Fifteen immigrants detained at the Bergen County Jail filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security this month, alleging a dangerous environment rife with “deplorable” and inhumane conditions at the facility.
The joint complaint — filed by Freedom for Immigrants, the Center for Constitutional Rights and UnLocal Inc. on behalf of the immigrants detained at the Hackensack facility — called for a thorough investigation into the jail’s treatment of those detained, the termination of the jail’s contract with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and the release all the immigrants detained.
The complaint was filed with the DHS’ Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. Six of the immigrants are identified in the complaint, while nine remain anonymous for fear of retaliation within the facility.
“Bergen County Jail is plagued by unconscionable human rights abuses, and there must be immediate action from DHS and the CRCL office to stop this chaos,” Tania Mattos, policy and northeast monitoring manager at Freedom for Immigrants, said in a statement.
Calls to spokespeople for ICE were not immediately returned.
A spokesperson for the Bergen County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, did not address specific allegations in the complaint, but assured that any allegations would be investigated thoroughly and any employees - if found responsible - would be disciplined.
“The letter contains many allegations, some of which are anonymous,” Keisha McLean, spokeswoman for the Sheriff’s Office, wrote in an email. “To the extent that we can identify complainants, or the employee alleged to have violated any laws, rules, or regulations governing the operation of the Jail, Internal Affairs will investigate the allegations thoroughly. If the allegations are sustained, the responsible employees will be disciplined, and corrective measures taken.”
McLean said that directives from the Attorney General’s office prohibited the Sheriff’s Office from providing specifics about any internal affairs investigations, while HIPAA law prohibited the office from giving information about the detainees.
The complaint lays out a litany of allegations that range from inhumane, filthy conditions to sexual assault.
One immigrant detained at the facility recounted finding larva in the food at the jail. Another claimed there was a rodent infestation. Detainees were often given soiled sheets, with brown and red stains, even after being told the sheets had been cleaned with bleach, they claimed.
One immigrant detainee claimed that he was sexually assaulted, with a correctional officer allegedly purposely touching his genitals during a bed sheet change.
“When I said that he can’t touch me inappropriate, the officer said, ‘You can’t do anything about it,’” the detainee told the Freedom For Immigrants hotline, a national call center for immigrants in detention centers.
Immigration detainees also claimed they lived in constant fear of retaliation for speaking up or complaining about conditions, with correctional officers and guards often swiftly and violently retaliating against those who did.
Several detainees said that officers would send them in-house mail with vulgar slurs, ignoring medical complaints and threats of physical violence for raising concerns, the complaint said. One detainee said that a young boy whose attorney had sued ICE for abuse was deported in retaliation, the complaint said.
But it was a violent clash between federal immigration detainees and correctional officers in early May that sparked the complaint, said Samah Sisay, one of the attorneys who filed the complaint.
Previously, the Sheriff’s Office confirmed there was a confrontation May 3, saying that two officers had been injured in the melee. According to the office’s statement, the confrontation occurred after detainees were spotted passing contraband between cells, with a search revealing banned items, including an “incendiary device.”
Two detainees were directly exposed to the spray and received medical care, McLean previously said. Five of the detainees were placed in a disciplinary lockdown, she said.
But the complaint lays out a different recounting of what happened May 3.
According to the complaint, correctional officers were searching a 50-year-old Black man when he asked why they were searching him. Officers allegedly slammed the man into the wall and four officers pushed him to the ground, the complaint said. One officer put his knee on the back of the man’s neck, the complaint said.
When one younger detainee told an officer not to put his knee on the man’s neck, he was allegedly beaten and dragged down steps, the complaint said.
Callers told the hotline none of the detainees put hands on officers or guards, but they were all charged with inciting a riot.
“For a while now, a lot of attorneys, advocates and family members of people - and detained people themselves - have been speaking out against the conditions in ICE detention, specifically in Bergen County Jail,” said Sisay.
The complaint comes in the wake of numerous allegations of unsafe conditions at the Bergen County Jail and other ICE detention centers in New Jersey’s jails and a renewed effort to sever and block contracts with ICE.
Late last month, the state Senate gave final approval to a bill (A5207) that would prohibit local jails in New Jersey from signing new contracts to house federal immigrant detainees. New contracts and renewals with private detention centers would also be forbidden under the bill.
The measure, which passed the state Assembly with a vote of 46-24 Monday, now rests with Gov. Phil Murphy.
If Murphy signs the measure into law, New Jersey would become the fifth state in the nation to limit local jails from entering new contracts to house federal immigration detainees.
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Rodrigo Torrejon may be reached at rtorrejon@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @rodrigotorrejon.
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