Emails Show GEO Employee Threatening ICE Detainees Who Didn't Clean Their Jails

[TexasTowelie]

Immigration detainees are held on civil, not criminal, charges. Therefore, imprisoned immigrants have argued for years they cannot legally be forced to work like prisoners while held in civil detention. In December 2017, Raul Novoa — a Mexican man living in Los Angeles on a green card — sued the GEO Group, the private prison corporation based in Boca Raton. He alleges that detainees were forced to work for the company for as little as $1 per day and that the absurdly small wages were illegal for detainees who hadn't been convicted of crimes.

But the case has stretched on for years — and now some eye-opening court documents are trickling out into the public domain. For starters, five other immigrant detainees have submitted statements to the court saying that to afford necessities such as toothpaste, they were forced to work for GEO's borderline slave wages. Other exhibits have included internal GEO emails from jail staffers complaining that immigrants were not scrubbing the detention facilities well enough.

In one email from April 2017, James Janecka — the facility administrator at GEO's Adelanto ICE Processing Center outside Los Angeles — complained to his staff that he had toured a wing of the facility and didn't see any immigrants cleaning anything. He then said the detainees should have their TV, Xbox, and recreation time suspended if they didn't clean hard enough. He wrote:

After a tour of the East building this morning; I was totally frustrated with the lack of cleaning that has been done in the last week. The building honestly looked the worst I have ever seen it in the 2.5 years that I have been here. There was not one detainee working or being asked to work in the entire building (housing units, hallways, kitchen, laundry,intake etc. NOT ONE.) This is totally unacceptable!! Once lunch is complete, I expect all TV, XBOX, and Recreation to be suspended until the building is clean and presentable. We can't shut down court, medical, visits, attorney visits, etc.

We have a tour tomorrow and Friday. But, a high level of sanitation should be expected and maintained daily. The buildings should always be tour ready.

Make sure plenty of cleaning supplies are available to those who will be tasked with this project.

jaj

In May, Janecka complained again. Emails show his subordinates then forced immigrant detainees to wax floors, mop, sweep, and wipe down entire wings of the detention center.

Read more: https://www.browardpalmbeach.com/news/geo-group-forces-ice-detainees-to-work-for-1-a-day-according-to-emails-10367026