his wife and family,
but he was arrested by a local police officer who identified him during a traffic
stop. Jaime is now serving a three-year sentence for illegal reentry.58
MIGUEL moved to the United States 30 years ago to attend college in
California. While studying, he fell in love with an American classmate. They
married and had a son together. Miguel was subsequently deported, but he
returned to the country to help raise his child. Years later, ICE raided Miguel’s
apartment and referred him to federal authorities for prosecution. He is
serving a three-year sentence for illegal reentry.59
LUIS lives in Mexico, where he builds houses for a living. His wife and children
are American citizens who live in Los Angeles. Between jobs, Luis traveled
to the United States to visit with his family. While crossing the border, he was
arrested by Border Patrol and then federally prosecuted. Luis is serving a
three-year sentence for illegal reentry.60  n

57 
58 
59 
60 

Id.
Interview with Jaime, prisoner at Big Spring (May 20, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
Interview with Miguel, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
Interview with Luis, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).

24  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

FINDINGS

M

uch of what happens behind the walls of CAR prisons goes unreported. But over the
past four years, we have spoken to hundreds of immigrant prisoners who described
what happens in this shadow prison system. There are tragic stories—of men dying after
being denied potentially life-saving medical treatment. There are unimaginable stories—
of men being locked in isolation cells for complaining about food or medical care, or for
no reason at all. And there are stories of incredible loss—of men separated from their
families, all but forgotten as they await deportation without access to counsel. As one
prisoner put it, “Here I feel like I am in a hole without an exit. I don’t have anything and I
feel trapped.”61
In our multi-year investigation, the ACLU of
Texas and the National Prison Project found
much evidence that the immigrants trapped in
these private prisons are subjected to shocking
abuse and mistreatment. Many have families
and other deep ties in the United States but
are separated from them by thousands of
miles because of discriminatory BOP policies.
Meanwhile, the for-profit prison companies
operate in the shadows. BOP subjects CAR
prisons to insufficient oversight and accountability, and it exempts CAR prisons from
many of the policies and regulations intended to set baselines of safe and humane
treatment in federal prisons. By both geography and policy, prisoners are isolated from
attorneys and legal services. BOP even assists private prison companies in their efforts
to block public scrutiny.

BOP even assists
private prison
companies in their
efforts to block
public scrutiny.

The federal government has a responsibility to safeguard the health, safety, and basic
human dignity of people in its custody—whether citizen or non-citizen and whether in
government-run or private prisons. The government owes this obligation not only to the
people inside its prisons, but also to the public at large, who rely on the criminal justice
system to keep us safe, to operate fairly, and to be cost-effective. Yet our investigation
revealed substantial evidence that the Bureau of Prisons and its for-profit contractors
are failing us.

61  Interview with Esteban, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  25

Prisoners are subject to shocking
mistreatment and abusive conditions

“

[Our families] don’t know that we suffer,
that we’re not treated with respect, or that we
sometimes lack food or blankets. We don’t tell our
families. I just don’t want my kids to see me like
this.”

– Vicente, prisoner at Willacy County Correctional Center62
Although BOP-run facilities are far from perfect, prisoner disturbances are relatively
rare. Yet we spoke with numerous prisoners who described conditions so bad in privately
operated CAR prisons that people were driven to protests, hunger strikes, and even
riots.
At Reeves County Detention Center in late 2008 and early 2009, after a prisoner died
from inadequate medical care, prisoners organized uprisings that got so out of control
they ended with prisoners setting fire to the facility.63 Then, in the summer of 2013,
prisoners started a petition to protest crowded conditions, bad food, and lack of medical
care. When prison staff learned of the petition, they reportedly sought out the protest
organizers, tear-gassed their dormitories, shot at them with rubber bullets, and then
locked in isolation cells both the organizers and bystanders who objected to being
tear-gassed.64
At Willacy in the summer of 2013, 30 prisoners were reportedly taken to the isolation
unit for refusing to leave the recreation yard and return to their dormitories after
prison officials ignored their complaints of toilets overflowing with raw sewage.65 In

62  Interview with Vicente, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
63  Tom Barry, A Death in Texas: Profits, Poverty, and Immigration Converge, Boston Rev. (Nov./Dec. 2009), reprinted with permission and
available at http://www.texastribune.org/2010/01/07/tom-barry-on-border-immigrant-detention-facilities/. See also Tom Barry, Border
Wars (Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2011) (expanding on the reporting initially done in Barry’s Death in Texas article).
64  Interview with Samuel, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 19, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Ruben, prisoner at Reeves
(Nov. 19, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Humberto, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 19, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
65  Interview with Darien, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Benicio, prisoner at Willacy
(Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Mauricio, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas);
Interview with Dylan, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Alex, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13,
2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Stephen, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).

26  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

February 2014, a prisoner uprising at Willacy resulted in prisoner injuries and required
the deployment of 30 Willacy County Sheriff patrol cars to the facility as a “defensive
measure.”66
At Big Spring in 2008, prisoners rose up over conditions and set fire to the Flightline Unit
at the facility.67 In 2010, prisoners at Eden rose up over conditions.68
According to the prisoners we interviewed, the changes prisoners seek with these
protests—better medical care, more food, less use of extreme isolation as punishment,
and cleaner living conditions—rarely come.

66  Fernando del Valle, Inmate Injured in Raymondville Prison Riot, Monitor (Feb. 14, 2014) http://m.themonitor.com/news/local/
article_2a3fe3a8-95df-11e3-8f78-0017a43b2370.html?mode=jqm.
67  Major Incident at Cornell’s Big Spring Unit, Texas Prison Bid’ness (Sept. 16, 2008), http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/major-incidentcornells-big-spring-unit; Big Spring Riot Investigation Continues, KWES NewsWest 9, http://www.newswest9.com/story/9014192/
big-spring-riot-investigation-continues?clienttype=printable (last visited Jan. 28, 2014); Roma Vivas, Big Spring Prisoner Riot and Fire
Still Under Investigation, KWES NewsWest 9, http://www.newswest9.com/story/9005071/big-spring-prisoner-riot-and-fire-still-under-investigatio
n?nav=menu505_2&redirected=true (last visited Jan. 28, 2014).
68  Matthew Waller, Eden Detention Center Locked Down After Riot, San Angelo Standard Times, Apr. 12, 2010, http://www.gosanangelo.
com/news/2010/apr/12/eden-detention-center-remains-in-lockdown-status/.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  27

Prison staff use extreme isolation arbitrarily and abusively
Extreme isolation is an extraordinarily cruel form of punishment that, if it is used at
all, should be employed only as a last resort and for as brief a time as possible.69 Yet at
CAR facilities, prisoners told us that not only is isolation used to punish prisoners for
minor infractions, but the isolation unit (typically referred to as segregation, the Special
Housing Unit, or SHU) is regularly used for overflow when the general population
dorms are full.70 Additionally, prisoners are reportedly threatened with isolation,
and sometimes put in SHU, for complaining about conditions, helping others to file
grievances,71 or just about anything.72
In the SHU, prisoners are confined for 22 to 24 hours per day in a small cell, either
alone or with one or two cellmates.73 In this report, we refer to this practice as “extreme
isolation,” because either scenario involves the complete deprivation of mental
stimulation and meaningful human interaction beyond the confines of that tiny cell.
Each CAR prison’s SHU differs slightly, but most cells are small rooms with solid metal
doors with a tray slot for passing food into the cell. Prisoners in the SHU must eat, sleep,
use the toilet, and sometimes even shower without ever leaving the cell. While in the
SHU, prisoners are not allowed to visit the library or participate in any programs.74 They
are rarely allowed to make outside phone calls.75 When they are let out of the cell for

69  ABA Standards for Criminal Justice: Treatment of Prisoners (Washington: American Bar Association, 3d ed. 2011). Standard
23-3.8(c) states: “All prisoners placed in segregated housing should be provided with meaningful forms of mental, physical, and
social stimulation.” Standard 23-3.8(b) states: “Conditions of extreme isolation should not be allowed regardless of the reasons for
a prisoner’s separation from the general population.” Standard 23-4.3(a) states: “[Disciplinary] sanctions should never include . . .
conditions of extreme isolation . . . .” See also Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, Interim Rep. of the Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, U.N. Doc.
A/66/268 (Aug. 5, 2011) (by Juan Mendez), available at http://solitaryconfinement.org/uploads/SpecRapTortureAug2011.pdf; European
Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, 21st General Report of the Council of Europe
Committee for Prevention of Torture (COE-CPT) 44-50 (2011), available at http://www.cpt.coe.int/en/annual/rep-21.pdf.
70  See infra text accompanying notes 93-96.
71  Interview with Leonardo, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 7, 2014) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Agustin, prisoner at Eden (Jan.
7, 2014) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Richard, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 7, 2014) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with
Isaac, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 7, 2014) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Vladmir, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 8, 2014) (on file with
ACLU of Texas); Interview with Kevin, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 8, 2014) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
72  Interview with Sergio, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (reporting that another prisoner was sent to SHU because he asked for
new shoes) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Santiago, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (reporting that prisoners can be sent
to SHU for doing their own laundry) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Costa, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (reporting that
prisoners with mental health conditions are taken to SHU) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Sebastian, prisoner at Reeves
(Nov. 19, 2013) (reporting that he was sent to SHU for complaining about the medical care) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
73  Interview with Dominic, prisoner at Big Spring (Nov. 20, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Henry, prisoner at Big
Spring (Nov. 20, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Alfonso, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas);
Interview with Patricio, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72; Interview
with Bruno, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 19, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Tomas, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011) (on
file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Agustin, supra note 71.
74  Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview with Henry, supra note 73; Interview with Patricio, supra note 73.
75  Interview with Dmitri, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Henry, supra note 73; Interview
with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Alex, supra note 65.

28  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

“recreation,” usually for no more than one
hour a day, it is to a small outdoor cage that
is typically eight to ten paces wide.76
Studies have shown that isolating prisoners
in this manner can have serious effects
on their mental health, including causing
panic attacks, hallucinations, paranoia,
obsessive or suicidal thoughts, and
difficulty concentrating and remembering.77
Isolating two or more strangers together in
the same cell can cause mutual paranoia
and hostility.78 When prisoners reported
to the ACLU that the SHU is noisy 24
hours a day with the sounds of other men
pounding the walls and doors, screaming,
shouting, and crying, they were describing
the manifestations of deteriorating mental
health.79

The American Bar
Association’s Standards
for the Treatment of
Prisoners calls for the
complete abolition
of extreme isolation
and requires that all
prisoners in segregated
housing “be provided
with meaningful forms
of mental, physical, and
social stimulation.”

The American Bar Association’s Standards for the Treatment of Prisoners calls
for the complete abolition of extreme isolation and requires that all prisoners in
segregated housing “be provided with meaningful forms of mental, physical, and social
stimulation.”80 Moreover, the Standards require that segregated housing be used only
for limited purposes and “for the briefest term and under the least restrictive conditions
practicable and consistent with the rationale for placement and with the progress
achieved by the prisoner.”81
Although BOP policy lags behind the ABA Standards, it does prescribe limits on when
prisoners can be placed in the SHU for administrative detention (when they pose a
threat to themselves or other prisoners) or for disciplinary segregation (when they are

76  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75; Interview with Dominic, supra note 73.
77  Stuart Grassian, Psychiatric Effects of Solitary Confinement, 22 Wash. U. J.L. & Pol’y 325, 335-36 (2006), available at http://law.wustl.
edu/journal/22/p325grassian.pdf; R. Korn, The Effects of Confinement in the High Security Unit at Lexington, 15 Soc. Just. 8 (1988); Craig
Haney, Mental Health Issues in Long-Term Solitary and “Supermax” Confinement, 49 Crime & Delinquency 124 (2003); Holly A. Miller & G.
Young, Prison Segregation: Administrative Detention Remedy or Mental Health Problem?, 7 Criminal Behav. & Mental Health 85 (1997); Hans
Toch, Mosaic of Despair: Human Breakdown in Prison (1992). See also Physicians for Human Rights, Buried Alive: Solitary Confinement in the U.S.
Detention System (Apr. 2013), available at https://s3.amazonaws.com/PHR_Reports/Solitary-Confinement-April-2013-full.pdf.
78  Grassian, supra note 77, at 357 (citing a military study).
79  Interview with Alex, supra note 65; Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
80  ABA Standards for Criminal Justice: Treatment of Prisoners, supra note 69, at Standard 23-3.8(a)-(c).
81  Id. at Standard 23-2.6(a).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  29

All of the BOP contracts
we reviewed encourage
the private prison
companies to place
excessive numbers of
prisoners in isolation.

punished for violating prison rules).82
The CAR contracts we reviewed indicate
that most BOP policies on detention and
segregation are supposed to apply at these
facilities.83

But our investigation uncovered evidence
that the CAR prisons use extreme
isolation in ways that are inconsistent
with the ABA Standards and BOP policy.
We heard numerous examples of staff
sending prisoners to the SHU for arbitrary reasons that appear to lack any appropriate
justification.84 “Anything you do or say can get you into the SHU,” a Reeves prisoner told
us.85

Indeed, all of the BOP contracts we reviewed encourage the private prison companies
to place excessive numbers of prisoners in isolation.86 CCA’s contract for Eden, MTC’s
contract for Dalby, and GEO Group’s contracts for Reeves and Big Spring each require at
least 10% of the “contract beds” to be SHU isolation cells—in effect, setting an arbitrary
10% quota for putting prisoners in extreme isolation whenever the prison is filled to
capacity.87 In fact, during the solicitation process for the CAR contract that was ultimately
awarded to MTC for Willacy, BOP insisted on a 10% SHU quota even though a potential
bidder asked if BOP would consider reducing the SHU requirement “[d]ue to the low
security nature of the intended population.”88 Similar SHU quotas exist in BOP’s not82  Federal Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 5270.10, Special Housing Units (Aug. 1, 2011), available at http://www.bop.gov/policy/
progstat/5270_010.pdf.
83  Contract Between GEO Group and BOP for Management of Big Spring Correctional Center (awarded Jan. 17, 2007) [hereinafter Big
Spring CAR 6 Contract] 91; Contract Between Management and Training Corporation and BOP for Management of Giles W. Dalby Correctional
Facility (awarded Jan. 17, 2007) [hereinafter Dalby CAR 6 Contract] 91; Contract Between Corrections Corporation of America and BOP for
Management of Eden Detention Center (awarded Jan. 17, 2007) [hereinafter Eden CAR 6 Contract] 89; Contract Between GEO Group and BOP
for Management of Reeves County Detention Center I/II (awarded May 24, 2006) [hereinafter Reeves CAR 5 Contract] 45; Contract Between
GEO Group and BOP for Management of Reeves County Detention Center III (awarded Jan. 17, 2007) [hereinafter Reeves CAR 6 Contract] 92.
84  Interview with Freddie, prisoner at Dalby (May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Fernando, prisoner at Dalby
(May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Pedro, prisoner at Dalby (May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview
with Orlando, prisoner at Dalby (May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Fortunato, prisoner at Reeves (May 17, 2011)
(on file with ACLU of Texas).
85  Interview with Gonzalo, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 19, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
86  We reviewed the BOP contracts for four of the five CAR prisons in Texas. Although BOP did not respond to our request under FOIA
for the Willacy contract, we were able to review the solicitation that led to the Willacy contract. That solicitation contains an identical
10% SHU quota. Performance Work Statement, Short Term Sentence (STS) Solicitation Number RFP-PCC-0018, Fed Biz Opps, available at
https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=96ffa1d7f4ca290034c31e8ec77e3a81 (last visited Mar. 14, 2014).
87  Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 55; Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 53; Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 55;
Reeves CAR 5 Contract, supra note 83, at 13; Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 56.
88  Performance Work Statement, Short Term Sentence (STS) Solicitation Number RFP-PCC-0018, Fed Biz Opps, available at https://www.
fbo.gov/utils/view?id=96ffa1d7f4ca290034c31e8ec77e3a81 (identifying 10% SHU quota) (last visited Mar. 14, 2014); STS Contractor
Questions and Answers – Part 2, July 21, 2010, Short Term Sentence (STS) Solicitation Number RFP-PCC-0018, Fed Biz Opps, available at
https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=743f5ba5ef74ba57e884a7fb4ec935a1 (denying request to reduce SHU requirement to 5% of contract
beds) (last visited Mar. 14, 2014).

30  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

CAR CONTRACTS REQUIRE

10%
BED SPACE AS
ISOLATION CELLS

2X
THE RATE OF

BOP-RUN

FACILITIES

yet-awarded CAR XIV and CAR XV solicitations. The 2012 CAR XIV solicitation contains
the same 10% SHU quota as the existing contracts, while the 2013 CAR XV solicitation
mandates that each prison build a SHU with at least 100 beds regardless of its overall
size.89
This quota is nearly double the percentage of prisoners kept in isolated confinement in
BOP-managed facilities, most of which house higher-security prisoners than the lowcustody prisoners at the CAR prisons we visited.90 And it is truly shocking compared to
states that have made deliberate efforts to reduce their use of isolated confinement. For
example, January 2014 statistics from the Colorado Department of Corrections indicate
that fewer than 1% of the prisoners in that state’s Security Level II facilities (the facilities
most comparable to low-custody BOP prisons) and only 5.6% of prisoners in its Security
Level III facilities (most comparable to medium-custody BOP prisons) are housed in
isolation.91 Similarly, news reports indicate that Maine housed only about 3% of its entire

89  CAR XIV Solicitation Number RFP-PCC-0021, Fed Biz Opps, available at https://www.fbo.
gov/?s=opportunity&mode=form&tab=core&id=ab1a2eef3ba781ba7ec769f352162995&_cview=0 (last visited
Feb. 26, 2014); CAR XV Solicitation Number RFP-PCC-0022, Fed Biz Opps, available at https://www.fbo.gov/
index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=3d3a58aefa1911d9fd8b8ea5d38801b6&tab=core&_cview=1 (last visited Feb. 26, 2014).
90  As of late 2013, 9,500 of the 175,174 prisoners in BOP-managed facilities, or 5.4%, were in restricted housing. See Hearing on the
Oversight of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, S. Comm. on the Judiciary, 113th Cong. (2013) (testimony of Charles E. Samuels, Jr., Director,
Bureau of Prisons), available at http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/pdf/11-6-13SamuelsTestimony.pdf (testifying that there are 9,500
prisoners in restricted housing in BOP facilities as of most recent data available); Population Statistics, supra note 23 (identifying total
BOP-managed population as of December 2013 as 175,174 prisoners).
91  See Colo. Dep’t of Corrections, Monthly Population and Capacity Report (Jan. 31, 2014), available at http://www.doc.state.co.us/sites/
default/files/opa/MonthlyReport_2014_01.pdf (last visited Feb. 18, 2014). The percentage of prisoners in isolation was calculated for
each security level by dividing the sum of “Punitive Beds” and “Ad. Seg. Beds” by the total “Facility Population.”

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  31

prison population (including maximum-custody prisoners) in isolated confinement in
2011.92
At Willacy, Dalby, and Eden, staff have reportedly been sending new arrivals to the SHU
and then keeping them isolated there for days or weeks. Prisoners told us this practice
has been routine at Willacy since April 2013 because there is no space available in the
Kevlar tents used as general population dorms.93 “Every day new people were brought
into SHU because there weren’t enough beds in the tents. People complained that they
did not do anything and shouldn’t be in SHU,” a Willacy prisoner told us.94 At Dalby,
many prisoners we spoke to told us that they spent several weeks in the SHU when they
first arrived.95 At Eden, nearly everyone we interviewed in January 2014 reported that
they were immediately locked in an isolation cell when they arrived, with some waiting
for days and others waiting as long as two weeks before being assigned a bed in the
general population dorms.96 In addition to being pointlessly cruel, such extended periods
of isolation upon intake appear inconsistent with BOP intake policies.97 However, private
prisons are not required to abide by those policies.98
At Reeves, before the construction of an infirmary, staff used the SHU to house both
physically and mentally ill prisoners.99 In August 2008, a man with known mental
illness committed suicide in the SHU after being denied psychotropic medication.100 In
December of that same year, a man died in an isolation cell after not receiving treatment
for epilepsy and suffering from a major seizure.101

92  See Lance Tapley, Reform Comes to the Supermax, Portland Phoenix, May 25, 2011, available at http://portland.thephoenix.com/
news/121171-reform-comes-to-the-supermax/ (reporting Maine’s population in solitary confinement as 60 prisoners); E. Ann Carson
& William J. Sabol, BJS Statisticians, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2011, at 31 (Dec. 2012), available at http://www.bjs.gov/
content/pub/pdf/p11.pdf (reporting Maine’s total custody population as 1,978 prisoners).
93  Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Mario, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas);
Interview with Hugh, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
94  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
95  Interview with Patricio, supra note 73; Interview with Camilo, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview
with Valentino, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Ambrosio, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on
file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Bautista, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Emmanuel,
prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
96  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71; Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview
with Pablo, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 7, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Franco, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 7, 2013) (on file
with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Bradley, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 7, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Jesse, prisoner
at Eden (Jan. 7, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Simon, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 8, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas);
Interview with Isaac, supra note 71; Interview with Marvin, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 8, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with
Gael, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 8, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas) interview with Elias, prisoner at Eden (Jan. 8, 2013) (on file with ACLU
of Texas) interview with Vladmir, supra note 71; Interview with Kevin, supra note 71.
97  Federal Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 5290.15, Intake Screening (Mar. 30, 2009) available at http://www.bop.gov/policy/
progstat/5290_015.pdf.
98  There is no mention of BOP Program Statement 5290.15 (Intake Screening) in the contract provisions pertaining to SHU. See Big
Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 55; Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 53; Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 55; Reeves
CAR 5 Contract, supra note 83, at 13; Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 56.
99  Complaint ¶ 93, Galindo v. Reeves County, No. 3:12-cv-00063-DB-NJG (W.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2010).
100  Id. ¶ 226.
101  Id.

32  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Prisoners at all of the facilities
reported being sent to the SHU
for inappropriate reasons. One
man was reportedly sent to the
SHU for six months after he
complained about not receiving
adequate medical care for a
sprained ankle.102 Another told
us he was sent to the SHU after
complaining about the food.103
At Eden, we heard several
reports of prisoners being sent
to the SHU for helping others
with lawsuits or grievances.104

During the solicitation
process for one CAR
contract, BOP insisted that
10% of the bed space in each
bid be reserved for isolation
cells, even though one
potential bidder requested it
be reduced to 5%.

We also heard instances of prisoners being sent to the SHU due to a pending
investigation but not being let out after the investigation was or should have been
concluded. Henry reported that he had been in isolation at Big Spring for nearly five
months.105 He was initially told he would be held in the SHU for three months while staff
investigated whether he had illegally possessed a cell phone. But when we interviewed
him, he was still in isolation and was unsure why.106 Similarly, Dmitri reportedly was sent
to the SHU at Willacy because he was under investigation for allegedly selling tobacco
inside the prison. Although investigators dismissed the charges after six weeks, he was
forced to spend an additional month in isolation while he waited for a bed to become
available in the general population tents.107
Although extreme isolation is inherently inhumane and harmful, the conditions
prisoners described in the SHU are especially abhorrent. At Big Spring, we heard about
toilets in cells that stopped working, causing the smell of feces to permeate the SHU
for days.108 At Dalby, prisoners told us that they could go outside only if they filed a form
asking for permission, and that staff did not even inform some prisoners that they could
make such a request.109 One prisoner told us he spent his first three months in isolation

102  Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72.
103  Interview with Dominic, supra note 73.
104  Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71; Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview
with Isaac, supra note 71; Interview with Vladmir, supra note 71; Interview with Kevin, supra note 71.
105  Interview with Henry, supra note 73.
106  Id.
107  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
108  Interview with Dominic, supra note 73.
109  Interview with Alfonso, supra note 73; Interview with Valentino, supra note 95.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  33

without ever seeing the outside because he was unaware he could ask for recreation.110
At Big Spring and Reeves, three prisoners are reportedly crammed into small isolation
cells that are meant for two, meaning that one of the prisoners is forced to sleep on the
floor.111 At Eden, we heard that prisoners in the SHU are offered showers at 1:00 a.m.
and recreation at 5:00 a.m., causing many men to choose never to leave their cells.112
The psychological toll of confinement in such conditions is heavy. For many of the men,
these claustrophobic conditions drive them to the verge of madness. “It was awful. The
noise was bad. People could be heard screaming and kicking their doors all day,” one
prisoner told us.113

What is it like in extreme
isolation?
DOMINIC had been in isolation for four months when we interviewed him at
Big Spring. He is serving a sentence for illegal entry and drug and weapon
possession. Though he is originally from Mexico, his family lives in Los
Angeles. This was not his first experience in isolation, he told us. He spent
nine months in an isolation cell in the SHU when he was at Reeves, but the
loneliness and squalid conditions had not gotten any easier.
His current stint in isolation at Big Spring started in July 2013 when he and
other prisoners complained about the food while the facility was on lockdown.
In response, Dominic explained, prison guards put him and others who had
complained into the SHU. The riot squad pepper-sprayed him when they took
him out of the general population unit, and the pepper spray was still burning
his eyes and skin when he arrived in the SHU. Dominic says he waited three
days before he was given the opportunity to wash off the pepper spray.

110 
111 
112 
113 

Interview with Alfonso, supra note 73.
Interview with Bruno, supra note 73; Interview with Dominic, supra note 73.
Interview with Richard, supra note 71.
Interview with Alex, supra note 65.

34  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Dominic described living in the SHU: He spends about 23 hours every day in
his cell. It is a small room with two bunk beds, though there are three men
in Dominic’s cell. There is a metal door with two parallel vertical windows
above a tray slot for food. The cell has one toilet and a shower, though Dominic
says the men do not always have running water and there is no privacy. Each
day, the men are given one or two gallons of drinking water in large plastic
containers to share. Their food arrives cold, sometimes only half cooked.
Dominic reports that when it is time to go outside, the men are released into
an outdoor cage that is about eight to ten paces wide. When Dominic needs
a shave, a prison staff member does it, though Dominic told us he worries
about blood-borne diseases because they
often reuse the same razor on multiple men.
Dominic reports that books are provided on a
weekly basis and if a prisoner knows exactly
what he needs from the law library, he can
request it. There is no television.

He spends about
23 hours every day
in his cell.

The cell is cold, Dominic told us. One day he was standing on the top bunk,
trying to cover the vent to warm the cell, when he fell and injured his wrist.
There is an emergency button in the cell to call the guard. He pushed it but it
took nearly ten minutes for a guard to respond. Medical staff arrived shortly
after and injected him with a painkiller. He says he waited five more hours until
he was finally taken to an emergency room. Dominic said the emergency room
doctor recommended surgery, but because there was no anesthesiologist on
shift he was told he would have to wait. He was sent back to his cell with his
wrist wrapped and was told to take ibuprofen for the pain. Three months later,
Dominic said he still had not heard anything about receiving surgery.
“They don’t take us seriously,” he said. “It’s all money for them.”114  n

114  Interview with Dominic, supra note 73.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  35

BOP policies encourage overcrowding and enforced idleness

“

People don’t have nothing to do here. Three
thousand people in this facility and you can’t move
around.”

—Theodore, prisoner at Willacy115
Our investigation uncovered evidence suggesting that the private companies have
financial incentives to overcrowd the CAR prisons. All of the contracts we reviewed
contain occupancy quotas. The contracts stipulate that the facilities must remain at or
above 90% capacity. The contracts further provide “Incremental Unit Price” payments
for each additional prisoner above the 90% occupancy quota, up to 115% capacity.116 By
the terms of the contract, the companies actually make more money by admitting more
prisoners from BOP than their facilities were designed to hold.117
The BOP defines “rated capacity” in federal facilities as the number of prisoners a
facility is designed to house safely and securely, with adequate access to services,
necessities for daily living, and programs.118 A facility’s rated capacity does not include
additional beds in hallways, gyms, or other repurposed spaces.119
Our investigation indicates that all of the CAR prisons in Texas appear to be filled beyond
their rated capacities.120 Prisoners at each of the CAR prisons in Texas complained that
the lack of space and privacy raises stress to the boiling point.

115  Interview with Theodore, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
116  Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 57-60 (providing that BOP pays GEO Group up to $82 million per year for 115%
capacity); Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 53-58 (providing that BOP pays CCA up to $53 million per year for 115% capacity);
Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 57-60 (providing that BOP pays MTC up to $36 million per year for 115% capacity); Reeves CAR
5 Contract, supra note 83, at 6-10 (providing that BOP pays GEO Group up to $23 million per year for 115% capacity); Reeves CAR 6
Contract, supra note 83, at 55-61 (providing that BOP pays GEO Group up to $47 million per year for 115% capacity).
117  See contracts cited supra note 83. See generally Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and “Low Crime Taxes” Guarantee Profits for Private
Prison Corporations, In the Public Interest (Sept. 2013), available at http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/CriminalLockup%20Quota-Report.pdf (noting that occupancy quotas are unfortunately common in private prison contracts and incentivize mass
incarceration).
118  U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-12-743, Bureau of Prisons: Growing Inmate Crowding Negatively Affects Inmates, Staff, and
Infrastructure 8 (Sept. 2012), available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/650/648123.pdf.
119  Id. at 8-9.
120  Prisoners at many facilities reported that hallways and recreation rooms were repurposed into dormitories. See interviews cited
infra note 121. See also Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 57 (stating that 100% capacity is 3,051); Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra
note 83, at 53 (stating that 100% capacity is 1,355); Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 57 (stating that 100% capacity is 1,670);
Reeves CAR 5 Contract, supra note 83, at 6 (stating that 100% capacity is 1,179); Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 58 (stating that
100% capacity is 2,093); Population Statistics, supra note 23 (reporting the daily population as of Jan. 2, 2014, as follows: 1,550 at Eden
CAR 6; 2,325 at Reeves CAR 6; 1,287 at Reeves CAR 5; 3,486 at Big Spring CAR 6; and 1,860 at Dalby CAR 6).

36  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Many prisoners reported being housed in
open-style dormitories with as many as 200
to 250 men in a single large room, and tightly
packed bunks filling repurposed spaces such
as hallways and former recreation rooms.121
Prisoners complained that toilet and shower
facilities are inadequate and smell foul from
constant use.122 Most of the recreation yards are
too small to hold the hundreds of prisoners who
must share them.123

Our investigation
indicates that all of
the CAR prisons in
Texas appear to be
filled beyond their
rated capacities.

“They have a lot of people in here. Sometimes it smells. It’s too many people. Some
people even talk about burning down this place,” a prisoner at Willacy told us. He
added: “They just don’t have enough space for all of us here. Sometimes it makes me
go crazy.”124 At Willacy, 200 prisoners are packed into each of the 200-foot-long Kevlar
tents.125 They are reportedly housed so tightly that when they lie in their bunks, their
feet can touch the bunk next to them.126 Prisoners told us the overcrowding and lack
of constructive activity drives many of them mad.127 Fights frequently break out. One
prisoner told us it was like “walking on minefields.”128
At Reeves, some prisoners are housed in what they call the “chicken coops,” which are
converted recreation rooms that have been transformed into open dormitories with 42
bunk beds and three toilets.129 The men cannot move freely around the packed facility
because their movement to and from various rooms is restricted until the top of each
hour.130 At Eden, the hallways between cubicles have been repurposed into additional
dormitory space, with beds lining the walls. Prisoners refer to this space as the
“freeway” and report that there is no privacy and little space to move around.131

121  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72; Interview with Hugh, supra note 93; Interview with William, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011)
(on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Bruno, supra note 73.
122  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Pablo, supra note 96; Interview Franco, supra note 96; Interview with Andrew,
prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 21, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
123  Interview with Andres, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Costa, supra note 72;
Interview with Theodore, supra note 115; Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Alex, supra note 65; Interview with Pedro,
supra note 84.
124  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72.
125  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72; Interview with Hugh, supra note 93.
126  Interview with Theodore, supra note 115.
127  Interview with Hugh, supra note 93; Interview with Dante, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview
with Dmitri, supra note 75.
128  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
129  Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72; Interview with Andrew, supra note 122.
130  Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72.
131  Interview with Pablo, supra note 96.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  37

To make matters worse, prisoners have very little to do to pass the time at most CAR
prisons in Texas. Prisoners reported that the libraries are too small and lack adequate
Spanish-language materials.132 The yards, meant for recreation, are often bare dirt
lots.133
Many prisoners told us that CAR prisons offer very few educational and rehabilitation
opportunities.134 “I had the idea: I have three years. I will do something so I have
something to make of myself. . . . But there’s nothing to do here,” said Jaime, a prisoner
at Big Spring.135 A prisoner at Willacy said, “Life is sad here. This is no way to live.”136
BOP offers prisoners in its government-operated prisons opportunities to participate
in educational and rehabilitative programs. And with good reason: studies have shown
that educational and other programming in prisons can have a dramatic impact on how
a person leads his or her life once released from prison. For example, a recent metaanalysis by the RAND Corporation found that on average prisoners who participate in
correctional education programs have a 43% lower chance of recidivating than other
prisoners, and significantly higher chances of obtaining post-release employment.137
Programming opportunities also have an impact on the safety of a facility. According to
studies, prisons that provide educational opportunities have lower rates of violence.138
But privately run CAR facilities are not required to offer an equivalent range of programs
under the rationale that such opportunities are unnecessary because immigrant
prisoners will not remain in the United States.139 This premise is simply incorrect.
Prisoners may have valid asylum claims, the ability to assert derivative citizenship, or
other legal rights to remain in the United States after being released. Moreover, many
of the prisoners we spoke to have deep ties to the United States and plan on returning

132  Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Dante, supra note 127; Interview with Alex supra note 65; Interview with
Dylan, supra note 65; Interview with Maximo, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Jeremy,
prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
133  Interview with Lucas, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 19, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Andres, supra note 123;
Interview with Liam, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72; Interview with
Ruben, supra note 64.
134  Interview with Samuel, supra note 64; Interview with Adan, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas);
Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Santiago, supra note 72; Interview with Sergio, supra note 72.
135  Interview with Jaime, supra note 58.
136  Interview with Andres, supra note 123.
137  Lois Davis et al, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Correctional Education: A Meta Analysis of Programs that Provide Education to Incarcerated
Adults, at xvi (RAND Corporation 2013), available at http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR200/RR266/
RAND_RR266.pdf.
138  Correctional Association of New York, Education from the Inside Out: The Multiple Benefits of College Programs in Prison 8 (Jan. 2009),
available at http://www.correctionalassociation.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Higher_Education_Full_Report_2009.pdf; see generally
U.S. DOJ National Institute of Corrections, Programs and Activities: Tools for Managing Inmate Behavior (June 2010).
139  U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-08-6, supra note 10, at 11. See also Federal Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 5100.08, supra
note 12, ch. 5, at 9 (explaining that the deportable alien public safety factor is assigned to “[a] male or female inmate who is not a citizen
of the United States” unless immigration authorities “have determined that deportation proceedings are unwarranted or there is a
finding not to deport at the completion of deportation proceedings”).

38  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

to their families after serving their time—even if that means returning via a dangerous
illegal border crossing.140 A recent report by the University of Arizona surveyed more
than 1,000 immigrants who had been deported to Mexico. The study found that more
than half had U.S. citizen family members and 42% intended to make the U.S. their
permanent home.141 Similarly, a recent report by Human Rights Watch concluded that
many of the immigrants prosecuted for illegal entry or reentry have immediate family
members who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Defense attorneys interviewed
for that report estimated that 80% to 90% of their clients charged with illegal reentry
had U.S. citizen family members.142 These immigrants all have personal incentives to
attempt reentry into the United States. “I’m gonna come right back,” one prisoner told
us. “My life is here. I know I’m going to come back.”143
The Residential Drug Abuse Treatment Program provided in government-run BOP
facilities offers prisoners an opportunity to reduce their sentences in exchange for
participation.144 However, non-citizen prisoners are presumptively ineligible for this
program and the associated sentence reductions, so taxpayers foot the bill and the
prisoners’ families suffer the pain of longer confinements.145
Prisoners also report that private CAR facilities offer fewer opportunities for work. In
federal facilities, prisoners can work for UNICOR, a government corporation established
by Congress for the purpose of keeping prisoners constructively occupied while giving
them job skills.146 But prisoners report that compared to BOP facilities, the CAR prisons
offer fewer jobs. Prisoners reportedly earn between 12 and 40 cents an hour for their
work, money they spend on medical co-pays, additional food from the commissary,
phone calls home, and court fees.147 The pay is usually not enough to cover what they
need, and there are far fewer jobs than there are prisoners.148 One prisoner told us a
140  Interview with Jesse, supra note 96; Interview with Adan, supra note 134; Interview with Gonzalo, supra note 85. See generally
Human Rights Watch, Turning Migrants into Criminals, The Harmful Impact of U.S. Border Prosecutions (May 2013), available at http://www.
hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/us0513_ForUpload_2.pdf; Damien Cave, Crossing Over, and Over, N.Y. Times, Oct. 2, 2011, http://www.
nytimes.com/2011/10/03/world/americas/mexican-immigrants-repeatedly-brave-risks-to-resume-lives-in-united-states.html?_r=0.
141  Center for Latin American Studies, University of Arizona, In the Shadow of the Wall: Family Separation, Immigration Enforcement and
Security; preliminary data from the Migrant Border Crossing Study 12 (2013), available at http://las.arizona.edu/sites/las.arizona.edu/files/
UA_Immigration_Report2013web.pdf (last visited Jan. 30, 2014).
142  Human Rights Watch, supra note 140, at 50.
143  Interview with Jesse, supra note 96.
144  Substance Abuse Treatment, Federal Bureau of Prisons, http://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/substance_abuse_
treatment.jsp (last visited Feb. 2, 2013); see generally Nora V. Demleitner, Terms of Imprisonment: Treating the Non-citizen Offender
Equally, 21 Fed. Sent’g Rep. 174 (2009).
145  See 28 C.F.R. § 550.56 (“Inmates enrolled in a residential drug abuse treatment program shall be required to complete
subsequent transitional services programming in a community-based program.”); 28 C.F.R. § 550.58 (discussing eligibility for early
release). See also ACLU, Public Comment on Proposed Amendments re: Cultural Assimilation, Collateral Consequences, and Recency
2-3 (75 Fed. Reg. 3525 (Jan. 21, 2010)), available at https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/United_States_Sentencing_Commission_
Comments.pdf.
146  UNICOR, http://www.unicor.gov/about/overview/ (last visited Jan. 30, 2014).
147  Interview with Benjamin, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 19, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Camilo, supra note 95;
Interview with Patricio, supra note 73.
148  Interview with Cristobal, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Cristofer, prisoner at
Willacy (Nov. 13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  39

guard said to him: “Jobs are not for you. You only have five months left. You’re one of
1,500 in line.”149

Jesse’s Story
Jesse made it his business to be a fully present and accountable parent.
Raised by a single mother, he pampered his wife, Raquel, pushing her to
take time for herself. Having grown up without a father, he doted on his three
children. And when ICE sent a letter offering help with his legal status, he
eagerly presented himself for the appointment.
It was a trap. ICE had scheduled the meeting to arrest him. When Jesse
realized what had happened, he fainted.
Although he didn’t know it until much later, Jesse’s mother brought him from
Mexico to Edinburg, Texas when he was four. As an adult, Jesse voluntarily
left this country twice before because of this status. But this time, due to new
prosecutorial policies, he was not deported. He was sentenced to 58 months in
a federal facility in Eden, Texas.
A genial, affectionate man, Jesse
keeps complaints to himself. His wife
and children, all U.S. citizens, he said,
have little idea of what prison is like.
But for Jesse, even worse than what
he sees around him is what he cannot
see: his children’s suffering.

Brought to the U.S.
when he was four,
Jesse has three
young children.
“They miss him a
lot…. And I can’t
afford to take them,”
says wife Raquel.

“They miss him a lot. They want to see
him. And I can’t afford to take them,”
said his wife, 38-year-old Raquel.
Four-year-old Julia, six-year-old
Aiden, and seven-year-old Mia all idolize Jesse, she said.

“I don’t even want to think about it, because it hurts so much,” Raquel said,
149  Interview with Cristobal, supra note 148.

40  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

starting to weep. “We had a lot of gatherings: holidays, Thanksgiving, Easter,
family barbecue. He was always wanting to be taking the kids everywhere. He
was so devoted to the children, he was so caring, so overprotective. He always
wanted to be with them.”
Raquel is disabled with rheumatoid arthritis and struggles to make up for her
husband’s absence. But the whole family is reeling. “When I was sick, he would
stay up with me,” Raquel said. “He would get up in the middle of the night,
feed the kids their bottles, change their diapers.” Now, missing him, one of the
girls has become aggressive. Their little boy, a star student, nevertheless has
trouble concentrating and talks to himself aloud during the school day about
his father. The other daughter cries and cries.
Most devastating of all, a predator recently made his way into the house. Last
year, both little girls were molested by their grandmother’s brother. Jesse,
behind bars hundreds of miles away, couldn’t protect them. Raquel pressed
charges and got a conviction, but is now utterly alone. Her family had rallied to
protect the child molester.
Although Jesse’s work as a carpenter helped them financially, Raquel said
it’s his absence as a caregiver and protector that they can’t overcome. Though
she is desperate to stay focused on the future, she can’t stop thinking about
the way she encouraged her husband to go to ICE. “He always used his real
identity, his Social Security card,” Raquel said. “He never hid. That’s why I
figured everything was okay.”*  n
* I­ nterview with Jesse, supra note 96, interview with Raquel (on file with ACLU of Texas).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  41

Delayed and inadequate medical care causes needless suffering
The private companies that run BOP’s immigrant prisons are responsible for providing
medical services. According to the terms of their contracts with the federal government,
private prison operators also absorb the costs of medical care.150 This contractual
scheme creates perverse incentives for private prison administrators to limit costs
by reducing medical staff and withholding treatment in order to maximize profit. We
heard numerous reports of prisoners being denied both urgent treatment and routine
preventive care, with sometimes devastating results.151
Over the course of our investigation,
the ACLU received numerous reports of
medical understaffing and delayed care
at CAR prisons, including some reports
that a single doctor was responsible for
overseeing health services for upwards of
2,000 prisoners.152 Most recently, at least
one document we obtained suggested
that a Licensed Vocational Nurse (LVN)
was making independent medical
diagnoses at Willacy—an act beyond the
proper scope of practice for an LVN.153 Such out-of-scope practice puts patients at risk and
suggests possible understaffing of Registered Nurses and mid-level practitioners.

Some prisoners
reported that a single
doctor was responsible
for overseeing health
services for upwards of
2,000 prisoners.

Our investigation left us gravely concerned about the ability of some CAR prisons to
provide timely care in urgent situations. One prisoner told us about a man who died after
security staff failed to send medical staff into the unit for hours, despite the pleas of
fellow prisoners who watched him slowly deteriorate.154

150  Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 94-98; Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 92-96; Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note
83, at 94-98; Reeves CAR 5 Contract, supra note 83, at 48-52; Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 95-99.
151  See, e.g., interview with Zavier, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Martin, prisoner at
Dalby (May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Gregory, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 21, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
See also Complaint, Galindo v. Reeves County, No. 3:12-cv-00063-DB-NJG (W.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2010).
152  Interview with Aaron, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Jameel, prisoner at Big
Spring (June 27, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Dennis, prisoner at Reeves (May 17, 2011); Interview with Johnny,
prisoner at Reeves (May 17, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Daniel, prisoner at Reeves (May 17, 2011) (on file with
ACLU of Texas); Interview with Arturo, prisoner at Big Spring (May 20, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Emilio, prisoner
at Big Spring (May 20, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas). See also infra text accompanying notes 156-66.
153  See Inmate Request to Staff, filed by Esteban (Apr. 4, 2013) (grievance by prisoner alleged that “Dr. Aguilar” made an incorrect
diagnosis; staff noted on the form that Aguilar is actually an LVN) (on file with ACLU of Texas). See also Texas Board of Nursing, Board
Position Statements § 15.27 (July 2013), available at https://www.bon.texas.gov/practice/pdfs/position.pdf (“LVN scope of practice does
not include acts of medical diagnosis or the prescription of therapeutic or corrective measures.”).
154  See infra text accompanying note 256.

42  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

In another extreme example, Jesus Manuel Galindo died in 2008 after suffering a
grand mal seizure while he was locked away in the SHU at Reeves for a month without
proper medical treatment. As alleged in the lawsuit that the ACLU filed on behalf of Mr.
Galindo’s surviving family members, prison staff knew that Mr. Galindo was epileptic and
placed him in isolation because Reeves did not have an infirmary at that time. “I get sick
here by being locked up all by myself,” Mr. Galindo wrote in a letter to his mother before
he died. “They don’t even know and I am all bruised up. . . . [T]he medical care in here is no
good and I’m scared.”155 Mr. Galindo repeatedly asked the guards to give him his medicine
and remove him from isolation. His pleas were ignored, and on the night of December 12,
2008, Mr. Galindo suffered a grand mal seizure and died unattended in his cell.156
Prisoners with chronic diseases such as diabetes and hepatitis complained their
treatments were inconsistent.157 Prescriptions could take weeks to fill, or they might not
get filled at all.158 We heard stories of prisoners waiting in the infirmary up to eight hours
for scheduled appointments159 and of medical staff taking weeks to respond to requests
for medical assistance.160 We heard about medical staff who reportedly responded to
almost all medical complaints merely by dispensing ibuprofen.161 One prisoner told
us it took two weeks from the time he filled out a medical request to see a nurse.162
Obtaining a referral for specialty off-site care was reportedly slow, difficult, and rare.163
Many Spanish-speaking prisoners told us they could not communicate with medical staff
because the staff only spoke English.164
Other prisoners reported they did not have access to preventive dental care and that
staff responded to dental problems only by performing extractions.165 Federal courts
155  Complaint, Galindo v. Reeves County, No. 3:12-cv-00063-DB-NJG (W.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2010).
156  Id.
157  Interview with Esteban, supra note 61; Interview with Santiago, supra note 72; Interview with Diego, prisoner at Big Spring (May
18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Leo, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview
with Daniel, supra note 152; Interview with Herman, prisoner at Reeves (May 17, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with
Bradley, supra note 96.
158  Interview with Loren, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Aaron, supra note 152;
Interview with Virgil, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Lucien, prisoner at Big Spring
(May 20, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Jonah, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas);
Interview with Nelson, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Herman, supra note 157.
159  Interview with Aurelio, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (reporting waiting eight hours to see a doctor) (on file with ACLU of
Texas); Interview with Cristobal, supra note 148 (reporting waiting five hours to see a doctor).
160  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview with Pablo, supra note 96; Interview with
Bradley, supra note 96; Interview with Lucas, supra note 133.
161  Interview with Rico, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 18, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Benjamin, supra note 147;
Interview with Agustin, supra note 71.
162  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71.
163  Interview with Aaron, supra note 152; Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71.
164  Interview with Pablo, supra note 96; Interview with Valentino, supra note 95; Interview with Johnny, supra note 152; Interview with
Cesar, prisoner at Reeves (May 17, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
165  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72; Interview with Hugh, supra note 93; Interview with Pablo, supra note 96; Interview with Jesse,
supra note 96; Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Samuel, supra note 64; Interview with Charlie, prisoner at Big Spring
(Nov. 20, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Alfonso, supra note 73; Interview with Valentino, supra note 95; Interview with
Camilo, supra note 95; Interview with Ambrosio, supra note 95.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  43

have held that “extraction-only” dental policies of this kind can violate the Eighth
Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.166 Even BOP noted that
the medical care provided in at least one of the CAR prisons was inadequate. When it
came time to renew the agency’s contract at Reeves, BOP officials identified numerous
problems in monitoring reports and specifically noted: “Lack of healthcare has greatly
impacted inmate health and well-being.” The contract was nevertheless renewed.167

Ian’s Story
LIKE ANYONE who walks, climbs, or rides across Latin America to get here,
Ian knew there were dangers to crossing over. One of the most obvious—arrest
for re-entry—snared Ian almost at once, in 2013. But the sentence, 41 months
for what until recently was a civil violation, was more than he might have
imagined.
And it was in no way the
worst threat to befall him.

“I was practically dead.”

In April 2013, Ian began feeling intense abdominal pain, and asked for a doctor.
When the prison physician arrived, he diagnosed constipation and scribbled
out a prescription for laxatives.
But the pain escalated, doubling Ian in two and making it impossible to get out
of bed.
Four days later, when Ian was finally rushed to the hospital, his appendix had
ruptured and his body was burning with a 101.7 degree fever.
“I was practically dead,” Ian said.
And the ordeal wasn’t over. Surgeons removed six inches of Ian’s lower
intestine and scoured the rest of his intestines to clear contaminants spread
by the rupture. Ian then spent twelve days in a Lubbock, Texas hospital before
being raced to Brownsville, Texas for twenty days of intensive antibiotic
166  See Dean v. Coughlin, 623 F. Supp. 392, 404 (S.D.N.Y. 1985) (holding that denying inmates access to dentist for treatment and
diagnosis violates Eighth Amendment); Chance v. Armstrong, 143 F.3d 698, 703-04 (2d Cir. 1998) (holding that prisoner adequately
alleged dentist violated Eighth Amendment by deciding, for financial reasons, to extract teeth that could have been saved); Heitman v.
Gabriel, 524 F. Supp. 622, 627 (W.D. Mo. 1981) (“While it is by no means unprecedented for an old-fashioned prison regime to offer tooth
extraction as the only dental care, no case has been found where such a limitation has been deemed judicially tolerable.”) (citations and
quotations omitted).
167  See infra notes 200-205 and accompanying text.

44  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

therapy. The extreme treatment saved his life. But Ian today is physically
broken. His wounds haven’t healed. He is in pain. He cannot stay seated or lift
objects or eat anything but bland food.
And while he has filed a case in the federal court, there is no sign that his sentence
might be altered. Ian now faces the possibility of deportation to Guatemala.
In Glenwood, Colorado, Ian’s wife Charlotte has been left impoverished—and
even more frightened about the future.
It’s just the two of them there in Colorado, Charlotte explained in Spanish. She,
too, came here from a village in Guatemala, to earn money for her family back
home. Now, as a hotel maid, she regularly sends a portion of her earnings to
her father and mother.
“It’s hard, it’s hard,” Charlotte said. “I’m so sad. I don’t speak English, and
he helped me because he does speak English. When you go to work, fill out
applications, go to a store—all these things, he helped me in everything. He
was so good to me. He never raised a hand; never raised his voice.”
Charlotte can’t possibly visit her husband in Texas. It’s too far and too
expensive. But if she doesn’t see him now, she may not see him again ever. If
Ian is deported, then she’ll have to stay here.
“What are we going to live on?” Charlotte asked rhetorically. “There isn’t work
in Guatemala. I have to stay here, to support him. People don’t understand: he
can’t work in Guatemala.”
Already, their small savings and dreams are gone. Last year Charlotte had to
sell the house they had bought together. In addition to supporting her parents,
she now sends what money she can to her husband. “I only send him a little, so
he can buy little things to eat,” she said.	
But that small supplement is critical: though he must eat a special diet, the
prison continues to give Ian highly spiced, jalapeño-laced meals, he said. A
large part of Ian’s sustenance, as a result, comes from what he can afford at the
commissary with his wife’s earnings.
“His stomach is open!” Charlotte said. “He has suffered a lot. If they hadn’t
mistreated him, nothing would have happened: they wouldn’t have had to
operate on his stomach. And then he stayed sick. He can’t return to his country
to work.”*  n
* Interview with Ian, prisoner at Dalby, interview with Charlotte (on file with ACLU of Texas).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  45

Excluding non-citizen prisoners from family contact policies
punishes them and their U.S.-based families alike
There is an overwhelming sense of despair at the CAR prisons we visited. Many of the
men feel forgotten. They are far from family. They have little access to legal services.
They feel like commodities exploited by the private prison companies that confine them.
“You lose your memory in this place,” one prisoner told us. “You keep counting days until
you give up hope.”168
Although it is ordinarily BOP policy to assign prisoners to a facility within 500 miles
of their homes,169 BOP denies non-citizens such consideration because the agency
assumes that they will be deported after completing their sentences.170 Instead, BOP
transfers immigrant prisoners from all across the country to be housed in CAR prisons.
Making matters worse, BOP specifically excludes these non-citizens from policies that
permit prisoners to transfer to facilities closer to their families if they maintain good
behavior.

Families torn apart
ADAN’S ties to the United States are deep. He came to the U.S. with his family
when he was a baby and has lived in Reno, Nevada, his entire life. His parents,
siblings, and five young children still live there.
“I miss conversations with my mom and grandmother, the relationship with my
dad, walks in the park, the small stuff,” he told us. “Come in here and live our
life for a month. You learn to cherish the little things.”
Adan, 26 years old at the time we interviewed him, was sentenced to two years
for drug and weapons charges. When his sentence at Willacy is finished he will
be deported to Mexico, a country he does not even remember.

168  Interview with Alfonso, supra note 73.
169  See Federal Bureau of Prisons, supra note 12, ch. 5, at 3. See also Housing D.C. Felons Far Away From Home: Effects on Crime,
Recidivism and Reentry: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Federal Workforce, Postal Serv. and the Dist. of Columbia of the H. Comm. on
Gov’t Reform and Oversight, 111th Cong. 22 (2010) (statement of Harley G. Lappin, Director, Bureau of Prisons) [hereinafter Housing D.C.
Felons Hearing], available at http://www.justice.gov/ola/testimony/111-2/05-05-10-lappin-housing-felons-away-from-home.pdf.
170  Federal Bureau of Prisons, supra note 12, ch. 5, at 9 (defining a “deportable alien” as an “inmate who is not a citizen of the United
States,” except if ICE or EOIR has determined that the person’s deportation is unwarranted or has completed deportation proceedings
with a decision not to deport).

46  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Adan’s Family Home
Reno, Nevada

1,985 MILES
$350+ GAS
$500 LODGING

Willacy County Correctional Center
Raymondville, Texas

“I have no family in Mexico that I know of,” he said somberly.
Adan misses his family tremendously. BOP generally tries to place U.S. citizen
prisoners within 500 miles of their homes, and those who end up further away
can request a transfer as a reward for good behavior. But non-citizen prisoners
like Adan receive no such consideration. Adan’s family is nearly 2,000 miles away,
in Reno. He talks to them as often as he can on the phone and anxiously awaits
their letters, though it takes on average twelve days for mail to arrive. They have
only been able to visit once. “My daughter did not recognize me,” he said.171

The remoteness of the Texas CAR prisons imposes a heavy burden on families. It is
extremely costly, often financially impossible for families to travel the long distances
required to visit their loved ones. The ACLU spoke to many individuals imprisoned in
Texas who identify New York, Florida, or California as their home states. Several told
us they have not been able to see their families since BOP transferred them to CAR
prisons.172

171  Interview with Adan, supra note 134.
172  Interview with Samuel, supra note 64; Interview with Andrew, supra note 122; Interview with Liam, supra note 133; Interview with
Theodore, supra note 115.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  47

Families traveling from out of state must drive long distances to visit, or find the money
to buy airline tickets and rent a car. In either case, they have to pay for accommodations.
There are few resources for families visiting these prisons, and facility-specific visiting
restrictions make the process even more difficult.
Tara and her two sons were turned away at Eden after they drove nineteen hours to visit
her husband, because her teenage son was wearing shorts—a violation of prison dress
code. Because she could not find any open stores in the small town of Eden where she
could purchase long pants for her son, Tara had to drive for hours more before she was
able to provide her son with clothes that would allow him to see his father. 173
When Luis tried to coordinate a long weekend for his wife and two young children to fly
from California to Texas to visit him at Big Spring, prison staff denied him the visitation
time, telling him that they did not have enough staff to supervise the visit.174 Under BOP
procedures, families traveling from out of state can be permitted additional visiting
times, but Big Spring would not provide such accommodation for Luis’s family.175 It is
hard, Luis told us, because his children want to spend time with him. But because his
whole family lives in California, they cannot visit.176
Because the prisoners are often far from their families, they rely on telephone and mail
to stay in touch. Yet even this limited contact is difficult to maintain. Telephone rates in
BOP-operated prisons are set according to a standardized per-minute flat rate.177 But at
CAR prisons, each institution can charge what it wants.178 At Big Spring, for example, a
prisoner told us it costs up to three dollars for an eight-minute domestic phone call.179 It
costs one dollar per minute to Mexico.180 Since the few prisoners who are able to secure
jobs typically make around twelve cents an hour, many of them can afford to call home
only rarely.
Other forms of communication are equally problematic. Although regulated email is
allowed in BOP-operated prisons, email is completely prohibited in four of the five CAR
173  Interview with Tara, wife of Nelson, a prisoner at Eden (June 28, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
174  Interview with Luis, supra note 60.
175  See 28 C.F.R. § 540.42 (2012) (“Each Warden shall establish a visiting schedule for the institution. At a minimum, the Warden shall
establish visiting hours at the institution on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. The restriction of visiting to these days may be a hardship
for some families and arrangements for other suitable hours shall be made to the extent practicable.”) (emphasis added); 28 C.F.R. § 540.43
(2012) (“The Warden may limit the length or frequency of visits only to avoid chronic overcrowding. . . . Exceptions may be made to any
local guideline when indicated by special circumstances, such as distance the visitor must travel.”) (emphasis added).
176  Interview with Luis, supra note 60.
177  U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-11-893, Bureau of Prisons: Improved Evaluations and Increased Coordination Could Improve Cell
Phone Detection 8 (Sept. 2011), available at http://www.gao.gov/assets/330/322805.pdf.
178  Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 100-01; Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 98-99; Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note
83, at 100-01; Reeves CAR 5 Contract, supra note 83, at 54-55; Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 101-02.
179  Interview with Nathaniel, prisoner at Big Spring (Nov. 20, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
180  Id.

48  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

facilities we visited.181 Mailed letters take a long time to arrive and are subject to review
and censorship by the guards. One Willacy prisoner told us that when he tried to write
a letter to his aunt describing the conditions in the prison, it was returned to him with a
note saying that it would not be sent because he was not allowed to complain about the
prison in his letters.182
Many of the prisoners we spoke to
were worried about their children,
most of whom are U.S. citizens,
growing up without them. Liam was
incarcerated when his son was just
two months old and worries that his
son is forgetting him. “It’s been a year
since I’ve seen him and he doesn’t
want to talk when I call,” he told us.183
Gonzalo told us about missing his four
children (ages six, ten, fifteen, and
seventeen years old) who are growing
up in Los Angeles without him. He
is serving a 63-month sentence for
reentry because he returned to see his children after the last time he was deported.184
He has lived in the United States since he was five years old, considers Mexico a “whole
different world” that is unfamiliar to him, and wants to get back to his children. “Can
someone judge you for trying to come back to what you know? I’d rather try to do
something for my kids here than drag them to Mexico,” he said.185 We heard story after
story like Gonzalo’s and Liam’s: men who miss their children deeply; men who are
serving time for trying to come back and see their kids; men who are locked up so far
away it is nearly impossible for their families to visit.

Tara and her two sons
were turned away at
Eden after they drove
nineteen hours to visit
her husband, because her
teenage son was wearing
shorts—a violation of
prison dress code.

The prisoners are not the only ones affected. Studies show that children of prisoners
experience symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder and suffer from
depression, anxiety, and withdrawal.186 These symptoms can manifest as aggression,
loss of self-esteem, poor performance in school, and disobedience.187 Studies have also
181  Stay in Touch, Federal Bureau of Prisons, http://www.bop.gov/inmates/communications.jsp#email (last visited Feb. 2, 2013). The
lone exception is Big Spring, which allows email through the standard BOP system.
182  Interview with Adan, supra note 134.
183  Interview with Liam, supra note 133.
184  Interview with Gonzalo, supra note 85.
185  Id.
186  Creasie Finney Hairston, Focus on Children with Incarcerated Parents: An Overview of the Research Literature, 18-20 (Oct.
2007), available at http://www.aecf.org/~/media/Pubs/Topics/Special%20Interest%20Areas/Incarceration%20and%20Reentry/
FocusonChildrenwithIncarceratedParentsAnOverv/HAIRSTON.pdf (last visited Jan. 30, 2014).
187  Id.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  49

found “evidence that maintaining contact with one’s incarcerated parent improves a
child’s emotional response to the incarceration.”188 Warehousing immigrant prisoners in
remote facilities rips apart families and ensures that their children will grow up without
regular contact with their fathers.

Leah’s Story
LEAH AND HER HUSBAND ADALID lived together with their three sons in
Boston for twelve years.189 Although Leah is an American citizen, they were
unable to secure legal status for Adalid, and he was deported and later
arrested while crossing the border in an attempt to rejoin his family.190

2,055 MILES
$370+ GAS
$500 LODGING

Leah’s Family Home
Boston, Massachusetts

Eden Detention Center
Eden, Texas

After Adalid was convicted of illegal reentry, he was sent to serve a two-year
sentence in Eden, Texas, more than 2,000 miles away from his wife and

188  Annie E. Casey Foundation, Children of Incarcerated Parents Fact Sheet 1, available at www.fcnetwork.org/AECFChildren%20of%20
Incarcerated%20Parents%20Factsheet.pdf.
189  Kevin Cullen, Wife Fights to Save Husband From Deportation, WBZ.com, Apr. 2, 2009, http://raidreport.blogspot.com/2009/04/wifefights-to-save-husband-from.html.
190  Andrea Grimes, When Operation Streamline Deters: One Immigrant’s Story, Dallas Observer, Oct. 21, 2010, http://www.
dallasobserver.com/2010-10-21/news/when-operation-streamline-deters-one-immigrants-story/full/.

50  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

children in Boston.191 Phone calls are prohibitively expensive, and the boys rely
primarily on letters to stay in touch with their father.192
Leah described the effect that this long-distance separation has had on her
children. The couple’s oldest child attempted suicide, and the six-year-old boy
has developed a habit of hiding his mother’s shoes, hoping that will prevent
her from leaving like his father did.193
She reflected: “I am especially dismayed at the way our own ‘American Citizen’
children are being mistreated by their own government by having one or both
of their parents taken away. It is a suffering that no child should ever have to
endure.”194  n

Andrew’s story
Andrew has deep ties to the United States. His son Ray is a U.S. citizen serving
in the Coast Guard. His fiancée Maria lives in Atlanta. He has nieces and
nephews in New York. But Andrew is in Reeves County Detention Center, in
West Texas far away from everyone he knows and loves.
“It’s real hard, day in and day out, with the family situation. Being so far from
them,” he said. “Especially for a guy like me. I’ve been in here for so long.”
Andrew has been in prison for
22 years on drug charges. He is
originally from Jamaica but calls
the United States his home. He
has served time in several state
and federal prisons, finally being
transferred to Reeves in April 2013
because he is not a U.S. citizen.
191 
192 
193 
194 

“It’s real hard, day in
and day out, with the
family situation. Being
so far from them.”

Id.
Interview with Adalid, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2009) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
Grimes, supra note 190.
Email from Leah to ACLU of Texas (July 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  51

Andrew was incarcerated for nearly all of Ray’s childhood and had not seen
his son for many years. But Andrew rekindled the relationship when he was
in an Atlanta prison in 2008 and his son was attending college in the same
city. “I cried,” Andrew said of the first time Ray was able to visit him after
their nineteen-year separation. “Tears come out my eyes.” Ray visited him
frequently. Sometimes, Andrew remembered, he would arrive unexpectedly
and say to Andrew: “I just wanted to see you, I was driving down the street.”
But since Andrew has been at Reeves, there have been no visits from Ray. His
fiancée Maria tries to visit, but since it costs her around $900 per visit she is
not able to come often.
Andrew’s sentence is up in 2016. Until then, he thinks it unfair that he is so
far away from his family just because he is a non-citizen. He questioned the
system that has again ripped apart his family: “Why you got to play with life
over money?”195  n

CAR prisons operate in the shadows

T

he truth about what happens behind the walls of these private prisons often stays
hidden. BOP subjects CAR prisons to insufficient oversight and accountability and
exempts CAR prisons from many of the policies, rules, and regulations intended to
set baselines of safe and humane treatment in federal prisons. Meanwhile, external
oversight and accountability is frustrated by the isolation of prisoners from attorneys
and legal services. BOP even assists private prison companies in efforts to block BOP’s
own records from public disclosure. BOP’s shadow system of private prisons remains
largely exempt from public scrutiny—and the public interest suffers along with the
prisoners inside.

BOP fails to subject CAR prisons to adequate oversight and
accountability
BOP does not impose sufficient oversight and accountability at CAR prisons, leaving

195  Interview with Andrew, supra note 122.

52  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

the private prison companies in a position of dangerous impunity. Although BOP does
evaluate conditions in its own federal prisons, it does not collect the data from private
prisons that would permit the agency to conduct a direct quality-of-service comparison
with its own facilities. BOP’s stated reason? “[C]ollecting additional facility characteristic
and quality-of-service data could add cost to contracts.”196
BOP has issued hundreds of “program statements” that regulate the operations of its
prisons.197 These program statements provide a consistent standard for prison operation
on issues relating to prisoner care, staffing, and facility administration. CAR prisons,
however, are governed by the terms of their contracts, which specify which program
statements apply to them. Each of the CAR contracts we reviewed requires the facility to
abide by only about 40 program statements, leaving out important BOP policies relating
to prisoner grievances, staff hiring and training (including the number of staff required),
rated capacity, telephone rates, recreational and educational programming, and attorney
visits.198
Notably, the contracts require compliance with several program statements related to
medical care, but are silent on the issue of medical co-pays, leaving each private CAR
prison free to develop its own co-pay policy. The contracts also require compliance with
the program statements related to prisoner discipline and use of the SHU, but are silent
on how private CAR prisons can use SHU upon intake. It is perhaps unsurprising, then,
that the ACLU received complaints about both of these issues.199
BOP does conduct monitoring visits of the CAR facilities to determine compliance with
its contracts and issues reports that identify areas of non-compliance. However, the
information that BOP collects through its contract monitoring process rarely, if ever,
leads to contract cancellations, even in egregious circumstances. Documents obtained
through a multi-year FOIA lawsuit filed by pro bono attorney Stephen Raher provide an
alarming window into this process: over a period of years, monitoring reports found
serious problems at Reeves, including improper treatment of HIV patients, untimely
medical examinations, failure to maintain the safety of the SHU, and unsanitary kitchen

196  U.S. Gov’t Accountability Office, GAO-08-6, supra note 10, at 5 (reporting assertions made to GAO by BOP).
197  Policy and Forms, Federal Bureau of Prisons, http://www.bop.gov/resources/policy_and_forms.jsp (last visited Feb. 20, 2014).
198  Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83; Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83; Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83; Reeves CAR 5
Contract, supra note 83; Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83.
199  See supra notes 93-97 and accompanying text (complaints from prisoners that they were put in SHU upon arrival); infra note 470
and accompanying text.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  53

conditions.200 In late 2010, when BOP was considering whether to exercise its option to
renew the Reeves contract, a BOP official compiled a list of “pros and cons.”201
BOP’s “pros” for renewing
centered on the idea
that continuing the
contract would require
less acquisition work and
disruption for the agency,
as well as a feeling that
Reeves’ physical plant and
per-prisoner prices were
satisfactory.202 But the fifteen
“cons” included such items as “Contractor did not fulfil [sic] contract terms from [2006]
award until Oct. 2010”; “Contractor is unable to successfully achieve their own plans
of action to correct deficient areas”; “Lack of healthcare has greatly impacted inmate
health and wellbeing”; and “Contractor shows little sign of improvement.”203 The “cons”
list also cited the 14 repeat deficiencies, 161 deficiencies, and 57 notices of concern that
BOP had found during the contract and the occurrence of a “major disturbance” (i.e., an
uprising) that had been in part precipitated by staffing and medical care issues.204

The information that BOP
collects through its contract
monitoring processes rarely,
if ever, leads to contract
cancellations.

Despite these serious problems, BOP chose to renew its contract with GEO Group. In a
subsequent email to Justice Management Division officials (a branch of the Department
of Justice that oversees organization, management, and administration issues), BOP
officials explained that the agency had chosen to exercise all of its current contract
options with private prisons because not doing so would cost BOP additional time and
money and would cause BOP to lose its “credibility as a solid customer” with the private

200  BOP Contract Facility Monitoring Report for Reeves County Detention Center I & II (Jan. 27-30, 2009) (obtained through FOIA
and on file with ACLU of Texas); BOP Response and Closure Report of Reeves County Detention Center I & II (Feb. 11, 2008) (obtained
through FOIA and on file with ACLU of Texas); BOP Contract Facility Monitoring Report for Reeves County Detention Center I & II (July
13-14, 2010) (obtained through Freedom of Information Act and on file with ACLU of Texas); BOP Contract Facility Monitoring Report
for Reeves County Detention Center I & II (Dec. 7-9, 2010) (obtained through FOIA and on file with ACLU of Texas); BOP Contract Facility
Monitoring Report for Reeves County Detention Center I & II (Jan. 26-29, 2010) (obtained through FOIA and on file with ACLU of Texas);
BOP Response and Closure Report of Reeves County Detention Center III (Feb. 12, 2008) (obtained through FOIA and on file with ACLU of
Texas).
201  Email from Matthew D. Nace, Chief, Federal Bureau of Prisons Acquisition Branch, to Darlene Ely, Procurement Executive,
Federal Bureau of Prisons (Dec. 17, 2010) (obtained through FOIA and on file with ACLU of Texas).
202  Id. Specifically, the email identified as “pros” the following: “No solicitation needed for new services”; “No additional burden on
BOP inmate pipeline”; “No additional bedspace needed”; “Renovated facility”; and “Reasonable per diem.”
203  Id.
204  Id.

54  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

prison companies.205 Without a realistic threat of contract cancellation, there is little
incentive for the private prison companies to comply with BOP standards.
In addition to failing to cancel contracts in response to underperformance, BOP policies
turn a blind eye to prisoner grievances from these private prisons. As Lucien, a prisoner
at Big Spring, put it: “Washington—[they] don’t want to be a part of this.”206
For BOP-run facilities, BOP oversees operations through regional offices that work
closely with facility-level staff. In turn, the central office of the BOP oversees the regional
offices. Through a uniform administrative remedy system, a prisoner in a BOP facility
can appeal a grievance denied at the facility level to the regional and central offices.207
In contrast, CAR prisons apparently lack uniform policies governing how prisoners
must submit grievances, and we heard from prisoners that some staff refuse to accept
grievance forms in Spanish or that the prisoners are questioned as to why they want a
grievance form.208 Moreover, if a prisoner is dissatisfied with how the warden of a CAR
prison responds to his grievance, he usually has no recourse; the prisoner cannot appeal
to BOP’s regional or central offices, and he may bring his concern to the attention of
BOP (through its Privatization Management Branch in Washington) only if it falls within a
narrow range of issues relating to designation, classification, or sentence computation,
or issues involving federal BOP staff or the taking of prisoner property.209 For example,
the Dalby Admission & Orientation Booklet specifically states that “medical issues
involving the day-to-day operations of the medical department” are not appealable,
so prisoners have no remedy beyond the four walls of the prison for appealing any
complaints about the medical care they receive.210 Such policies of willful blindness
leave private prison employees, not government officials, as the final arbiters of most
prisoner grievances involving abuse, misconduct, and neglect.

205  Email from Carol J. Durkee, Chief, Budget Execution Branch-Federal Prison System, U.S. Dep’t of Justice, to Rachel Johnson,
Justice Management Division, U.S. Dep’t of Justice (Mar. 17, 2011) (obtained through FOIA and on file with ACLU of Texas).
206  Interview with Lucien, supra note 158.
207  Federal Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 1330.18, Administrative Remedy Program 1, 7 (Jan. 6, 2014), available at http://www.bop.
gov/policy/progstat/1330_018.pdf.
208  Interview with Carl, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 19, 2013) (stating that guards always ask why prisoners want grievance forms) (on
file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Henry, supra note 73 (stating that grievance forms in Spanish are ignored). See also GEO Group,
Reeves County Detention Center Handbook [hereinafter Reeves Handbook] 22 (2011) (requiring all grievance forms to be submitted in
English).
209  Corrections Corporation of America, Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility Admission & Orientation Booklet [hereinafter Dalby Booklet]
8 (2011); Corrections Corporation of America, Eden Detention Center Inmate Handbook [hereinafter Eden Handbook] 45- 47 (2009); Cornell
Companies, Big Spring Correctional Center Inmate Handbook 6-7 (2010); Reeves Handbook, supra note 208, at 20-22.
210  Dalby Booklet, supra note 209.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  55

Isolation from attorneys, legal services, and advocacy
organizations impedes external reform efforts
Geographic isolation, unnecessary barriers to access by attorneys and advocacy
organizations, and legal barriers to accountability combine to make the CAR prisons we
examined unusually resistant to external pressure for reform.

The barriers to access
at these BOP contract
facilities contrast
starkly with the policies
that Immigration and
Customs Enforcement
maintains at its contract
detention facilities.

Even without active interference from
prison administrators, the immigrants in
Texas CAR prisons face major barriers
to accessing legal assistance. Few have
ongoing relationships with criminal
defense or immigration attorneys, and
those prosecuted in fast-track legal
proceedings often never got the chance
to develop such a relationship in the first
place.211 For those who are lucky enough
to be represented by a lawyer, the remote
location of the Texas facilities makes it
difficult for attorneys to visit their clients.

The paucity of legal resources in the communities where the prisons are located
exacerbates this legal isolation. The ACLU was able to identify few pro bono attorneys
based near the five private prisons we visited. Indeed, the areas where these prisons
are located suffer from a lack of private counsel for immigration cases, civil cases,
or criminal appeals.212 If such resources existed, attorneys who represent prisoners
on their immigration or criminal cases might step in to advocate for their rights. But
without access to any attorneys, it is nearly impossible for a prisoner to challenge
inadequate medical care, abuse of solitary confinement, or staff harassment.
Even if a prisoner is lucky enough to have an attorney, two decisions from the U.S.
Supreme Court create significant deterrents for a lawyer who is considering filing a
case challenging constitutional violations in one of BOP’s private prisons. The first is
Correctional Services Corp. v. Malesko, a 2001 case holding that a private prison company
is not liable for violations of constitutional rights, on the theory that allowing such a suit

211  See supra text accompanying notes 41-57.
212  The State Bar of Texas website lists no immigration attorneys near any of the five prisons and only five criminal attorneys near
Big Spring and four criminal attorneys near Willacy. No criminal attorneys were located near any other prisons. See Find a Lawyer,
State Bar of Texas, http://www.texasbar.com/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Find_A_Lawyer&Template=/CustomSource/MemberDirectory/
Search_Form_Client_Main.cfm (last visited Mar. 4, 2014).

56  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

would not advance the “core purpose of deterring individual officers from engaging in
unconstitutional wrongdoing.”213 The second is Minneci v. Pollard, a 2012 case holding
that an individual private prison officer is not liable for violations of constitutional
rights, on the theory that there was no need for a constitutional cause of action because
state tort law offered sufficient remedies.214 Although the two cases have been harshly
criticized,215 they will remain in force unless reversed or legislatively overturned.
Perhaps emboldened by this combination of physical isolation and legal impunity, some
CAR prison administrators took surprising steps to interfere with the ACLU’s efforts to
speak with prisoners who had asked to meet with us. Big Spring canceled a scheduled
visit on short notice, after the legal team had already traveled to the town where the
facility is located. When pressed for a justification, the assistant to the warden explained
that he was displeased with the tone of our correspondence—he claimed we had
“demanded” access rather than “requesting” it.216 Our lawyers were permitted to visit
only after mollifying him. At Eden, the warden denied our request for attorney visitation
with a curt letter demanding we explain why our meetings with prisoners “might
be appropriate” and asserting: “The BOP Program Statements [regarding attorney
visitation] which you have now cited do not apply at this facility.”217 It took nearly two
months of letters to the warden, including a three-page letter we copied to the Director
of BOP and other BOP officials, to arrange confidential interviews with the numerous
men who had requested to meet with us at Eden.218
The barriers to access at these BOP contract facilities contrast starkly with the policies
that Immigration and Customs Enforcement maintains at its contract detention
facilities—including facilities operated by the same private prison companies that run
BOP’s CAR prisons. ICE policy not only allows confidential attorney visits, but also
permits nongovernmental organizations to interview detainees and tour detention

213  Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 74 (2001). As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a prescient dissent, “a tragic
consequence of [this] decision is the clear incentive it gives to corporate managers of privately operated custodial institutions to adopt
cost-saving policies that jeopardize the constitutional rights of the tens of thousands of inmates in their custody.” Id. at 81 (Stevens, J.,
dissenting).
214  Minneci v. Pollard, 132 S. Ct. 617, 625-26 (2012).
215  See, e.g., Maunica Sthanki, Deconstructing Detention: Structural Impunity and the Need for an Intervention, 65 Rutgers L. Rev. 447
(2013); Allison L. Waks, Note, Federal Incarceration By Contract in a Post-Minneci World: Legislation to Equalize the Constitutional Rights
of Prisoners, 46 U. Mich. J. L. Reform 1065 (2013); Geoffrey Segal, Supreme Court Rules on Private Prison Liability, Inmates at Private and
Government-run Prisons Should Have Same Rights, Reason Foundation (Jan. 7, 2002), http://reason.org/news/show/supreme-court-ruleson-private (last visited Feb. 7, 2014).
216  Telephone conversation between Michael Harding, Executive Assistant to the Warden, Big Spring Correctional Center, and
Rebecca L. Robertson, Legal & Policy Director, ACLU of Texas (Nov. 19, 2013).
217  Letter from Keith E. Hall, Warden, Eden Detention Center, to Rebecca L. Robertson, Legal & Policy Director, ACLU of Texas (Nov.
1, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
218  Letter from Rebecca L. Robertson, Legal & Policy Director, ACLU of Texas, to Keith E. Hall, Warden, Eden Detention Center (Nov.
26, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  57

facilities.219 While ICE’s own record of problems shows that more liberal access policies
do not guarantee acceptable conditions of confinement, they do make it harder for
private prison employees to hide abuse in the shadows by impeding the access of
attorneys and nongovernmental organizations. We see no reason why BOP cannot
require its private prison contractors to adhere to the same access policies that ICE
requires of its contractors.

BOP assists private prison companies’ efforts to block
transparency
Federal agencies are required to disclose their records to the public under the Freedom
of Information Act.220 Similarly, Texas state and municipal agencies are required to
make their records public under the Texas Public Information Act.221 And although
courts in Texas and some other states have found public records laws to cover private
prisons,222 the federal FOIA has not been found to apply to records in the possession of
the corporations that run the CAR prisons. As journalist and policy analyst Tom Barry
stated in a congressional briefing: “Requests for the most basic information about the
functioning of these prisons and detention centers routinely lead nowhere.”223
This keeps much of what happens in CAR prisons
hidden from the public. And the private prison
industry has fought to ensure that does not
change. According to one review of lobbying
reports, CCA has spent about $7 million since
2007 successfully lobbying against legislation
that would have subjected its prisons to the same
federal open records obligations as BOP-operated
prisons.224

It is even
difficult to obtain
information about
private prisons
from BOP itself.

219  See Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Stakeholder Procedures for Requesting a Detention Facility Tour and/or Visitation, supra note
13; Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Performance-Based National Detention Standards, supra note 13, §§ 5.7, 7.2.
220  5 U.S.C. § 552 (2011).
221  See generally Tex. Gov’t Code Ann. § 552 (West 2011).
222  See Prison Legal News v. Corr. Corp. of Am., No. D-1-GN-13-001445 (Dist. Ct., 353rd Judicial Dist., Travis Cty, Tex. Mar. 19, 2014)
(finding CCA is a “governmental body” under the Texas Public Information Act and therefore subject to the Act’s obligations to disclose
public information); Friedmann v. Corrections Corp. of Am., No. M2012-00212-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 28, 2013) (ordering CCA
to produce records under Tennessee public records laws); Prison Legal News v. Corrections Corp. of Am., No. 332-5-13 (Vt. Sup. Ct. Jan.
10, 2014) (ordering CCA to produce records under Vermont public records laws).
223  Tom Barry, Policy Briefing: The Shadow Prison Industry and Its Government Enablers 3 (2010), available at http://www.ciponline.org/
images/uploads/publications/Barry_The_Shadow_Prison_Industry_01-10.pdf.
224  Grassroots Leadership, The Dirty Thirty: Nothing to Celebrate About 30 Years of Corrections Corporation of America 26 (2013), available at
http://grassrootsleadership.org/sites/default/files/uploads/GRL_Dirty_Thirty_formatted_for_web.pdf.

58  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

It is even difficult to obtain information about private prisons from BOP itself. The
ACLU filed FOIA requests with BOP in April 2011 and again in February 2013 to obtain
information about its CAR contracts—but as of the date of this report, BOP has not
released any documents to us.225 Additionally, BOP fought vigorously to shield its own
records from the public in pro bono attorney Stephen Raher’s multi-year FOIA litigation
regarding BOP’s Reeves contracting documents.
In Raher’s litigation, BOP argued that the amounts it paid to GEO Group under
the Reeves contract should be withheld because they purportedly fell within FOIA
Exemption 4, the “trade secrets” exemption to FOIA.226 In a curious logical inversion,
BOP officials also argued that some documents could not be made public under FOIA
because they had already been publicly released in the past.227 It is disturbing that the
objections BOP advanced seem to have originated with the private prison companies
rather than resulting from BOP’s independent judgment. In rejecting the “trade secret”
withholdings, the court noted: “For whatever reason, BOP apparently relied on . . . CCA
and GEO Group . . . to supply reasons for withholding information under Exemption 4 and
never thoughtfully re-examined its position in response to the evidence and arguments
made by Raher.”228
Raher said of the litigation: “The Bureau of Prisons invited this lawsuit by refusing to
release any meaningful information that would shed light on its secretive immigrant
prisons. Over time, the BOP conceded that it did not have a legal basis for withholding
much of the information, yet obtaining these documents still required hundreds of hours
of my time and tens of thousands of dollars. Most citizens cannot realistically spend
resources like this to vindicate their FOIA rights, thus showing that transparency in the
federal government is too often illusory.”229
Raher’s experience is hardly unique. In 2000, for example, criminal justice policy analyst
Judith Greene submitted a FOIA request to BOP seeking information about how CCA,
which had recently obtained a BOP contract in California, could acquire the legal power
to operate a private prison on behalf of BOP, including the power to use deadly force,
in California—a state that had not enacted legislation conferring such authority on

225  Letter from Lisa Graybill, Legal Director, ACLU of Texas, to Office of General Counsel, Federal Bureau of Prisons (Apr. 2011)
(requesting contracts under FOIA); Letter from Wilson J. Moorer, Senior Paralegal Specialist, Federal Bureau of Prisons, to Lisa
Graybill, Legal Director, ACLU of Texas (Feb. 1, 2013) (stating that the BOP does not have a record of the original request); Letter
from Adriana Piñon, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU of Texas, to Office of General Counsel, Federal Bureau of Prisons (Feb. 11, 2013)
(resubmitting original FOIA request). As of the date of this report, the ACLU of Texas has not received a response to this last letter.
226  Raher v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, No. 09-CV-536-ST, 2013 WL 26205 at *2 (D. Or. Jan. 2, 2013).
227  Email from Stephen Raher, FOIA Litigant, to Samantha Fredrickson, Contract Attorney, ACLU of Texas (Jan. 3, 2014).
228  Raher, 2013 WL 26205 at *3.	
229  Email from Stephen Raher, supra note 227.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  59

private corporations. After several months, BOP notified Greene that it had withheld the
information she sought because the company deemed it a trade secret.230
The private prison companies also fight the release of government-held information
under state public records laws. When the ACLU requested policy statements relating
to the use of segregated housing units and medical care at the Reeves County Detention
Center through a Texas Public Information Act request, Reeves County and its corporate
subcontractors—GEO Group and Physicians Network Association, a for-profit company
contracted to provide medical service—argued that those documents should be exempt
from state open records requirements because they are “trade secrets.” When the Texas
Attorney General found that their arguments had no merit under Texas law, Reeves
County sued in state court to contest the Attorney General’s ruling and to prevent the
release of those policies.231
This secrecy needs to end. As long as the CAR prisons are providing services that the
government would otherwise provide itself, they should be subject to the same open
records laws as BOP’s own prisons—and BOP should stop wasting taxpayer money by
litigating to withhold basic information about private prisons as “trade secrets.”

Conclusion

O

verall, our multi-year investigation revealed that while the CAR prisons enrich the
private prison industry, they impose serious costs in health and human dignity.
Prisoner after prisoner described how BOP’s decisions to incentivize overcrowding and
abuse of extreme isolation, turn a blind eye to inadequate medical care and other forms
of neglect, and deny rehabilitative programming have created dangerous, squalid, and
tense conditions in these private prisons. And despite multiple protests and uprisings,
little seems to change.
Prisoners reportedly sleep in hallways and repurposed recreation rooms, their bunk
beds often only a few feet apart. Isolation units are reportedly kept so full that some
people must sleep on the floor of a small cell they share with two strangers for 23 hours

230  Judith A. Greene, Congressional Briefing: Expanding Freedom of Information Act Accountability to All Federal Prisons and Detention
Facilities (2010), available at http://www.privateci.org/private_pics/JG%20Briefing%20Statement%201-25-10.doc.
231  See Tex. Att’y Gen. OR2011-01613 (noting that Reeves County, GEO, and PNA submitted objections to open records requests and
rejecting argument that documents constituted trade secrets), available at https://www.oag.state.tx.us/opinions/openrecords/50abbott/
orl/2011/htm/or201101613.htm; Petition, Reeves County v. Greg Abbott, No. D-1-GN-11-000434 (Dist. Ct., 353rd Judicial Dist., Travis
Cty., Tex. Feb. 11, 2011) (challenging attorney general’s conclusions) (on file with ACLU of Texas).

60  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

per day. BOP encourages this abuse through a combination of arbitrary SHU quotas and
contractual incentives for overcrowding each prison as a whole.
Putting profit before people seems to touch every facet of life at CAR prisons. From
alarming lapses in chronic care to terrifying denials of emergency care, we received
many reports that medical care—if it was delivered at all—was delivered slowly, cheaply,
and poorly. Little money appears to be put into education and rehabilitative programs,
both of which are proven to create safer environments in prisons and help prisoners
reenter society.
Meanwhile, life in CAR prisons remains in the shadows. Prisoners are warehoused in
facilities located in remote and barren parts of Texas, far from their families who live
all over the United States and often cannot afford the long journey to visit. Few have
relationships with attorneys who can advocate for them. And since these private prisons
often evade the reach of state and federal open records laws, much of what happens
behind these walls has gone unseen and unheard by the public until this report.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  61

FACILITY–SPECIFIC FINDINGS

Reeves County Detention Center
Pecos, Texas

n  The “residents” of Reeves County Detention Center make up almost half of the
population of Pecos, Texas.

A

prisoner protest during the summer of 2013 at the GEO Group-operated Reeves
County Detention Center reportedly ended with guards tear-gassing dormitories,
shooting rubber bullets, locking down the entire facility, and punishing prisoners
by putting them in extreme isolation. The improvements the prisoners had hoped to
achieve—better medical care, more food, and less crowded living conditions—never
came.232

This incident was hardly the first time prisoners protested the conditions at Reeves.
Since Reeves became a CAR facility in 2006, prisoners at the institution have organized
several strikes and uprisings to demand better medical care and conditions. Most

232  See infra text accompanying notes 271-74.

62  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

notably, riots broke out in
late 2008, after prisoner
Jesus Manuel Galindo died
in solitary confinement,
and a few months later in
early 2009.233
The 3,700 prisoners at
Reeves have reason to be
angry. Several prisoners
have died in recent years.234
n  Despite prisoner protests, two major uprisings,
And even though BOP’s
and negative reports from BOP’s own monitors, BOP
own monitors have found
continues to renew its contracts with the company that
numerous deficiencies
runs Reeves.
that could let them out of
Photo: Smokey Briggs, Pecos Enterprise
the contract—expressing
frustration in 2010 that GEO
Group “shows little signs of improvement” and “is unable to successfully achieve their
own plans of action to correct deficient areas”—BOP continues to renew its contracts
with the company.235 Throughout our investigation, prisoners reported that they are often
denied necessary medical treatment, frequently put in isolation cells, and are forced to
live in cramped, overcrowded conditions. Reeves illustrates what happens when BOP
refuses to impose serious consequences for repeated unsatisfactory performance: this
private prison is run by a company that knows it can operate with impunity.

Background
Reeves County Detention Center is a massive detention complex in Pecos, Texas, nearly
100 miles from Midland, in the desolate expanse of the Permian Basin. GEO Group at
one point described Reeves, which has two prison facilities and a capacity to house 3,700

233  Barry, supra note 63.
234  Complaint, Galindo v. Reeves County, No. 3:12-cv-00063-DB-NJG (W.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2010) (citing four deaths prior to Jesus
Manuel Galindo’s death).
235  Email from Matthew D. Nace, supra note 201. See also supra text accompanying notes 197-205.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  63

prisoners, as “the largest detention/correctional facility under private management in
the world.”236 Its “residents” make up almost half of the population of Pecos, Texas.237
According to news reports, the original sections of the Reeves complex (Reeves I/II) were
built by Reeves County during the height of the “War on Drugs” in the 1980s with hopes
that incarceration would bring revenue to the depressed county.238 In 2001, the county
built an additional section (Reeves III) on the assumption that more prison contracts
would eventually come their way, financing the expansion by using the existing structure
as collateral on a loan.239 But instead of improving the county economy, the Reeves
expansion drained it. Between 2003 and 2004, nearly 1,000 beds at Reeves remained
empty—creating a risk that the County would default on its bonds.240
County Judge Jimmy Galindo, who had pushed for the prison to open, reacted by
retaining the lobbying firm Public-Private Strategies and Randy DeLay, the brother
of then House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, to help pursue a federal prison contract.
Judge Galindo also signed a new contract with GEO Group to both operate the prison
and identify new sources of prisoners.241 These efforts to make the prison profitable
apparently succeeded in March 2006, when Reeves County entered into a contract
with BOP and GEO Group to make Reeves III a CAR prison to house 1,200 immigrant
prisoners. A year later, BOP and Reeves County contracted again with GEO Group to
make Reeves I/II a CAR prison as well, housing 2,300 prisoners.

Findings
Necessary and life-saving medical treatments are frequently
denied
In December 2008, Jesus Manuel Galindo (no relation to Judge Jimmy Galindo) died
of a seizure, alone in an isolation cell at Reeves. A long-time epileptic, Galindo had
been locked in the SHU for a month after being hospitalized for a grand mal seizure.
236  Press Release, GEO Group, Inc., The GEO Group, Inc. Announces Contract Award for the Housing of Criminal Aliens at the 3,556bed Reeves County Detention Center Under CAR 5 (June 1, 2006) available at http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=91331&p=irolnewsArticle&ID=862768.
237  The population of Pecos City was 8,780 as of the 2010 census. Community Facts, Pecos City, Texas, U.S. Census Bureau American Fact
Finder, http://factfinder2.census.gov (in the “Community Facts” box, enter “Pecos City, Texas”) (last visited Jan. 14, 2014).
238  Barry, supra note 63; Sasha Abramsky, Incarceration, Inc.: Private Prisons Thrive on Cheap Labor and the Hunger of Job-starved
Towns, Nation, July 19, 2004, http://www.thenation.com/article/incarceration-inc.
239  Reeves County Makes Payment on Prison, TexNews.com, Sept. 3, 2003 http://www.texnews.com/1998/2003/texas/texas_Reeves_
Co93.html; Abramsky, supra note 238.
240  See, e.g., Fitch Dwngrs $89MM Reeves County, TX COPS to BB; Watch Neg, Business Wire, Sept. 3, 2003, http://www.businesswire.
com/news/home/20030903005850/en/Fitch-Dwngrs-89MM-Reeves-County-TX-COPs#.UtWD-tJDtyI.
241  Barry, supra note 63; Abramsky, supra note 238.

64  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Photo courtesy of the Galindo family

n  Jesus Galindo with his son. The day before he died, Jesus mailed a
letter to his mother. “I get sick here by being locked up all by myself,” he
wrote. “[T]he medical care in here is no good and I’m scared.” He asked
her to “write to me every day, ok?” but by the next morning, he was dead.
As alleged in the wrongful death suit filed by the ACLU of Texas and his family, while he
was in solitary Galindo suffered two more seizures before the one that killed him and
repeatedly asked medical and prison staff to adjust his medication and remove him from
solitary so he would not be alone when he seized.242
The day before he died, Jesus mailed a letter to his mother. “I get sick here by being
locked up all by myself,” he wrote. “[T]he medical care in here is no good and I’m
scared.”243 He asked her to “write to me every day, ok?” but by the next morning, he was
dead.
After his fellow prisoners learned that Jesus had died, they rioted and set fire to a
recreation center at the prison.244 A month later, amidst fears of another death, the
prisoners rioted again, this time taking two officials hostage and causing $20 million
in damage by setting a fire. GEO staff called in numerous law enforcement agencies—

242  Complaint, Galindo v. Reeves County, No. 3:12-cv-00063-DB-NJG (W.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2010).
243  Letter from Jesus Manuel Galindo, prisoner at Reeves, to Graciela Galindo, his mother (Dec. 11, 2008) (on file with ACLU of Texas);
see also Barry, supra note 63.
244  Barry, supra note 63.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  65

including county deputies, city police, Border Patrol agents, state police, and GEO’s own
security guards.245
In 2010, the ACLU of Texas, along with El Paso co-counsel Mike Torres and Leon
Schydlower, filed a wrongful death suit on Jesus’s behalf against BOP officials, Reeves
County, GEO Group, and the prison’s medical services contractor.246 After years of
litigation, the suit was settled in January 2013.247 Unfortunately, the prisoners we visited
at Reeves continue to describe numerous problems with medical care.
Daniel, a diabetic who served a two-year sentence at Reeves III, told us that it took him
ten months to see a doctor.248 According to Daniel, medical staff lowered his insulin
intake, changed his prescriptions, and modified his schedule for receiving medication
without ever consulting him.249 They also denied him prescription eye drops to help with
his loss of eyesight, a common complication of uncontrolled diabetes.250 When Daniel
told staff that he was going to complain to BOP about the inadequate treatment he was
receiving for his diabetes, they laughed at him and told him to go ahead, because BOP
would not care and complaining would not make a difference.251
Herman, a prisoner at Reeves I/II who also has diabetes, informed us that prisoners
must line up to receive their insulin at the same time as meals, so that diabetic
individuals are forced to choose between eating and receiving their insulin.252 Herman
reported he has received extremely variable dosages of diabetes medication, has waited
months for his medication to be refilled, and as a result, has experienced high bloodsugar levels.253 Herman also reported that medical staff do not clean the glucose meter
device they use to draw blood, so he is worried about being exposed to other prisoners’
blood when a staff member pricks his finger to check his blood sugar.254 He wrote, “I am
genuinely concerned over…the looming danger of dying of medical negligence like the
six other prisoners who dies [sic] before the rioting.”255
Gregory reported that he watched a fellow prisoner die after being ignored by Reeves
correctional staff. He described to us how the prisoner started vomiting in the middle
of the night, and how a group of prisoners told the guard who passed through the dorm
245 
246 
247 
248 
249 
250 
251 
252 
253 
254 
255 

Id.
Complaint, Galindo v. Reeves County, No. 3:12-cv-00063-DB-NJG (W.D. Tex. Dec. 7, 2010).
Judgment, Galindo v. Reeves County, No. 3:12-cv-00063-DB-NJG (W.D. Tex. Jan. 2, 2013).
Interview with Daniel, supra note 152.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Interview with Herman, supra note 157.
Id.
Id.
Id.

66  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

at 2:00 a.m. that he needed a doctor. When the guard returned at 5:00 a.m., after they
noticed the man had stopped moving, they again insisted that he needed a doctor.
However, Gregory reports medical staff did not arrive until 7:00 a.m., when the man
looked pale and Gregory could no longer see him breathing. They took the man to the
clinic, where he was pronounced dead three hours later.256
We received troubling reports about the spread of contagious diseases. When BOP
conducted a monitoring visit at Reeves I/II in July 2010, it issued a deficiency finding
that prisoners were not being screened for tuberculosis within the proper time frame.257
Subsequently, a Reeves III prisoner reported to us that medical staff attempted to
dissuade a fellow prisoner with tuberculosis from receiving treatment.258
We received numerous reports of medical understaffing. Prisoners at Reeves III report
that there is only one physician’s assistant, and until recently only one doctor to serve
the entire prison population.259 Medical examinations last only a few minutes and
prisoners report that they are usually just given ibuprofen, no matter their ailment,
and sent on their way.260 Understaffing in the chronic care clinic and in the pharmacy
reportedly lead to dangerous delays in the provision of medical treatment. One prisoner
who has experienced heart infarctions reported that he recently went ten days without
the heart medication he is required to take on a daily basis.261 Another prisoner
reported that he had to take antibiotics for an infected molar but was never provided his
medication reliably enough to finish a course of treatment.262 When we interviewed him,
he was waiting to see a doctor to attend to his infection for the fourth time.263 Yet another
prisoner told us that though he had seen a doctor seven times for a chronic bleeding
hemorrhoid, he had consistently been denied surgery to fix the problem.264 Overall,
prisoners report it takes weeks to see a doctor once they submit a request for medical
care.265

256  Interview with Gregory, supra note 151. The Mexican consulate in Presidio, Texas, confirmed that Federico Santa Cruz-Gonzalez, a
Mexican citizen, died on February 3, 2013, in Reeves County Detention Center from a heart attack at the age of 58. Interview with official
at the Consulado de Carrera de Mexico en Presidio (Mar. 10, 2014).
257  BOP Contract Facility Monitoring Report for Reeves County Detention Center I & II (July 13-14, 2010), supra note 200.
258  Interview with Daniel, supra note 152.
259  Interview with Dennis, supra note 152; Interview with Johnny, supra note 152; Interview with Daniel, supra note 152.
260  Interview with Rico, supra note 161; Interview with Benjamin, supra note 147.
261  Interview with Herman, supra note 157.
262  Interview with Johnny, supra note 152.
263  Id.
264  Interview with Abdul, prisoner at Reeves (Nov. 19, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
265  Interview with Benjamin, supra note 147; Interview with Lucas, supra note 133.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  67

“

They will not bring a doctor if you are sick. They
don’t want to spend the money, but these are
human beings and they deserve medical services.”

—Graciela Arrendondo, mother of a former Reeves prisoner266
According to prisoner reports and the prison handbook distributed by staff, Reeves
requires prisoners to submit all medical requests in English.267 To the extent this
represents a widespread policy or practice, it obstructs access to medical services for
the substantial percentage of Reeves’s population with limited English proficiency.
Finally, prisoners reported that they were told by GEO staff that prisoners “would not
receive medical care because BOP did not want to pay for them to receive medical
care.”268 One prisoner said both guards and medical staff had the same attitude, which
was “you’re illegals and you’re going to be deported, so why do we need to take care of
you?”269

Facility staff use segregated housing abusively
After being hit with tear gas, shot at with rubber bullets, and thrown on the ground and
cuffed, Samuel and more than 100 of his fellow prisoners were reportedly forced to
spend two days in isolation cells in the SHU.270 Even the prisoners who were not in the
few dorms that were gassed were reportedly punished with lockdown and bad food for
about a month.271
According to prisoner accounts, this mass lockup in the SHU, which took place in the
summer of 2013, was retribution against prisoners who started a petition to protest the
conditions at Reeves. When guards got wind of the planned protest, they went to the
dorms to pull out the protest organizers.272 Samuel was not involved in the planning, but
when the organizers refused to go with the guards, the guards tear-gassed the entire
dorm.273

266  Forrest Wilder, The Pecos Insurrection, Tex. Observer, Oct. 8, 2009, available at https://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/thepecos-insurrection.
267  Interview with Johnny, supra note 152; Interview with Cesar, supra note 164. See also Reeves Handbook, supra note 208, at 22.
268  Interview with Oscar, prisoner at Reeves (May 17, 2011); Interview with Daniel, supra note 152.
269  Interview with Johnny, supra note 152.
270  Interview with Samuel, supra note 64; Interview with Ruben, supra note 64; Interview with Humberto, supra note 64.
271  Interview with Ruben, supra note 64; Interview with Carl, supra note 208.
272  Interview with Samuel, supra note 64.
273  Id.

68  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

“Once everyone was lying down [after the tear-gassing], they cuffed us and took us out
and put water on us. I started speaking up, not talking of resistance, but I was saying
it’s not fair to punish all,” Samuel told the ACLU.274 Samuel and the others were taken
to SHU where they were locked up four to a cell—even though the cells were designed
to hold no more than two people at a time—and forced to sleep on the ground with
no pillows or blankets.275 Though there were showers in the cells, the prisoners were
denied soap for two days.276 Samuel reported that his skin burned the whole time.277
Samuel is a 38-year-old Jamaican immigrant with
legal documentation serving an eight-year sentence
on a drug-related charge.278 Most of his family lives
in Miami, including his father, sister, and three
children.279 Because they are more than 1,700 miles
away, he has not seen them since he was transferred to Reeves in July 2013.280 After Samuel was
released from the SHU, he had to wait a week to call
his mother to let her know he was okay.281

“I was asleep and
woke up to two gas
bombs on me.”
—Samuel, a prisoner at Reeves

Samuel’s experience in the SHU is apparently common. Multiple prisoners reported
that staff at Reeves grossly overuse isolated confinement.282 Indeed, the contracts
between GEO Group and BOP for Reeves apparently incentivize this by requiring that
10% of the facility’s contract bed space be in the SHU. In a prison the size of Reeves,
this requirement means more than 300 people may be placed in isolation cells on any
given day.283 This rate is nearly double the percentage of prisoners kept in isolated
confinement in BOP-managed facilities—most of which house higher-security prisoners
than the low-custody prisoners at the CAR prisons we visited.284 Prisoners report the
SHU is full, with men often housed three to a cell,285 meaning that two sleep in bunks
and the third sleeps on the floor.
One prisoner reported being kept in isolation for months without either a disciplinary

274  Id.
275  Id. Interview with Humberto, supra note 64; Interview with Rico, supra note 161 (reporting that four people were in each SHU cell,
but unaware whether they were given blankets).
276  Interview with Samuel, supra note 64.
277  Id.
278  Id.
279  Id.
280  Id.
281  Id.
282  Interview with Gonzalo, supra note 85 (stating that “anything” can get you sent to SHU); Interview with Andrew, supra note 122
(stating that prisoners with mental health issues are sent to SHU); Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72 (stating that he was placed in
SHU for complaining about inadequate medical care and now constantly fears he will be placed in SHU for anything).
283  Reeves CAR 5 Contract, supra note 83, at 45; Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 92.
284  See supra note 90 and accompanying text.
285  Interview with Bruno, supra note 73.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  69

hearing or periodic status review hearings (which BOP regulations require within the
first seven days in isolation and then every 30 days of continuous isolation, regardless
of whether the isolation is for disciplinary or administrative reasons).286 One prisoner
we spoke to told us that “anything” could get him sent to SHU.287 One prisoner said he
complained about a painful ankle and instead of receiving medical treatment, he was
sent to the SHU for six months.288 We received additional reports that sick and mentally
ill prisoners are placed in SHU without access to treatment and medication.289
Other sources echo the reports we received from prisoners about the abusive use of
isolated confinement at Reeves. According to court papers in one lawsuit, in August
2008, Reyes Garcia Rangel committed suicide at Reeves after prison officials first denied
him the psychotropic medication he needed for his bipolar disorder, and then isolated
him in the SHU without adequate observation or monitoring. Rangel’s family filed a
wrongful death suit against Reeves County, the GEO Group, and the Reeves medical
contractor, alleging that Reeves administrators maintained a policy of placing prisoners
who continually sought medical attention and/or filed grievances in the SHU in order to
quash their efforts to obtain medical care.290
According to news reports, in late January 2009, prisoners at Reeves rioted when guards
moved 25-year-old Ramon Garcia to the SHU after he told medical staff that he felt dizzy
and ill. “All we wanted was for them to give him medical care, and because they didn’t,
things got out of control and people started fires in several offices,” an anonymous
prisoner told a reporter.291 A friend of Garcia’s family told reporters that Reeves staff put
him into solitary confinement after he complained that he could no longer walk down the
hall without holding on to the wall.292
Despite the deaths of Jesus Manuel Galindo and Reyes Garcia Rangel, and despite two
consecutive prisoner uprisings resulting in part from practices regarding the SHU, little
appears to have changed in the use of solitary confinement at Reeves. As one prisoner
at Reeves reported: “Nine months ago, a prisoner arrived who refused to eat food for
a month, and their solution was to put him in the SHU. He’s still there.”293 Another
prisoner described the situation succinctly: “Anything you say or do can get you sent to
SHU.”294

286  Interview with Fortunato, supra note 84. See also Federal Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 5270.10, supra note 82.
287  Interview with Gonzalo, supra note 85.
288  Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72.
289  Interview with Andrew, supra note 122. See also Complaint, Galindo v. Reeves County, No. 3:12-cv-00063-DB-NJG (W.D. Tex. Dec.
7, 2010).
290  See Petition, Favila v. Reeves County, No. 10-07-19702-CVR (Dist. Ct., 143d Judicial Dist., Reeves Cty., Tex. filed July 30, 2010).
291  Barry, supra note 63
292  Wilder, supra note 266.
293  Interview with Daniel, supra note 152.
294  Interview with Gonzalo, supra note 85.

70  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Samuel’s Story
When 38 year-old Samuel got arrested for distributing marijuana, he
understood he would pay the price. Born in Jamaica but raised in Florida,
he knew that for a green card holder like himself, conviction might result in
deportation.
But Samuel could never guess
at the conditions in the privately
run federal prison system where
he landed—or its policies of
discrimination against immigrants.

Penned like a farm
animal, with only ten
minutes to move about
every hour. “You’re just
immigrants,” says a
guard.

Determined to move to a lowsecurity prison, Samuel stayed
on excellent behavior. But when
he finally arrived last year at the
lower-security Reeves unit, it was
more restrictive than the previous prisons.

Samuel is penned like a farm animal, with only ten minutes to move about
every hour and harassed by guards like the one who said bluntly: “You’re just
immigrants. They can do whatever they want.”
About three months after he arrived, Samuel says, fellow prisoners started
a strike. After the strike's leaders refused to leave their bunks, 14 guards
arrived, hurling gas bombs and firing rubber bullets into the dorm. Guards
threw Samuel and the other men to ground, cuffing them as they went.
Samuel complained openly that this collective punishment was unfair. His
reward for speaking out? Guards marched Samuel and the others to cells in
the SHU. Packed four men to a cell, they were denied basic necessities like
soap and toilet paper for two days, their skin and eyes seared from the gas.
Miles away in Ft. Lauderdale, Samuel’s mother and three teen-aged children
know almost nothing of his experiences. They can’t afford to see him. But his
incarceration still haunts them daily.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  71

“I have to take care of his kids,” says Violet, Samuel’s mother. "I work from
8:00 in the morning to 8:30 at night. I have to work with a brace on my foot—I
can barely walk. And next week I have to get a CT scan because I’m having
some very bad headaches and the doctor doesn’t like what he’s seeing." But
she keeps her health problems to herself. She doesn’t want Samuel to worry.
The children’s mother, Violet says, works two jobs to keep them out of need.
But all three children live with open emotional wounds. Before incarceration,
Samuel lived with the children and doted on them, Violet says.*  n
* Interview with Samuel, supra note 64, interview with Violet (on file with ACLU of Texas).

Movement is restricted and dormitories are overcrowded
Though Reeves is a low-security facility, prisoners report that their movements are
severely restricted and that they are frequently body-searched. Prisoners report
that for 50 minutes out of every hour they must stay in the same room. They can only
move around the unit—to the recreation room, to the yard, to the library—during
the ten minutes at the top of every hour. If they happen to miss the announcement
that movement is allowed, they have to wait another hour. Guards conduct pat-down
searches on prisoners when they move from room to room.295 “Inside the unit we’re
locked down. [We] can’t move around. They are constantly segregating us,” said Samuel.
As another prisoner put it: “This is supposed to be a low-custody prison, but it’s run like
a maximum-custody prison.”296
Disturbingly, GEO Group’s contracts with BOP for Reeves incentivize overcrowding
by setting a minimum occupancy quota of 90% capacity and then providing additional
per-prisoner payments for up to 115% capacity.297 The result is predictable. In their
dormitories, prisoners report crowded conditions with no privacy. In each living unit
there is a mix of regular dormitories that hold 48 bunks and recreation rooms that have
been converted into dormitories.298 Prisoners call the latter “chicken coops.”299 The 42
bunk beds in these “chicken coops” are close together,300 and some of them are near
295 
296 
297 
298 
299 
300 

Interview with Andrew, supra note 122; Interview with Ruben, supra note 64.
Interview with Andrew, supra note 122.
Reeves CAR 5 Contract, supra note 83, at 6, 13; Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 56.
Interview with Andrew, supra note 122; Interview with Ruben, supra note 64.
Interview with Gregory, supra note 151; Interview with Gonzalo, supra note 85.
Interview with Ruben, supra note 64; Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72.

72  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

the bathroom area.301 One prisoner told us that it smells of feces all the time.302 As one
prisoner described it, “In the chicken coops, conditions are so bad a person couldn’t
survive there for more than a year.”303
Outside of the dormitories, prisoners report that conditions were not much better. There
is a big yard and a small yard, and prisoners report bad conditions in both. The small
yard is a dusty lot reportedly meant for 40 people but frequently used for 400 prisoners
at a time. Prisoners also report that the Port-A-Potties in the yard have not been
replaced in more than four years and the dirty contents have “splashed up” on them.304

Eden Detention Center
Eden, Texas

n  CCA's contract with BOP, like all the others we reviewed, incentivizes overcrowding.
The 1,550 prisoners kept at Eden Detention Center are reportedly packed so tightly that
their beds spill out into the hallways.

D

espite its name, the Eden Detention Center is no paradise. Paint peels from the
walls. The rooms are dark and dreary. And the 1,550 prisoners kept there are

301 
302 
303 
304 

Interview with Andrew, supra note 122; Interview with Sebastian, supra note 72.
Interview with Andrew, supra note 122.
Interview with Daniel, supra note 152.
Interview with Andrew, supra note 122.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  73

reportedly packed so tightly that their beds spill out into the hallways. One prisoner
told us that CCA, the private prison company that operates Eden, should stand for the
“Concentration Camp of America.”305
Throughout our investigation, we uncovered evidence of severe overcrowding and abuse
of isolated confinement, both incentivized by the contract BOP negotiated with CCA.
We also heard stories of squalid living conditions, contaminated water, and scabies
outbreaks from used clothing. Compounding these problems, prisoners reported that
CCA frequently punishes them for banding together to file grievances and lawsuits.

Background
Eden is located in sparsely populated Concho County, Texas, about 90 miles south of
Abilene. The 1,550 prisoners at Eden constitute roughly half of the town’s population.
The facility was originally built to house 950 prisoners and has been run by CCA since
the early 1990s. Its current CAR contract began in 2007.
The problems the ACLU uncovered throughout our investigation are unfortunately not
new to Eden. The prison has a history of uprisings. In 1996, when Eden was operating
under an earlier contract with BOP, violence broke out after about 400 prisoners
organized a sit-in in the yard to protest conditions.306 According to news reports, CCA
guards used pepper spray and shot prisoners with shotgun pellets in an attempt to force
prisoners to comply with orders to return to their bunks.307 Fourteen prisoners were
hurt during the incident, two of whom were hospitalized.308 Three guards also required
medical attention—one for a broken jaw and two for heat exhaustion.309 In 2010, another
uprising took place at Eden after prisoners once again organized to protest conditions.310
Guards responded with tear gas.311 One prisoner told the ACLU that afterward, a CCA
guard approached him and said: “Did you see me? I was the one with my foot on your
head.”312

305  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71.
306  4 Inmates, 1 Guard Hurt During Texas Prison Riot, Orlando Sentinel, Aug. 23, 1996, http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/1996-08-23/
news/9608221093_1_prison-guard-four-inmates-san-angelo; Eden Ships Out Suspected Prison Rioters, Pecos Enterprise, Aug. 23, 1996,
http://www.pecos.net/news/archives/082396p.htm.
307  Eden Ships Out Suspected Prison Rioters, supra note 306.
308  Id.
309  Id.
310  Matthew Waller, supra note 68; Interview with David, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with
Ezra, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
311  Matthew Waller, supra note 68; Interview with David, supra note 310.
312  Interview with Ezra, supra note 310.

74  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Findings
Interference with legal activities and stifling of dissent
Our investigation found evidence that CCA staff at the Eden Detention Center take
extreme measures to stifle the dissent of prisoners.
We received numerous reports that prisoners who complain or help others file
grievances or lawsuits are punished, in some cases by being sent to isolation units.
Leonardo, a Cuban immigrant who has been in Eden since 2008, says he often helped
his fellow prisoners file grievances or lawsuits.313 But last year, when he helped another
prisoner file a motion to reduce his sentence, he was sent to an isolation unit for eight
days for “investigation.”314 Though no charges were ultimately filed against him, he says
the message was clear: while Leonardo was in the SHU, a guard threatened to “lock
his ass up” again if he resumed helping others with legal paperwork.315 Later, when
Leonardo was returned to the SHU for unrelated charges (guards found an MP3 player
near his bunk—an item that is sold in BOP prison commissaries316 but prohibited at
Eden), guards confiscated his legal material and law books.317
Several other prisoners reported incidents of prisoners being punished for trying to
help others.318 For example, Pablo told us he spent three days in solitary confinement
after he tried to help a new prisoner get oriented to Eden. “When an inmate tries to help
out another inmate, they are a threat to the institution and are thrown in the SHU,” he
said.319 Spanish-speaking prisoners told us that grievance forms are only in English and
they cannot ask bilingual prisoners to help them because they know those prisoners will
be punished.320
CCA staff also interfere with prisoners’ access to counsel. The ACLU heard numerous
reports from prisoners who faced resistance from prison administrators when trying
to arrange for unmonitored attorney visits.321 Prisoners also reported problems trying

313  Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71.
314  Id.
315  Id.
316  See Joshua Hunt, The iPod of Prison, New Yorker, Jan. 16, 2014, http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/elements/2014/01/theipod-of-prison-sony-radio.html (reporting that according to a BOP spokesperson, more than half of federal prisoners have bought MP3
players as part of a new program making them available from BOP commissaries) (last visited Feb. 9, 2014).
317  Id.
318  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview with Isaac supra note 71; Interview with
Vladmir, supra note 71; Interview with Kevin, supra note 71.
319  Interview with Pablo, supra note 96.
320  Interview with Marvin, supra note 96; Interview with Elias, supra note 96.
321  Interview with David, supra 310 (reporting that he had to get a letter from the U.S. Attorney General’s office in order to have an
unmonitored, non-visitation day attorney visit); Interview with Ezra, supra note 310; Interview with William, supra note 121.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  75

to arrange unmonitored legal calls. One prisoner reported that CCA staff refused to
add his attorney’s phone number to his telephone list without giving him a reason.322
Another told us that, until he complained to BOP, CCA staff did not allow him to have
unmonitored legal calls.323 The ACLU received reports that staff at Eden open legal mail
in violation of BOP policy, even when that mail is appropriately marked as privileged and
confidential attorney-client communication.324 Prisoners reported that staff members
open their mail outside their presence and read privileged communications, ostensibly
to “scan for legal content.”325
These stories were corroborated by our own experience; the ACLU faced significant
barriers when we tried to meet with prisoners who had contacted us.
When we visited in 2011, the warden informed us that the prison would not
accommodate our request for legal visitation outside social visiting hours, nor would
prison officials provide us with the opportunity to meet with prisoners in a separate
visiting area, outside of auditory supervision by correctional staff.326 Instead, ACLU
attorneys were forced to conduct meetings in a crowded visiting room where it was
impossible to establish a reasonable level of confidentiality. One prisoner told us that he
could not confer with our staff about his legal issues because of the proximity of other
prisoners, visitors, and CCA staff in the visitation room.327
When we attempted to schedule a return visit for October 2013, the warden at Eden
initially denied our request for attorney visitation.328 After we responded with citations to
the relevant BOP attorney visitation policies, he demanded we explain why our meetings
with prisoners “might be appropriate” and asserted that these policies “do not apply
at this facility.”329 It took nearly two months of letters to this CCA warden and to BOP
officials to arrange confidential interviews.330 As this dispute was going on, a CCA official
reportedly opened and read two incoming letters to prisoners from the ACLU containing
confidential communications about our planned visit to Eden.331 And as the ACLU’s visit

322  Interview with Ezra, supra note 310.
323  Interview with Richard, supra note 71.
324  Interview with Tomas, supra note 73; Interview with David, supra note 310.
325  Interview with David, supra note 310.
326  Letter from Keith E. Hall, Warden, Eden Detention Center, to Krystal M. Gomez, Policy Counsel, ACLU of Texas (May 9, 2011) (on
file with ACLU of Texas); Letter from Keith E. Hall, Warden, Eden Detention Center, to Krystal M. Gomez, Policy Counsel, ACLU of Texas
(May 16, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
327  Interview with David, supra note 310.
328  Letter from Keith E. Hall, Warden, Eden Detention Center, to Rebecca L. Robertson, Legal & Policy Director, ACLU of Texas (Oct.
21, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
329  Letter from Keith E. Hall, Warden, Eden Detention Center, to Rebecca L. Robertson, Legal & Policy Director, ACLU of Texas (Nov.
25, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
330  Letter from Rebecca L. Robertson, supra note 218.
331  Grievance filed by Richard (Nov. 4, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Informal Resolution filed by Richard (Oct. 21, 2013) (on file
with ACLU of Texas).

76  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

neared, Eden staff reportedly started asking prisoners on our visitation list questions
about what they were planning on reporting to us.332 By the time the visit occurred in
January 2014, two of the men who had sought our assistance declined to speak with us.
Disturbingly, the warden who denied us space for confidential interviews in 2011 and
stonewalled our 2013 visit was subsequently promoted by CCA to a managing director
position where he will oversee, among other things, all five of CCA’s BOP contract
facilities.333

BOP’s contract rewards CCA for abuse of extreme isolation
Our investigation found that BOP’s contract with CCA creates perverse incentives that
encourage abuse, as it requires that 10% of Eden’s “contract beds” be used for isolated
confinement. In effect, the contract sets an arbitrary quota for the use of isolated
confinement—one that is far higher than the rate of isolation in BOP-run facilities.
It should be no surprise, then, that prisoners told us that Eden’s SHU is always full.
Nearly every prisoner we interviewed in January 2014 reported that he had been forced
to spend from several days to up to a month in extreme isolation when he first arrived at
the facility.334 One prisoner told us that they can be sent to the SHU for almost anything
and that guards frequently threaten to put them in the SHU.335 As described above,
prisoners described being sent to SHU for helping others with grievances and legal
claims.336 Prisoners also report that three or four prisoners are often crammed into a
SHU cell designed to hold no more than two people.337
Conditions in isolation are abysmal. Each cell is a small room with a metal door containing
a tray slot for food; opposite the door is a small tinted window that provides no view to the
outside.338 There is a toilet in the cell, though one prisoner reported that they sometimes
are without toilet paper.339 Prisoners report they are locked in their SHU cells for at least
332  Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview with Bradley, supra note 96.
333  Press Release, Corrections Corporation of America, Keith Hall Named Managing Director, Facility Operations (Jan. 24, 2014),
available at http://cca.com/insidecca/keith-hall-named-managing-director-facility-operations#.
334  Interviews with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71; Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview
with Pablo, supra note 96; Interview with Franco, supra note 96; Interview with Bradley, supra note 96; Interview with Jesse, supra note
96; Interview with Simon, supra note 96; Interview with Isaac, supra note 71; Interview with Marvin, supra note 96; Interview with Gael,
supra note 96; Interview with Elias, supra note 96; Interview with Vladmir, supra note 71; Interview with Kevin, supra note 71. See also
Eden Handbook, supra note 209, at 34 (“An inmate may be placed in Administrative Detention when the inmate … is a new commitment
pending classification . . . .”).
335  Interview with Pablo, supra note 96.
336  Interview with David, supra note 310; Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71; see also supra text accompanying notes 313-320.
337  Interview with Ezra, supra note 310; Interview with Tomas, supra note 73 (reporting that prisoners in the SHU are sometimes
required to sleep on the floor).
338  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71.
339  Interview with Jesse, supra note 96 (reporting that he considered using his bedsheet to clean himself after using the toilet).

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  77

23 hours a day, and the only daily opportunity to exit the cell is for one hour of outdoor
“recreation” offered at 5:00 a.m. Showers are offered only every few days, and one
prisoner told us that because they are offered at 1:00 a.m., many men skip them.340

BOP incentivizes overcrowding
The Eden contract, like all the others we reviewed, contains an occupancy quota
stipulating that the facility must remain at least at 90% capacity, with extra per-prisoner
payments up to 115% capacity. This gives CCA a perverse incentive to admit as many
prisoners as BOP is willing to send, leaving the facility overcrowded.341
Prisoners at Eden report that they are packed into crowded dormitories with
insufficient ventilation, personal space, or bathroom facilities. Roughly 1,550 prisoners
are crammed into Eden—almost exactly 115% of the prison’s originally contracted
capacity.342 Prisoners described how this feat is accomplished: CCA utilizes every nook
and cranny for bed space. In the open dormitories, 96 bunks are crammed together with
very little space between.343 In other dormitories, cubicles initially designed for four beds
now hold six beds. And in hallways between those cubicles that were never intended to
be housing areas, CCA has lined the walls with additional beds. Prisoners call this area
the “freeway.” The facility is so crowded that prisoners “can reach out and touch the
bunk next to you,” one prisoner told us.344 There is very little personal privacy in any of
the dorms.345
The overcrowding, in turn, reportedly leads to squalid living conditions. Prisoners
in multiple dormitories reported to us that the toilets are very close to the sleeping
areas and the smell of urine and feces often permeates the rooms.346 Dirty water leaks
out from below the toilets when they are flushed.347 Showerheads and toilets break
frequently and are left unrepaired.348 Many showers have no hot water.349
One prisoner, William, described the living conditions this way: “I sleep in a hallway

340  Interview with Richard, supra note 71.
341  Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 53. See generally Criminal: How Lockup Quotas and “Low Crime Taxes” Guarantee Profits for
Private Prison Corporations, supra note 117.
342  Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 53.
343  Interview with Richard, supra note 71.
344  Id.
345  Interview with Ryan, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with William, supra note 121.
346  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Franco, supra note 96; Interview with Jesse, supra note 96.
347  Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview with Pablo, supra note 96.
348  Interview with Ryan, supra note 345; Interview with William, supra note 121.
349  Interview with Pablo, supra note 96.

78  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

with about 80 inmates.”350 He added: “I sleep right next to the bathroom so it’s like I’m
sleeping in the toilet. I feel like my head is in the toilet.” 351
Several other prisoners reported problems with ventilation and sanitation in the housing
units at Eden. The units often leak when it rains.352 We heard reports of mice and
cockroaches.353 One prisoner told us he recently found a scorpion in his bed.354
In an extreme example of cost-saving tactics, prisoners reported that instead of issuing
new clothing to incoming prisoners, CCA issues them used underwear and uniforms.
This contributes to the overall feeling that the facility is not sanitary, and some prisoners
believe it has contributed to the scabies outbreaks that have occurred in the prison.355

Prisoners exposed to contaminated water

“

I was sentenced to serve my time, not develop
a life-threatening disease that can be prevented
by prison officials who have no regard for human
life.”

—Tomas, a prisoner at the Eden Detention Center356
In 2011, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality found that Eden’s drinking
water contained unacceptable levels of radioactive contamination that exceeded the
maximum contaminant level allowed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.357 A
notice issued by the Commission and distributed by the City of Eden stated that people
who drink water with a high level of radioactive radium “may have an increased risk of
getting cancer.”358

350  Interview with William, supra note 121.
351  Id.
352  Interview with Ryan, supra note 345; Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71; Interview with Isaac, supra note 71.
353  Interview with Ryan, supra note 345; Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71.
354  Interview with Ryan, supra note 345.
355  Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview with Pablo, supra note 96.
356  Interview with Tomas, supra note 73.
357  See Kiah Collier, City Says It Learned from Brady’s Problems with Hickory Water’s Radium, San Angelo Standard Times, May 19, 2011,
available at http://www.gosanangelo.com/news/2011/may/19/city-says-it-learned-from-bradys-problems-with/.
358  City of Eden, Notice of Drinking Water Combined Radium 226 & Radium 228 Violation (Sept. 20, 2012), available at http://www.edentexas.
com/storage/afm_uploads/1209-B.pdf; City of Eden, Notice of Drinking Water Gross Alpha Particle Violation (Sept. 20, 2012), available at
http://www.edentexas.com/storage/afm_uploads/1209.pdf.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  79

Until recently, signs posted around the facility warned prisoners not to drink the water.359
However, the only alternative was for prisoners to buy bottled water through the prison
commissary. At 80 cents per bottle, the cost was prohibitive for many of the men.360
One prisoner told us that he requested that the prison reduce the price of bottled water
to make it affordable, but his request was denied.361 He reported that drinking the
irradiated water made him feel like he was dying slowly.362 Another prisoner reported
that he has to drink a very large quantity of water every day due to a medical condition.363
He expressed to Eden staff his concerns about drinking so much of the contaminated
water, especially given his vulnerable health, but was told that they would not provide
him an alternative source of water.364
In 2013, the city received a grant from the Texas Water Development Board to remove the
radionuclides from the water.365 When we visited Eden again in early 2014, the signs had
been taken down, and many prisoners had begun to drink Eden’s water again. However,
they continue to be suspicious of the water, with many noting an odd taste366 and some
reporting that showering in it gives them an itchy rash.367 Anyone who is worried about
the water quality can, of course, buy bottled water from CCA’s prison commissary—
giving the company one more opportunity to squeeze additional profit from its prisoners.

Failure to provide adequate medical care
According to prisoners we interviewed, CCA routinely cuts corners on medical care
and treatment. The ACLU spoke with numerous prisoners who reported not receiving
necessary treatment or medicine. Prisoners reported that it takes at least a week to see
medical staff.368 Dental care is reportedly limited to tooth extractions.369 Many ailments
are treated only with ibuprofen.370 And because the medical staff responsible for triaging
requests for medical assistance only speak English, Spanish-speaking prisoners have
difficulty accessing medical care.371

359  Interview with Richard, supra note 71; Interview with Simon, supra note 96.
360  Interview with Marvin, supra note 96.
361  Interview with Paul, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
362  Id.
363  Interview with Nelson, supra note 158.
364  Id.
365  Water Success Story: City of Eden, Texas Water Development Board (Jan. 2013), http://www.twdb.texas.gov/newsmedia/featured/
projects/eden/index.asp.
366  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Pablo, supra note 96; Interview with Franco, supra note 96; Interview with
Bradley, supra note 96; Interview with Marvin, supra note 96; Interview with Elias supra note 96; Interview with Mohammed, prisoner at
Eden (Jan. 8, 2014) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Kevin, supra note 71.
367  Interview with Leonardo, supra note 71; Interview with Elias, supra note 96.
368  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71; Interview with Pablo, supra note 96; Interview with Richard, supra note 71.
369  Interview with Jesse, supra note 96; Interview with Simon, supra note 96.
370  Interview with Agustin, supra note 71.
371  Interview with Pablo, supra note 96.

80  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Prisoners reported trouble refilling prescriptions. Nelson, a prisoner with stagethree kidney disease, told us that he goes up to five days at a time without his kidney
medications before they are refilled.372 Another prisoner who takes prescription
medications for severe depression informed us that he has been forced to go four to five
days without his medication at Eden.373 Yet another prisoner reported that he had waited
25 days for his ulcer medication to be refilled.374
Prisoners with chronic conditions told us they fear for their health. A diabetic prisoner
reported that one of the Eden guards forces diabetics to eat last, long after they have taken
their pre-meal insulin injection, and he worries this could be dangerous.375 Additionally,
one night when there was insufficient staff, Eden unexpectedly shut down its medical unit,
making it impossible for diabetics to obtain time-sensitive insulin shots.376
Prisoners with hernias reported that they were frequently denied treatment or
surgeries.377 In May 2011, we spoke to Manuel, a prisoner at Eden who had been
authorized for surgery on a strangled and irreducible hernia since February but had
not yet been scheduled for an appointment.378 Manuel reported that he had been
denied treatment for months even though he filed repeated grievances notifying the
administration that he was unable to stand or urinate without suffering debilitating
pain.379 One prisoner reported that medical staff at Eden told him he would have to wait
until he was deported to receive medical attention.380
Ernesto has been unable to walk properly and has relied on crutches since he fell and
hurt his leg at Eden in July 2010.381 Because of the way he was forced to walk on his
legs following his injury, both his knees are now seriously damaged.382 Shortly after
he fell, a doctor at Eden told Ernesto that he needed an MRI on his knee.383 However,
health service administrators at Eden canceled Ernesto’s MRI.384 Instead, Ernesto was

372  Interview with Nelson, supra note 158.
373  Interview with David, supra note 310.
374  Interview with Ernesto, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
375  Interview with Bradley, supra note 96. See also Insulin Routines, American Diabetes Association, http://www.diabetes.org/living-withdiabetes/treatment-and-care/medication/insulin/insulin-routines.html (stating that regular insulin works best when taken 30 minutes
prior to a meal) (last visited Mar. 5, 2014).
376  Interview with Bradley, supra note 96.
377  Interview with Marvin, supra note 96; Interview with Gael, supra note 96; Interview with Mohammed, supra note 366; Interview
with Vladmir, supra note 71.
378  Interview with Manuel, prisoner at Eden (May 21, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
379  Id.
380  Interview with Ezra, supra note 310.
381  Interview with Ernesto, supra note 374.
382  Id.
383  Id.
384  Id.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  81

prescribed a “lifestyle change,” which had no effect except to strip him of his work and
recreation privileges.385

Willacy County Correctional Center
Raymondville, Texas

n  The corporate slogan of MTC, the private prison company that operates the Kevlar
tent city of the Willacy County Correctional Center, is “BIONIC: Believe it or not I care.”

I

n a bleak, remote area of the Rio Grande Valley near the Mexico border, approximately
3,000 men languish in the Kevlar tent city of the Willacy County Correctional Center,
operated by the private prison company MTC.386 Just past the metal detectors in the
lobby, a large sign greets visitors with MTC’s corporate slogan: “BIONIC: Believe it or not
I care.” But few of the prisoners here believe it. “I think that’s got to be one of the most
enormous lies there’s ever been. The officers here treat us with such little respect,” said
one prisoner.387 “That’s just not true. Here they just think you’re not serious, and they
ignore you. They just laugh at you,” said another.388 The men spend their days in squalid
and cramped living quarters, without jobs or educational programming to occupy them,
far removed from family support and legal resources.
385 
386 
387 
388 

Id.
See Population Statistics, supra note 23.
Interview with Stephen, supra note 65.
Interview with Alex, supra note 65.

82  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

The ACLU conducted dozens of interviews with prisoners at the Willacy County
Correctional Center in 2012 and 2013. What we found was overwhelming despair. The
men we interviewed felt warehoused and forgotten.

Background
Willacy County Correctional
Institution (nicknamed “Tent City”
or “Ritmo,” and originally named
Willacy County Processing Center)
earned a terrible reputation from
2006 to 2011, when MTC operated
it as an immigration detention
facility under a contract with ICE.389
In May 2011, ICE announced it was
transferring its detainees out of
Willacy.390 But MTC quickly obtained
a new contract to hold prisoners for
BOP—the same contract that keeps
Tent City operating today.391

“

I don’t think they care
about us. If they did,
things would be different.
They don’t have enough
activities for us. We take
things out of the trash cans
to entertain ourselves.”

— Dante, 38 years old, serving a thirteen-month
sentence for reentry

Under the original ICE contract, Willacy County received a per diem payment for each
detainee, but county officials expressed disappointment that, because the facility was
never at capacity, revenue was always low.392 By that measure, the county ought to be
happy with what we learned at Willacy: prisoners described a facility that is not only foul,
cramped, and depressing, but also overcrowded.

Findings
Overcrowding and lack of programming
The prisoners at Willacy described how they live: crammed into crowded and squalid

389  Spencer S. Hsu & Sylvia Moreno, supra note 16; Human Rights First, supra note 16.
390  Lynn Brezoski, supra note 21.
391  Press Release, Management & Training Corp., supra note 22.
392  New Prisoners Begin Arriving in Tent City, Monitor, Oct. 10, 2011, http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_c958cc6d-e46e56ab-926d-b8a747f6db32.html.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  83

Kevlar tents and given nothing to do to pass the time. Their frustration and despair is
palpable.
“It’s like walking through minefields. You never know when someone is going to explode,
because everyone is frustrated,” said one prisoner.393 “Sometimes you can feel the
unrest and people start fighting, and they go to SHU. There isn’t enough space for
everybody. We’re too crowded,” another prisoner told us.394
Based on our interviews, the cramped and unclean living conditions combined with the
lack of educational, therapeutic, and rehabilitative programming create an environment
unsafe for prisoners and staff. Many prisoners told us that the overcrowded conditions
and lack of programming made them frustrated and uneasy.395 One man told us that
fellow prisoners had threatened to burn the tents but rationalized, “What’s the point?
They’d build them back up.”396 Prisoners are bored, listless, and frustrated by the
conditions, and the atmosphere, they say, is tense and could escalate at any time.
Prisoners reported that 200 of them are packed into each Kevlar tent, with only about
three feet of space between each bed. Each prisoner gets very little personal space.
There is no privacy between beds, nor in the five bathrooms where toilets and showers
are in the open with no partitions. There are eight televisions throughout the tent.
Prisoners report that it gets very loud in the tents. “They treat us like animals,” one
prisoner told us.397
Predictably, the overcrowding leads to conditions the prisoners described as squalid,
although many men told us that they do their best to keep their own living spaces clean
with the two ounces of cleaning solution provided per tent.398 They told us about insects
and spiders that crawl in through holes in the Kevlar and bite them. They reported
that their clothes are washed without detergent and mixed in the same laundry loads
as mops and other cleaning equipment.399 One prisoner said if they try to do their own
laundry, they can get punished for hanging clothes to dry in the dormitory.400 Many of
the prisoners told us that the toilets are constantly overflowing, leaving a terrible smell
in the tents.401 It got so bad one night in July 2013 that, when Willacy staff did not fix the

393  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
394  Interview with Hugh, supra note 93.
395  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72; Interview with Hugh, supra note 93; Interview with Dante, supra note 127.
396  Interview with Dante, supra note 127.
397  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72.
398  Interview with Alonzo, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 12, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
399  Interview with Adan, supra note 134; Interview with Santiago, supra note 72.
400  Interview with Santiago, supra note 72.
401  Interview with Stephen, supra note 65; Interview with Cristobal, supra note 148; Interview with Benicio, supra note 65; Interview
with Cristofer, supra note 148; Interview with Dario, prisoner at Willacy (Nov.13, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).

84  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

overflowing toilets that were leaking sewage water throughout one tent, the prisoners
held a strike out in the yard.402 “It was so unpleasant that a bunch of us mutinied. The
inmates in [three dorms] stayed outside in the yard in protest, until the toilets were
fixed,” said Mauricio.403 Maintenance repaired the toilets later that evening, but the
leaders of the strike were reportedly taken to extreme isolation as punishment.404
Other prisoners reported that overflowing toilets are a common occurrence. “The
bathrooms are always a problem,” one man told us. “They get clogged all the time, and
they have to clean the septic tank. But sometimes they overflow and it’s very dirty. They
don’t even have ventilators inside to help with the foul smell. Everything smells bad.”405
Another prisoner said, “They have a problem here with overflowing sewage water, and it
smells all the time. I even fear for my respiratory health.”406
In 2012, prisoners reported to us that the water was shut off for two days when the tap
water started to look yellowish green.407 Some prisoners protested, and as many as 80
of them were taken to isolation.408 After two days, prison staff gave the prisoners bottled
water and portable toilets.409
To make matters worse, Willacy’s prisoners spend most of their time in the foul,
cramped tents with little to divert them. Of the five CAR prisons in Texas, Willacy appears
to offer the least amount of programming. Many prisoners reported that they were
not aware of any educational classes.410 A few mentioned middle-school level or GED
classes but reported that the classes could be completed in a short time because they
were very basic.411 A few prisoners mentioned guitar classes (with guitars donated by a
local church)412 and hobby crafts (though they report access is limited by the requirement
that prisoners purchase their own supplies).413
Dante is spending thirteen months in Willacy after being convicted of reentry. Since
there are no organized activities or classes to occupy the men productively, he and other
prisoners scavenge materials from the trash to make figurines and art. “Sometimes
402  Id.; Interview with Mauricio, supra note 65; Interview with Dylan, supra note 65; Interview with Alex, supra note 65.
403  Interview with Mauricio, supra note 65.
404  Id.
405  Interview with Dante, supra note 127.
406  Interview with Stephen, supra note 65.
407  Interview with Geoff, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 13, 2012) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Marco, prisoner at Willacy
(Nov. 14, 2012) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Michael, prisoner at Willacy (Nov. 14, 2012) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
408  Interview with Marco, supra note 407; Interview with Michael, supra note 407.
409  Interview with Marco, supra note 407; Interview with Michael, supra note 407.
410  Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Mario, supra note 93; Interview with Sergio, supra note 72; Interview with
Dmitri, supra note 75.
411  Interview with Adan, supra note134; Interview with Santiago, supra note 72.
412  Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Aurelio, supra note 159; Interview with Santiago, supra note 72.
413  Interview with Theodore, supra note 115; Interview with Cristobal, supra note 148; Interview with Benicio, supra note 65.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  85

I feel suffocated and trapped,” Dante told us during his interview.414 Another prisoner
told us: “Here I feel like I am in a hole without an exit. I don’t have anything and I feel
trapped.”415
In addition to the lack of formalized programming, interviews revealed that Willacy
provides little opportunity for recreation. Willacy does have a library, but prisoners told
us that it was too small and did not have many Spanish-language books.416 “The library’s
supposed to be freedom because that is where you free your mind. But there’s nothing
in the library,” one prisoner said.417 Many of the prisoners we spoke to also complained
that the recreation yards are too small.418 There is one small yard for every 400
prisoners, not nearly enough room to get the exercise many of the men crave.419 Most of
the prisoners are not able to work because there are not enough jobs.420 The ones who
can work typically make between eleven and seventeen cents per hour.421
Sergio, a 26-year-old Honduran man who came to the United States with his parents
when he was eight years old and thinks of New York City as home, yearns to work. He
told us that he feels he is treated like an animal, locked up and not given anything to do
to pass the time. “They don’t have a job for us. They don’t have any education. They just
don’t have any space for all of us. Sometimes it makes me go crazy. I just want to do
something,” he said.422
Another prisoner said that although he misses his family, he does not want them to
know about the abhorrent conditions he is forced to live in. “This place is hard on us, on
everyone, and hard on our families, too. Sometimes we don’t tell anything about it to our
families. They don’t know that we suffer, that we’re not treated with respect, or that we
sometimes lack food or blankets. We don’t tell our families. I just don’t want my kids to
see me like this,” Vicente said.423

414  Interview with Dante, supra note 127.
415  Interview with Esteban, supra note 61.
416  Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Dylan, supra note 65; Interview with Alex, supra note 65; Interview with Dante,
supra note 127.
417  Interview with Theodore, supra note 115.
418  Interview with Costa, supra note 72; Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Sergio, supra note 72.
419  Interview with Costa, supra note 72; Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Sergio, supra note 72.
420  Interview with Cristobal, supra note 148; Interview with Cristofer, supra note 148; Interview with Sergio, supra note 72.
421  Interview with Adan, supra note 134.
422  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72.
423  Interview with Vicente, supra note 62.

86  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Arbitrary and abusive use of extreme isolation
Willacy has a total prisoner population of just under 3,000 people.424 Yet according to the
men we interviewed who had recently been in the SHU, approximately 300 people are
held in extreme isolation in the SHU at any given time.425
Prisoners who have been confined in the SHU report that the extreme isolation drives
men to the verge of psychosis. “In the SHU, the noise was bad. People could be heard
screaming and kicking their doors all day,” Alex told us.426 Some prisoners reportedly
attempted suicide or self-mutilation.427 They describe the cells as small, with three
metal walls and a metal door. Showers take place outside of the cells and are only
available on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. When prisoners are taken out of their
cells for their daily hour of recreation, they stand in a small outdoor cage with fencing on
the sides and the top. 428
In the SHU, contact with the outside world is severely limited. “I was kept there for about
24 hours each day. I asked to use the telephone, and they said no,” Alex told us.429 Dmitri
was accustomed to telephoning his parents in Phoenix twice a day, but in the SHU, “I
only got one phone call a month and couldn’t contact my family to let them know what
was happening. They worried because I [normally] speak to them twice a day, and then
I couldn’t speak to them for a while. My family was worried about me and my dad had to
call the prison to ask where I was,” he said.430
Numerous prisoners told us that since April 2013, new arrivals have automatically
been held in the SHU for extended periods, apparently because there is no room in the
tents.431 “There are 300 [people] in SHU and it is always full,” said Dmitri of his time in
SHU. “Every day new people were brought into SHU because there weren’t enough beds
in the tents. People complained that they did not do anything and should not be in SHU.”
It is not just new arrivals who are affected by the misuse of SHU cells as overflow bed
space. Dmitri told us he was sent to the SHU for allegedly selling tobacco in the prison. A
month and a half later, the charges were dismissed—but he was forced to spend another

424  Population Statistics, supra note 23.
425  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75; Interview with Andres, supra note 123.
426  Interview with Alex, supra note 65.
427  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
428  Id.
429  Interview with Alex, supra note 65.
430  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
431  Interview with Vicente, supra note 62; Interview with Mario, supra note 93; Interview with Hugh, supra note 93; Interview with
Dmitri, supra note 75.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  87

month in the SHU while he waited for a bed to become available in the tents.432 Prisoners
reported that guards put people in the SHU for minor infractions or even for requesting
new shoes or extra food.433

Inadequate medical treatment
The daily sense of desolation and abandonment felt by prisoners is compounded by
Willacy’s apparent inattention to their medical needs. As with the other facilities we
examined for this report, our interviews with prisoners at Willacy revealed a widespread
sense that corners are cut and basic medical concerns are often ignored or inadequately
addressed by staff.
Zavier, age 52, reports that after arriving at Willacy, he developed an open varicose
ulcer on his right ankle that is swollen and discolored.434 His only treatment came from a
nurse who cleaned it with water and wrapped it in gauze.435 “I don’t get enough medical
attention and that affects me emotionally. If I complain, they deny me everything. Once
after complaining, the prison major yelled at me, ‘Don’t forget that you’re a prisoner
here! And that the medicines you get here are given to you for free!’” Zavier said.436
When Zavier was detained at the Eden CAR prison, his remaining teeth were removed
because of an infection.437 Since his arrival at Willacy, the medical staff has refused
to give him dentures.438 With neither teeth nor dentures, he has great difficulty eating
the meals that are served to him. Several other prisoners told us that Willacy cuts
corners on medical treatment by refusing to provide any preventive dental care or teeth
cleaning.439 And when a prisoner has a toothache stemming from a possible cavity or
infection, the only treatment Willacy will provide is extraction.440
Other prisoners reported similar concerns about basic medical diagnosis and
treatment—that when they see medical staff to diagnose various ailments, they are
merely given Tylenol or ibuprofen and dismissed without having their problems fully
identified or resolved. For example, Esteban went to “sick call” to receive treatment for a

432  Interview with Dmitri, supra note 75.
433  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72.
434  Interview with Zavier, supra note 151.
435  Id.
436  Id.
437  Id.
438  Id.
439  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72; Interview with Hugh, supra note 93; Interview with Marco, supra note 407; Interview with
Geoff, supra note 407.
440  Interview with Sergio, supra note 72; Interview with Hugh, supra note 93; Interview with Marco, supra note 407; Interview with
Geoff, supra note 407.

88  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

cough. But according to a grievance he later filed, a medical staff member (identified in
the response to his grievance as being a licensed vocational nurse, who is not qualified
to make independent diagnoses) turned him away by yelling at him, “There’s nothing
wrong with you!” It was not until he returned for an appointment with another provider
that Esteban was appropriately diagnosed and treated.441
Another prisoner, Santiago, was diagnosed with hepatitis C at Eden but was never
informed of the diagnosis. After a few visits to the doctor in Willacy he eventually learned
of the diagnosis. But at the time of our interview, he still had not received any treatment
or explanation about how to care for himself.442

Santiago’s Story
Forty-five year old Santiago is a sturdy, slow-talking Texan. What’s happened
to him the past three years shows how differently the justice system treats
people who are born, as Santiago was, just over the border. And it reveals
the chaos this treatment wreaks on family members like his mother and
children—all U.S. citizens.
“We broke the law and we know it,” Santiago says of the prisoners at the
Willacy County Correctional Center. “But it doesn’t mean we’re not human.”
Soft-spoken and bespectacled, Santiago is eloquent in both English and
Spanish. He spends hours helping fellow prisoners with documents. But
Santiago only learned Spanish as an adult, when he was deported to Mexico
because of drug charges.
Three years after landing in a country where he had never lived, Santiago
headed back across the border to Presidio, Texas. He returned to the house he
shared with his mother and two children, and to his work driving trucks.
In 2012 Santiago was arrested again: for re-entry. Ever since, Santiago has
been swept through the network of private prisons subcontracted to the
federal government.

441  Attempt at Informal Resolution filed by Esteban (Apr. 8, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
442  Interview with Santiago, supra note 72.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  89

His time at Willacy has been
nightmarish. Four months after
arriving, Santiago became so
weak and confused that fellow
inmates had to help him stumble
out of his cell to eat. To see a
doctor, he squeezed into a cell
with 25 other ailing inmates
and waited eight hours. Staffers
denied his pleas for blood work.
Weeks later, a visiting doctor
told him why he was sick.

Santiago’s mother,
800 miles away,
cannot afford to visit.
Santiago, who holds
a U.S. visa, has gone
untreated for Hepatitis
C after almost two
years in Eden.

“The doctor said, ‘Didn’t you know you have Hepatitis C?’” Santiago says.
Almost two years later, Santiago has received no treatment at all.
Some 800 miles away, in McCaney, Texas, Santiago’s mother Beatrice
shoulders different burdens. For years, she raised Santiago’s son and
daughter, as her son supported them. On the weekend, when Santiago
returned from trucking runs, they gathered for his mother’s enchiladas, noodle
soups, and cookies. Now the 65-year old former waitress, dependent on Social
Security, skimps on food, bills, and medicine.
“I’m by myself,” Beatrice says. “I don’t have money now. I have skipped my
Prozac for up to two weeks. That’s always the first one that I skip. If I don’t
have the Prozac, it’s not a happy day for me. It’s a go-to-sleep day.”
Yet the worst part, she says, is the distance. Because Santiago is imprisoned
seven hours away, neither she nor his children can afford to see him.
“I just want him close to home,” Beatrice says. His twice-weekly phone calls,
she says, bring her badly needed emotional support. But she is too far away
to know how he is really doing. Beatrice has no idea about her son’s lifethreatening disease.
“Health?” she muses. “His health seems good. Or maybe he doesn’t want to tell
me anything about it.” From 800 miles away, there’s no way for her to be sure.*  n
*  Interview with Santiago, supra note 72, interview with Beatrice (on file with ACLU of Texas).

90  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Big Spring Correctional Center
Big Spring, Texas

n  Held in rural west Texas, prisoners at Big Spring Correctional Center report that
there is only one doctor for the entire population of 3,500 prisoners and that the doctor is
infrequently present at any particular unit of the facility.

T

he 3,500 prisoners at Big Spring Correctional Center are housed in four separate
detention facilities, sprawling across more than 40 acres of a decommissioned Air
Force base about 100 miles south of Lubbock.
Prisoners reported that sick or injured men are frequently ignored. Some limp around
general population in constant pain. Others languish in isolation without their medicine.
Prisoners in need of care for chronic illnesses go days or weeks without treatment.
Prisoners also reported that the medical unit is severely understaffed and that they often
have difficulty obtaining medication, treatment, and specialist care. For the unfortunate
prisoners sent to the SHU at Big Spring, the conditions are abysmal and medical care is
even worse.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  91

Background
Big Spring became a CAR facility in January 2007 under a contract with private prison
operator Cornell Companies. In 2010, Cornell was acquired by GEO Group. Under
Cornell and then GEO Group’s management, Big Spring has repeatedly been in the news
for disturbing incidents, although the details have largely been shrouded from public
view.
In 2008, prisoners at Big Spring’s Flightline Unit rose up over their discontent with
the facility’s conditions.443 The disturbance caused multiple fires, requiring local law
enforcement and firefighters to rush to the scene.444 Then, in November 2010, when a
GEO Group guard shot a prisoner in the arm (the shooting was reportedly accidental),
news about the incident was scarce.445 Following each of these incidents, the private
prison operators refused to provide details to the public and to the surrounding
community, telling the press that they could not release information “due to company
policy.”446 It is unclear whether BOP or any other DOJ components ever formally
investigated these incidents.

Findings
Inadequate medical care
Luis told us his story: his knee was injured after he was pushed off a ledge by a Border
Patrol agent in San Diego.447 He was arrested for illegal reentry during that encounter
and spent a year in three different prisons before being transferred to Big Spring in
2010.448 His wife, a U.S. citizen, waits for him back home in California. When he arrived
at Big Spring he was in a wheelchair and had not received any medical treatment for his
injured knee.449 Even though medical staff wrote in Luis’s medical records that his knee
has an “obvious deformity,” the records show they have denied him treatment other than

443  Major Incident at Cornell’s Big Spring Unit, supra note 67; Big Spring Riot Investigation Continues, supra note 67; Roma Vivas, supra
note 67. See also interview with Lucien, prisoner at Big Spring (May 20, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
444  Major Incident at Cornell’s Big Spring Unit, supra note 67; Big Spring Riot Investigation Continues, supra note 67; Roma Vivas, supra
note 67.
445  Big Spring Inmate Shot in Accidental Shooting, KWES NewsWest9, Nov. 10, 2010, http://www.newswest9.com/story/13473330/bigspring-inmate-shot-in-accidental-shooting?redirected=true.
446  Bob Libal, Shooting at GEO’s Big Spring FBOP Facility, Texas Prison Bid’ness (Nov. 10, 2010), http://www.texasprisonbidness.org/
shooting-geos-big-spring-fbop-facility (quoting GEO Group Controversy, CBS 7 News).
447  Interview with Luis, supra note 60.
448  Id.
449  Id.

92  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

painkillers.450 When the ACLU
met with Luis in 2011 he was
on crutches, struggling, and in
visible discomfort.

n  Like other contracts we reviewed, the Big Spring
contract contains a SHU quota provision requiring
the prison to use at least 10% of its contract beds
for isolation.

Luis is in constant pain and
worries that, if his condition
is allowed to irreparably
deteriorate, he will not be able
to work to support his family
after he is released.451 He said
to us, “I just want to be a normal
person.”452

The ACLU received many such
reports of inadequate medical
care at Big Spring, much of it apparently stemming from understaffing. Prisoners
report that there is only one doctor for the entire population of 3,500 prisoners and that
the doctor is infrequently present at any particular unit of the facility.453 Health care
services are primarily provided by nurses, who are reportedly overworked and underresourced.454 It may take weeks or even months to see a physician’s assistant or doctor
after initial evaluation by a nurse.455 “Sick-call” lines to access medical services are long,
and prisoners report that they are sometimes forced to choose between eating a meal
and receiving medical attention—a practice that is especially hazardous for prisoners
with conditions such as diabetes, for which scheduling medication and food intake is
necessary to prevent emergencies.456 Several prisoners at Big Spring commented that
they felt medical staff are sincerely trying to help but are simply unable to because they
are overstretched.457

450  Intake Medical Records of Luis (May 14, 2010) (noting obvious deformity) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Inmate Request to a Staff
Member filed by Luis (June 22, 2010) (complaining about knee pain and requesting follow-up care, denied on July 7, 2010) (on file with
ACLU of Texas); Inmate Request to a Staff Member filed by Luis (July 12, 2010) (requesting orthopedic shoes, denied on July 16, 2010)
(on file with ACLU of Texas); Inmate Request to a Staff Member filed by Luis (Aug. 13, 2010) (requesting outside specialty care, denied on
Aug. 19, 2010) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
451  Interview with Luis, supra note 60.
452  Id.
453  Interview with Arturo, supra note 152; Interview with Aaron, supra note 152.
454  For example, one prisoner reported that there is only one nurse on duty at night for all four units of Big Spring and that she does
not know CPR. Interview with Emilio, supra note 152. Several prisoners expressed concern that there is either one nurse, or no medical
provider on duty at all at night in the complex. See Interview with Miguel, supra note 59; Interview with Virgil, supra note 158; Interview
with Jameel, supra note 152; Interview with Aaron, supra note 152; Interview with Jaime, supra note 58.
455  Interview with Miguel, supra note 59; Interview with Virgil, supra note 158; Interview with Jeremiah, prisoner at Big Spring (May
18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
456  Interview with Jeremiah, supra note 455; Interview with Luis, supra note 60.
457  Interview with Miguel, supra note 59; Interview with Jaime, supra note 58.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  93

Prisoners report problems receiving routine care for chronic diseases. For example,
Diego has diabetes and needs his blood sugar regularly tested.458 Although his blood
sugar was tested daily when he was housed in a BOP facility, he told us he has rarely
been tested since his transfer to Big Spring.459 When he asked about this situation,
medical staff told Diego that they do not have the testing equipment.460 Similarly, Leo has
a thyroid condition that BOP doctors told him requires testing every month.461 Since his
transfer to Big Spring, he estimates he has been tested at most every three months.462
Prisoners also described difficulty obtaining prescribed medications reliably. One
prisoner reported that he was unable to finish a course of antibiotics because doses
were provided to him only erratically.463 Other prisoners informed us that they had gone
weeks without their cholesterol and high blood-pressure pills before their prescriptions
were refilled.464 And one prisoner who takes medication for anxiety and depression
reported that his prescriptions have been altered and discontinued for two months
without explanation, causing him to suffer insomnia and anxiety.465
Miguel is serving a 37-month sentence at Big Spring for illegal reentry.466 He suffers
from diabetes and high cholesterol, which he controlled with medication prior to his
incarceration.467 When he arrived at Big Spring, medical staff reportedly discontinued
these medications and told Miguel that he would not receive pills for his diabetes and
high cholesterol until three months prior to his release date.468 Until then, he was
informed, he would receive only Tylenol.469 Miguel has submitted five or six written
requests to see a doctor, which cost him two dollars per submission, even when he did
not received an appointment.470 Since the BOP program statement pertaining to medical
co-pays does not apply at Big Spring, there is no regulation prohibiting GEO staff from
charging for each request for a medical appointment, even if no appointment is actually
provided.471
We received reports that even medical treatments approved by medical staff are
unreasonably delayed. One prisoner reported that although medical staff determined
he needed surgery for his hernia, it took four months before he finally received the
458 
459 
460 
461 
462 
463 
464 
465 
466 
467 
468 
469 
470 
471 

Interview with Diego, supra note 157.
Id.
Id.
Interview with Leo, supra note 157.
Id.
Interview with Loren, supra note 158.
Interview with Aaron, supra note 152; Interview with Virgil, supra note 158; Interview with Lucien, supra note 158.
Interview with Jonah, supra note 158.
Interview with Miguel, supra note 59.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83.

94  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

procedure.472 The doctor who saw him reportedly commented, “I have never seen a
hernia like that in ten years.”473 Another prisoner reported that he has waited over a year
for treatment for a neurological condition, even though a doctor noted months ago that
he needed a medical intervention “as soon as possible” to prevent partial paralysis.474

Arbitrary and abusive use of extreme isolation
Prisoners in the SHU at Big Spring reportedly live in conditions of overcrowding and
extreme isolation. Three men are locked in a cell with only two beds, forcing one of
the men to sleep on the floor. For 23 hours a day, they are shut in behind a steel door
with two tiny windows and a tray slot for food. Once a day, for about an hour, they are
released outside into a cage that is eight to ten paces wide. This is their only recreation.
They can call their family once a month for fifteen minutes at a time.475
Each cell has a toilet and some have showers, but nothing is private. One prisoner
told us that sometimes there is no running water in the unit for days at a time; when
this happens, he and his cellmates cover the toilet with a towel to stifle the smell and
defecate in plastic bags.476 Even when the toilets are working, if a female guard enters
the unit, the men are not allowed to use the toilet or they can reportedly be written up
for indecent exposure.477
Prisoners reported that guards frequently abuse their authority by using the SHU to
punish minor or nonexistent infractions. Several prisoners told us they were sent to the
SHU in retaliation for filing or threatening to file lawsuits.478 One prisoner was sent to
the SHU for a week after going to the soda machine when he was not supposed to.479
Isolation for “investigatory” purposes can stretch to interminable lengths: one prisoner
was sent to the SHU for 89 days while staff investigated whether he had a cell phone. He
did not.480
Like the other contracts we reviewed, the Big Spring contract contains a SHU quota
provision requiring the prison to use at least 10% of its contract beds for isolation.481 This
may explain why we heard Kafkaesque stories like Henry’s. Henry does not know why
472 
473 
474 
475 
476 
477 
478 
479 
480 
481 

Interview with Raja, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
Id.
Interview with Jameel, supra note 152.
Interview with Henry, supra note 73.
Interview with Dominic, supra note 73.
Id.
Interview with Hugo, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Emilio, supra note 152.
Interview with Marc, prisoner at Big Spring (May 18, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
Interview with Raja, supra note 472.
Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 55.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  95

he was sent to the SHU.482 But when the ACLU interviewed him, he had been in extreme
isolation for five months.483 He is given a review hearing every month but he has never
been told why the guards keep him in isolation.484 He told us he is held in a squalid cell
with “dirty and smelly” sheets and blankets.485 He is fed rice, beans, and meat three
times a day on dirty plates.486 The food portions are so inadequate that he has reportedly
lost significant weight.487
As in general population, prisoners held in isolation report they are frequently denied
medical treatment. Henry described how he began bleeding rectally about ten days after
he was placed in isolation but was forced to wait over a month before seeing a doctor
who diagnosed him with hemorrhoids and prescribed ointment and medication.488 It
helped at first but when the bleeding recurred and Henry requested another medical
visit, he was ignored.489
Dominic, a Mexican immigrant who has family in Los Angeles, also reported problems
with medical and mental health care provided in the SHU. Dominic had been in isolation
for five months when we interviewed him and was reportedly sent there for complaining
about the food during a lockdown.490 Dominic broke his arm after a couple months in
the SHU.491 He described what happened: he was standing on a bunk trying to cover the
ceiling vent to warm up the temperature in the frigid cell when he fell.492 He was taken to
the hospital and though he says a doctor recommended surgery, he was sent back to his
cell with only a wrist wrap and ibuprofen.493 He has not received any other care.494
Dominic expressed concern that there is no way for a prisoner in the SHU to speak
confidentially with mental health staff about suicidal ideation.495 Dominic told us that if a
prisoner in the SHU needs mental health care or feels suicidal, his options are either to
tell a counselor by speaking through the tray slot in the door of his cell (with the other
prisoners listening) or write a note to a guard who will submit it to the medical staff.496
“They don’t take us seriously,” he said. “It’s all money for them.”497
482 
483 
484 
485 
486 
487 
488 
489 
490 
491 
492 
493 
494 
495 
496 
497 

Interview with Henry, supra note 73.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Interview with Dominic, supra note 73.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.
Id.

96  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility
Post, Texas

n  Though the vast majority of prisoners at Dalby are Spanish speaking, there are few
Spanish-speaking staff members. And MTC guards reportedly send prisoners to SHU for
speaking Spanish.

E

mmanuel is blind and incarcerated at Dalby Correctional Facility. For this, he must
endure a special humiliation: when he stands in the cafeteria line, a guard holding
a barcode reader (intended for scanning prison IDs) often aims the barcode reader into
Emmanuel’s eyes and laughs at the man who cannot see.498

Other prisoners reported that such indignities are common at Dalby. Prisoners told the
ACLU that Dalby staff exhibit a lack of professionalism and worse. Guards call them
names like “Mexican nigger” and “wetback.”499 Staff appear unprepared to respond to
life-threatening emergencies.500 And though the vast majority of prisoners at Dalby are
Spanish speaking, there are few Spanish-speaking staff members, making it difficult for
many prisoners to communicate their needs and concerns.501

498  Interview with Emmanuel, supra note 95.
499  Interview with Victor, prisoner at Dalby (May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Martin, supra note 151;
Interview with Bernard, prisoner at Dalby (May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Orlando, supra note 84; Interview
with Eric, prisoner at Dalby (May, 29, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
500  Interview with Ian, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Martin, supra note 151.
501  Interview with Noah, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Valentino, supra note 95.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  97

As one man told us: “I learn not to complain anymore. I just go along.”502

Background
Like many of the prisons in rural west Texas, the Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility in
Garza County was built to bring revenue to an isolated area. 503 Its namesake, County
Judge Giles Dalby, proposed the prison to stem economic decline in the depressed
county. It was built in 1999 and, during the next decade, the population of Post, Texas,
shot up from 1,600 to more than 6,000, much of that attributed to the men incarcerated
there.504
Operated by MTC, Dalby won a CAR contract in 2006. Today, Dalby houses roughly 1,900
non-citizen prisoners.

Findings
Staff harass and abuse prisoners
We received repeated reports of abusive behavior by staff against prisoners, including
racist and derogatory comments, abusive use of disciplinary sanctions and isolation,
sexual harassment, and threats of physical violence. We heard from two disabled
prisoners who said they feel like they bear the brunt of this abuse. Emmanuel not only
is made fun of in the cafeteria line, but he is also taunted by the guards in the recreation
yard.505 And since the guards do not provide him any help getting around the facility,
he is forced to rely on assistance from other prisoners.506 But he is lucky compared to
a prisoner who could not walk; that man was reportedly placed in an isolation cell for
telling a guard that he was unable to climb the stairs to his housing unit.507
Prisoners reported that MTC guards call them names like “wetback” and “Mexican
nigger” and use profanities against them.508 A Spanish-speaking prisoner told the ACLU

502  Interview with Alfonso, supra note 73.
503  Katie Hepburn, Garza Judge Dalby Receives Trailblazer Award in State Senate, Lubbock Avalanche-J., Aug. 13, 2004, http://
lubbockonline.com/stories/081304/sta_081304084.shtml.
504  Adam D. Young, Garza County Growth Could Be Mixed Blessing, Lubbock Avalanche-J., Mar. 7, 2011, http://m.lubbockonline.com/
local-news/2011-03-06/garza-county-growth-could-be-mixed-blessing.
505  Interview with Emmanuel, supra note 95.
506  Id.
507  Interview with Freddie, supra note 84.
508  Interview with Victor, supra note 499; Interview with Martin, supra note 151; Interview with Bernard, supra note 499; Interview with
Orlando, supra note 84; Interview with Eric, supra note 499.

98  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

that guards harass him and others by saying: “Where do you think you live? You live in
America.”509 They reportedly send prisoners to the SHU “for not speaking English in
America.”510 Both gay and straight prisoners reported that Dalby staff use homophobic
insults against them and taunt them for being gay.511 One prisoner told us that staff
reportedly target openly gay prisoners with sexually provocative comments and issue
them false disciplinary tickets for “engaging in sexual acts.”512
The ACLU received numerous reports that prisoners with limited English proficiency are
punished for not following orders given in English that they do not fully understand.513
Other prisoners reported that they could not communicate with guards at all. One man
told us that so few guards speak Spanish that when guards need to speak to a Spanishspeaking prisoner, they have to call over another prisoner to translate.514
Prisoners told us that MTC staff make arbitrary threats of physical violence and
disciplinary sanctions.515 In one case, a correctional officer reportedly challenged a
prisoner: “Let’s go outside and fight.”516 Those who complain about such threats do so
at their peril: correctional staff reportedly tell prisoners who try to raise concerns with
prison administrators or to report abuse that they will be put in the SHU if they attempt
further action.517
The ACLU was unable to obtain specific information related to training and staffing in
CAR prisons through open records requests.518 However, a review of the Dalby contract
suggests that little training is provided and virtually none is required.519 All the contracts
we reviewed stipulate that BOP will provide specialized training on a one-time basis
on a limited number of topics pertaining to records administration and correctional
programs.520 The only required training is 24 hours on “disciplinary hearings.” Other
trainings are offered but must be paid for by the contractor. This contractual scheme
provides little incentive for private companies to spend money on training. And it is
foolish to expect private prison companies to provide adequate training in the absence
of contractual requirements: a 2004 study found that the private sector requires less
509  Interview with Martin, supra note 151.
510  Id.
511  Interview with Manolo, prisoner at Dalby (May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Guillermo (May 19, 2011) (on
file with ACLU of Texas); Interview with Eduardo, prisoner at Dalby (May 19, 2011) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
512  Interview with Manolo, supra note 511.
513  Interview with Guillermo, supra note 511; Interview with Victor, supra note 499.
514  Interview with Christian, prisoner at Dalby (Dec. 3, 2013) (on file with ACLU of Texas).
515  Interview with Fernando, supra note 84; Interview with Guillermo, supra note 511.
516  Interview with Guillermo, supra note 511.
517  Interview with Fernando, supra note 84.
518  See supra text accompanying notes 224-31.
519  Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 79-80.
520  Big Spring CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 79-80; Dalby CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 79-80; Eden CAR 6 Contract, supra note
83, at 77-78; Reeves CAR 5 Contract, supra note 83, at 32-33; Reeves CAR 6 Contract, supra note 83, at 80-81.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  99

training of its guards than correctional officers in public prisons; that private prisons
have a lower staff-to-prisoner ratio; that the private sector pays its guards less; and that
the private sector experiences staff turnover rates approaching three times that of the
public sector.521

Failure to provide timely medical intervention
Martin, a 36-year-old Cuban immigrant serving a fifteen-month sentence for marijuana
possession, suffers from severe asthma. He told the ACLU that he almost died one night
when he stopped breathing during a severe attack and an unprepared nurse did not
know how to intubate him.
Martin told us he woke up in the midst of a serious attack. Usually, he would use his
rescue inhaler to help him breathe, but he could not do so on this day because a guard
had taken it from his cell.522 He and his cellmate called through the intercom, asking
guards to open the cell door because he was having an asthma attack.523 MTC staff took
25 minutes to arrive and open his door, during which time Martin’s cellmate had to hit
him on the back repeatedly so that he could breathe.524 When they finally arrived, Martin
asked for permission to go to the doctor.525 It took fifteen or twenty minutes more for
MTC staff to escort him to the medical department.526 When they finally arrived, there
was no doctor at the medical department.527 At this point, Martin could not breathe
at all.528 The nurse on call attempted to intubate Martin, but she did not know how to
perform the procedure.529
When we spoke to Martin, he had been placed in an isolation unit while awaiting transfer
to another facility. The cold temperature in his cell was provoking asthma attacks, but he
reported that he was not receiving medical attention.530 When he informed a nurse that
he was having asthma attacks in the SHU, she responded that she could not help him
and that he would have to wait until a doctor arrived on site later that week.531 Martin is
afraid for his life. “Asthma is one of those things where you can’t wait,” Martin explained

521  Curtis R. Blakely & Vic W. Bumphus, Private and Public Sector Prisons, a Comparison of Select Characteristics, 68 Fed. Probation no.
1, available at http://www.uscourts.gov/uscourts/FederalCourts/PPS/Fedprob/2004-06/prisons.html (last visited Feb. 2, 2014).
522  Interview with Martin, supra note 151.
523  Id.
524  Id.
525  Id.
526  Id.
527  Id.
528  Id.
529  Id.
530  Id.
531  Id.

100  |  Warehoused and Forgotten: Immigrants Trapped in Our Shadow Private Prison System

to us.532 “You could get respiratory arrest. Here, if something happened to me right now,
tonight, I would die.”533
Martin’s was not the only story we heard of emergency medical treatment being denied.
According to one complaint we received, an epileptic prisoner went unattended during a
seizure because a guard—not a medical professional—decided that he was faking it.534
Several prisoners told the ACLU that they were disturbed by the slow medical response
at Dalby in a different incident, when a prisoner collapsed from a heart attack in the
yard.535 It reportedly took 15 to 20 minutes for medical personnel to reach him after he
collapsed. It took even more time for prison staff to evacuate all the prisoners from the
yard and move him onto an ambulance for transport to a hospital. He later died. One
prisoner who was present during the incident remarked, “We were watching him die
right there.”536

532 
533 
534 
535 
536 

Id.
Id.
Interview with Guillermo, supra note 511.
Interview with Pedro, supra note 84; Interview with Fernando, supra note 84.
Interview with Pedro, supra note 84.

ACLU of Texas & American Civil Liberties Union  |  101

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