Today, May 14th, 2021, marks exactly one year since asylum seekers in the Torrance County Detention Facility were brutally attacked with pepper spray by CoreCivic guards in response to their peaceful hunger strike. The victims of this attack had fled conditions of state-sanctioned violence in Cuba, Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador, only to experience harm at the hands of ICE-contracted officials here in New Mexico. They were not alone: dozens of ICE detainees in Massachusetts, Arizona, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, California, and several other states were viciously pepper sprayed by prison guards over the course of 2020. By July, Mother Jones had already reported more than a dozen pepper-spraying incidents since the start of the pandemic.

Screenshot of surveillance video moments before the pepper spraying. Surveillance and lapel video was obtained by NMILC and ACLU from CoreCivic via an IRPA request.

The onset of COVID-19 highlighted many of the dangers inherent to the basic conditions of ICE detention. For years, detainees and advocates have rebuked the routinely rotten food, abusive and neglectful medical and mental health care, overcrowding, poor sanitation practices, limited access to emotional and legal support systems, and generally punitive operations in such facilities. Things were no different in Torrance; it didn’t take long for detainees to realize that they were being prevented from engaging in proper social distancing, hygiene and quarantining practices by the fundamental structures of detention itself. After weeks of pleading with detention officials for increased distancing measures, personal protective equipment, COVID testing, non-toxic cleaning supplies and general communication about the virus, detainees were consistently met with inaction. Finally, on May 11th, a handful of men began a peaceful hunger strike in protest of this negligence. Shortly thereafter, Torrance confirmed its first case of COVID-19.

ICE and CoreCivic’s mishandling of the positive COVID case and disregard for the protestors’ concerns in the days that followed demonstrated their complete lack of care for asylum seekers being held in Torrance. May 14th’s pepper spray attack-- the pinnacle of this heedless misconduct-- left several men severely physically and psychologically harmed. The pepper spray induced aggressive coughing, which instantly increased victims’ risk of respiratory illness. Victims described feeling like they were drowning and burning simultaneously. The water they were instructed to use only increased the excruciating pain overtaking their bodies. Following the attack, some of the victims considered suicide.

Since May of 2020, we have been working closely with each of the victims to honor their traumas and seek justice in their names. Today, in collaboration with the ACLU and SFDP, we filed a lawsuit against CoreCivic on behalf of nine of the pepper spray attack victims. Our lawsuit alleges that CoreCivic violated the individual plaintiffs' rights to be free from excessive or arbitrary force when guards employed by the private company sprayed them with chemical agents for engaging in a peaceful hunger strike protesting inadequate precautions against COVID-19, poor living conditions, and the withholding of status updates on their immigration cases. It also alleges Torrance County failed in its duty to care for the people detained in the facility. Please find our press release here.

We acknowledge this devastating anniversary by saying once more: shame on ICE, shame on CoreCivic, shame on Torrance County, and shame on the immigrant prison industrial complex. We will not forget what happened.

Remembering One Year Ago…

NMILC & ACLU Seek Justice For Asylum Seekers Pepper-sprayed At Torrance Facility Protesting Lack of COVID-19 Precautions Last May

Legalization of Recreational Marijuana In New Mexico Could Be A Potential Trap For Immigrants