"Like Amazon Prime, but for Human Beings"
Local Public Records-Based Journalism Reveals What ICE Dares Not Say
A month ago I wrote about Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons’ vision of running the agency as a business, and creating a deportation machine that runs “like Amazon Prime, but for human beings.” Within days of this statement, ICE announced the death in custody of 68 year-old Abelardo (“Lalo”) Avellaneda Delgado in a TransCor van while on his way to Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia.
Today, I wanted to share the investigative piece I reported for my local outlet, The Atlanta Community Press Collective.
Some thoughts specific and maybe important to this audience that didn’t quite fit into the piece:
The Deadly Prime-ification of Human Caging: While this is the first recorded death in ICE transport in at least a decade, it likely will not be the last. Lalo was incredibly sick when his son saw him the day before ICE came to pick him up. The jail allegedly cleared him for transport—likely because they had no interest in incurring the cost and risk of hospitalizing him, and were all too happy to make his health conditions the federal government’s problem. This phenomenon will only get worse with scale, particularly because neither ICE nor GBI is conducting a meaningful investigation into his death.
Neither ICE nor GBI is Conducting a Real Investigation into Lalo’s Death. Todd Lyons promised Congress under oath that every death, including Lalo’s, would be the subject of a “thorough investigation.” Yet a month after he died, neither ICE nor GBI had bothered to talk to the Lowndes County Jail, where he was imprisoned for nearly 4 weeks prior to his pickup by Transcor, and where the last known hard evidence about his medical condition, including his medical records and video of how he appeared, would exist. This is not a “thorough investigation.” This is a whitewash, intended to cover up what happened.
Continued Dehumanization and Lasting Destruction of Community Trust. ICE didn’t bother to reach out to Lalo’s family to inform them he’d passed. They left that to the Mexican Consulate in Atlanta. They also provided Lalo’s family no information about the circumstances surrounding his death, and the contradictions raised by the records we obtained. This is epistemological violence and erasure of the most profane variety. This government will not tell you directly your parent died, then publish only the most derogatory information about his immigration and criminal history in order to imply he deserved it, then cover up the blatant lies its contractors told public officials, all without bothering to investigate, and all the while keeping you in the dark.
This is a Policy Failure for Which a Litigation Solution is Available. The failure by ICE to ensure Lalo’s health before chaining him inside the TransCor van likely violates Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. A federal district court judge previously determined CoreCivic could be subject to Rehab Act damages in the litigation Efrain Romero’s family brought against the company following his 2018 death at Stewart. ICE similarly has been subject to federal district court orders altering its detention operations based on Rehab Act violations. An enterprising impact litigator could seek class-wide injunctive relief halting transfers into ICE custody unless and until the agency adequately accounts for the qualifying disabilities that may trigger Rehab Act protections. This result, like the Fraihat litigation before it, would save lives.
Overcrowding at Stewart has Now Claimed Two Lives This Year. According to data analysis published last month by the inimitable Austin Kocher, Stewart’s notional population was likely just under 2191 people.
But ICE and CoreCivic’s contract for Stewart contemplates only 1911 beds and 50 solitary confinement cells, meaning the facility was at as much as 113% population capacity when ICE issued the detainer request for Lalo. And we know the place likely wasn’t fully staffed, because that’s just how CoreCivic rolls.
Missing Video. Though it’s not in the article, my investigation suggests there’s video missing. It also indicates TransCor guards called their corporate office in Nashville before they connected with Webster County 911. Stay tuned.
It does not have to be this way. We can collectively decide to reject the warehousing and death of our loved ones, friends, neighbors, and fellow humans.
