ICE Prison’s 911 Calls Overwhelm a Rural Georgia Emergency System

Male detainee demands to go out due to head trauma an employee at a U S Immigration and Customs Enforcement s detention center in Georgia tells a operator The operator tells the employee at Stewart Detention Center that there are no ambulances available It s already out on the last subject y all called us with the operator says Is there any way you can get one from another county the caller asks I can try the operator says I can t make any promises but I can try Listen to the call The call was one of dozens from the ICE detention facility seeking help with physiological emergencies during the first months of the second Trump administration a sustained period of high call volume from the jail not seen since Urgency calls were made to at least times a month from Stewart Detention Center for six months in a row as of November Like the call concerning a detainee s head trauma from April crisis dispatch records show that the ambulance provision in Stewart County Georgia where the detention center is located has had to seek help outside the county more than any time in at least five years including three instances in November alone The burden on rural Stewart County s healthcare care system is unsustainable mentioned Dr Amy Zeidan a professor of crisis medicine at Atlanta s Emory University who researches medical care in immigration detention People are going to die if they don t get biological care mentioned Zeidan All it takes is one person who demands a life-saving intervention and doesn t have access to it People are going to die if they don t get therapeutic care This continuous barrage of calls for help with acute curative necessities reflects increased detainee populations without changes to medicinal staffing and capacities experts narrated The Intercept Shifting detainee populations they commented may also be exacerbating the situation Older immigrants and those with disabilities or severe physical condition issues used to be more frequently let out on bond as their cases were resolved but ICE s mass deportation push has led to an increase in their detention With the number of people in immigration detention ballooning nationwide soundness care behind bars has become an issue in local and state politics In Washington state for instance legislators passed a law last year giving state-level executives more oversight of detention facilities A contemporary court ruling granted state physical condition department leaders access to a privately operated ICE detention center to do soundness inspections A spokesperson from Georgia s healthcare department did not answer questions about the high volume and types of calls at Stewart calls from Stewart included several for head trauma such as one situation where an inmate was beating his head against the wall and another following a fight Impacts of the situation are hard to measure in the absence of comprehensive detailed material but they extend both to Stewart s detainee population which has increased from about to about during the Trump administration and to the surrounding rural county ICE did not respond to a request for comment The figures on calls represent what Dr Marc Stern a consultant on soundness care for the incarcerated called a red flag Illness and Injuries Material obtained by The Intercept through open records requests shows that the top four reasons for calls since the onset of the second Trump administration have been chest pains and seizures with the same number of calls followed by stomach pains and head injuries Neither written call records nor recordings of the calls themselves offer much insight into the causes of injuries One cause of head traumas though could be fights between detainees stated Amilcar Valencia the executive director of El Refugio a Georgia-based organization that works with people held at Stewart and their families and loved ones It s not a secret that Stewart detention center is overcrowded he stated This creates tension Issues such as access to phones for calls to attorneys or loved ones can lead to fights he announced Another issue may be self-harm suggested testimony from Rodney Scott a Liberian-born Georgia resident of four decades who has been detained in Stewart since January One day in September Scott who is a double amputee and suffers high blood pressure and other physical condition issues commented he saw a fellow detainee climb about stairs across a hall from him and jump over a railing landing several stories below He hit his head Scott mentioned It was shocking to see someone menace his life like that He doesn t know what happened to the man On another day about a month earlier Scott saw a man try to kill himself with razors He went in cut himself with blades after breakfast Scott reported There was a pool of blood he revealed It looked like a murder scene In addition to interpersonal tensions large numbers of detainees in crowded conditions can strain a facility s curative capacities People are becoming sicker than what the system can handle There s a mismatch between the number of people and fitness workers noted Joseph Nwadiuko a professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania who researches the immigration detention system People are becoming sicker than what the system can handle The complexity of patients is above and beyond what Stewart is prepared for CoreCivic the company that operates Stewart is as of now advertising to hire a psychiatrist a dental assistant and two licensed practical nurses at the detention center The company did not respond to a request for comment A Lack of Accountability The situation at hand also potentially impacts the residents of Stewart County a sprawling tract of about square miles in southwest Georgia About percent of the county s nearly residents two-thirds of whom are Black live below the poverty line The county has two ambulances and there are no hospitals The nearest facilities equipped to handle calls coming from the ICE detention center are in neighboring counties about minutes to the east or nearly an hour north County Manager Mac Moye though was nonplussed when presented with the records on the sustained high volume of calls from the detention center We are in a very rural poor county with very low population density he stated We ve inevitably had slow responses compared to let s say Columbus the city of nearly miles north where one of the nearest hospitals is located We run two ambulances bulk surrounding counties have one he continued We have more money because of Stewart the detention center The ICE facility paid nearly in fees in fiscal year the latest year for which figures is available or about percent of the county s general fund of million Moye who worked at the detention center before taking his current job also called into question whether calls were invariably made for legitimate reasons The county manager did not comment on whether his own constituents are increasingly more at pitfall in situations like the one on April when no ambulance was available to answer a call from the detention center It s still faster than if we had one ambulance he explained We wish we would never have to call another county and deal with every call on our own As for the conditions facing detainees particularly given the types of emergencies the detention center calls about Moye noted It s arduous to comment on what s happening over there because we don t have any control over it That points to a larger dilemma reflected in the increased calls Obviously a prison is a prison it s blind to the rest of the world revealed Nwadiuko the Penn professor There s a moral hazard for conditions that don t occur elsewhere a lack of accountability Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants Do No Harm Seizures chest pains are they preventable Why is it happening revealed Stern the practitioner who consults on carceral physical condition care commenting on the high volume and types of calls Could mean that access or the quality of care is poor It s a red flag if the number is high or increasing and it indicates that research is required In September Democratic Georgia Sens Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff sent a letter to Homeland Guard Secretary Kristi Noem and ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons expressing concern over the deaths in ICE custody this year including Jesus Molina-Veya whose June death at Stewart has been released as a suicide The letter sought answers to a series of detailed questions by October about the care Stewart and other ICE detention centers are providing to detainees Warnock and Ossoff s offices stated they have not received a reply Ossoff also distributed an review in October called Diagnostic Neglect and Denial of Adequate Food or Water in U S Immigration Detention that included information gathered at Stewart Zeidan the Emory professor noted that there s little information about what happens to ICE detainees once they reach a hospital What happens after detainees are admitted Zeidan commented Are they discharged Are they getting comprehensive follow-up care Nwadiuko echoed the concern Are doctors and hospitals using good judgment regarding when going back to a detention facility doesn t mean a safe discharge he noted We have an oath Do no harm That may conflict with an institution s desire to minimize a detainee s time outside the gates of the detention center The post ICE Prison s Calls Overwhelm a Rural Georgia Emergency System appeared first on The Intercept