ICE statement for the Washington Post

May 7, 2008

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is committed to ensuring the safety and well being of the hundreds of thousands of individuals who come through our detention facilities each year. This includes providing persons in our custody appropriate levels of medical care at the cost of nearly $100 million to the U.S. government in fiscal year 2007.

ICE has established plans and processes with U.S. Public Health Service doctors and other medical professionals to provide care for all those we detain, even for short periods.  We have provided for your review a good deal of information on those processes, the population we detain and for how long, the medical professionals involved and the cost to the American taxpayer.  In addition to the specific information you requested, we have provided you a fact sheet on detainee health care.  We would like to stress that:

• Though the ICE detainee population has increased by more than 30 percent since 2004, the mortality rate has declined; and,
• The number of deaths per 100,000 is dramatically lower for ICE detainees than for U.S. prison and jail populations and the general U.S. population as a whole.

As we discussed with Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein by phone, the U.S. government is rightfully held to a high standard and is prohibited from commenting on the medical treatment of an individual without a signed waiver giving us permission.  Further, as you know, several of the individuals you have inquired about are the subject of litigation, and we are unable to comment altogether on their cases.  But these cases highlight the tremendous responsibility and potential liability the government faces in providing medical care to a population that often did not have access to adequate health care before coming into our custody to be processed for removal from the country. Approximately one-quarter of the people we detain are diagnosed upon admission to our facilities with a chronic condition.
 
Among ICE’s highest priorities is to ensure safe, humane conditions of confinement for those in our custody.  We make every effort to enforce all existing standards and, whenever possible, to improve upon them.  When we find that standards are not being met, we take immediate action to correct deficiencies and when we believe that the deficiencies cannot be corrected, we relocate our detainees to other facilities.

Steps we have taken during the past 12 months are indicative of our commitment to detainee care.  Some key examples include:

• Involving the NGO Community, DHS Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office, and detention experts from outside of ICE in rewriting our Detention Standards into a performance based format. Not only will these new standards, scheduled to be implemented later this year, provide an update to the existing standards that were written in 2000, but they will be more effective in evaluating and, where necessary, improving the quality of detention being provided to those in our custody.
• Awarding two contracts to companies recognized for their expertise in detention management. Detention professionals from Creative Corrections are now performing the annual detention facilities inspections formerly performed by ICE employees on a collateral duty basis. Detention experts from the Nakamoto Group are now serving as on-site, full time quality assurance inspectors at our 40 largest facilities and will be performing the same function on a regional basis at all our other facilities.
• Creating the Detention Facilities Inspection Group within the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility. The Inspection Group provides objective oversight and independent validation of the detention facility inspection program. It also conducts immediate focused reviews of serious incidents involving detainees, including any death or allegations from any source that detention standards are not being met.

While a single death of an ICE detainee is a serious matter, we strive to maintain safe, secure and humane detention conditions and to ensure that all detainees receive quality health care.

Based on the conversations we’ve had over the last week with you and your self-described “partner” on this story, 60 Minutes, as well as the volume of information you have, it is clear that this is a long-term investigative project.  It is a matter of concern for us that just five days before your deadline, you approach ICE offering no details on the project other than to say it addresses “detainee health care,”. Understanding the news business as we do, the only conclusions we can  draw are that this is a biased story, and that you don’t want balance or you would have come to us much earlier in your project.

As you and we know, it is standard practice to engage all of your sources, to present the information you learn in a factual manner and to allow the American public the opportunity to form their own opinions and draw their own conclusions.  Anything less does a disservice to the public’s right to know.

Submitted by:
Kelly A. Nantel, Press Secretary
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

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