ICE detention centers rife with abuse, investigation finds

Arlene Martinez, USA TODAY

It's Arlene with news to kick off your holiday week.

But first, a reminder: Come Jan. 1, collecting and eating roadkill will still be illegal in California. The confusion stems from a new state law to develop a pilot program aimed at saving “salvageable wild game meat.”

In California is a roundup of stories from newsrooms across the USA TODAY Network and beyond. Sign up for M-F delivery here!

Life in ICE: Assault, abuse, lack of medical care

Immigration detainees are moved in secure groups back to a housing unit on the Krome detention facility campus. The detention facility houses over 650 ICE detainees per day.
Immigration detainees are moved in secure groups back to a housing unit on the Krome detention facility campus. The detention facility houses over 650 ICE detainees per day.

Over 400 allegations of sexual assault or abuse. Inadequate medical care. Regular hunger strikes. Frequent use of solitary confinement. More than 800 instances of physical force against detainees. Nearly 20,000 grievances filed by detainees. And at least 29 fatalities, including seven suicides.

This is life inside the rapidly growing network of detention centers used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an investigation by the USA TODAY Network found.

All of that has happened since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017 and launched an overhaul of U.S. immigration policies.

During an interview with the USA TODAY Network this month, Henry Lucero, ICE’s second in command over detention, said ICE runs a top-notch detention system that strictly enforces federal standards, provides quality medical care, responds to every grievance filed by detainees, and reviews every use of force incident. ICE detention standards prohibit guards from using force as punishment, but allow them to use force to “gain detainee cooperation” and only using a series of approved techniques.

Allegra Love, executive director of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, a nonprofit that provides free legal services to immigrants, said there is ample evidence that “we are torturing and killing people inside these detention centers.”

What went into this project: Reporters analyzed inspection reports since 2015 and identified 15,821 violations of detention standards. They interviewed 35 former and current detainees, reviewed hundreds of documents from lawsuits, financial records and government contracts, and toured seven ICE facilities from Colorado to Texas to Florida.

California has seven of the more than 200 facilities nationwide, with an average of more than 4,000 detainees per day.

A USA TODAY Network investigation revealed sex assaults, routine use of physical force, poor medical care and deaths at facilities overseen by ICE.
A USA TODAY Network investigation revealed sex assaults, routine use of physical force, poor medical care and deaths at facilities overseen by ICE.

Among those not included in ICE's official death toll is Jose Luis Ibarra Bucio, a 27-year-old who was held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Southern California. In February, he collapsed and slipped into a coma; he was handcuffed to his hospital bed as guards on the taxpayer dime stood watch over him. There were three detainee deaths and six unsuccessful suicide attempts at Adelanto during fiscal 2017, according to the state Justice Department. Read more:

A shark encounter, and remains at Joshua Tree

"A truly terrifying situation" in the Channel Islands, when a shark bit a surfer.

Human remains were found at Joshua Tree National Park.

They asked for help from the world to resurrect their daughter. A week later, the Redding-area family began readying the 2-year-old's celebration-of-life service.

Your stocking stuffer: Clear skies

SOURCE AccuWeather; ESRI
SOURCE AccuWeather; ESRI

Unlike all those canceled flights and roads and highways shut down by snow, ice and wind over Thanksgiving, the forecast is mild for most of the country heading into this week's holiday.

"Tranquil weather conditions through Christmas Day will make for a nice stocking stuffer from Mother Nature for those traveling through the holiday," National Weather Service meteorologist Peter Mullinax said.

But in California, snow could deliver a white Christmas in the high desert and parts of Ventura County.

Major travel hubs in the Northeast and Midwest should see clear skies on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Much of the central and eastern USA should have no major travel concerns on Christmas Eve, except for patchy morning fog, the Weather Channel said. The slow-moving Southeast rain and wind storm that swamped Florida on Sunday and Monday will finally pull away, although a few showers may linger along the Carolina and Georgia coasts.

Once that big rainmaker moves away from the Southeast, the only significant travel trouble spot will be in the Southwest on Christmas Eve. That’s when snow or rain could hit parts of Nevada, Utah, northern Arizona and New Mexico.

What else we're talking about

"Riverdale" star Luke Perry died in March at the age of 52.
"Riverdale" star Luke Perry died in March at the age of 52.

The head of a Malibu nonprofit that works to protect and preserve the culture, history, and lifeways of Chumash and indigenous people may not actually be Chumash.

California's minimum wage is climbing to $13 per hour on Jan. 1. In cities including Los Angeles and South San Francisco, it'll hit $15.

Beverly Hills, 90210's 1990s heartthrob Dylan McKay — aka Luke Perry — was among the big names we lost in 2019.

->->->(Suddenly need more Perry? Here's another one: Why you're taking Luke Perry's sudden death so hard: A look at the '90210' star's life).

40 years of rescuing horses

One Ear, so called because he has only one ear, was brought to the Wild Horse Sanctuary in May 2018.
One Ear, so called because he has only one ear, was brought to the Wild Horse Sanctuary in May 2018.

His name is One Ear, a nod to a particularly difficult encounter with another stallion. The 21-year-old wild horse had lived a rough life, beat up from the hazards of the range and was unlikely to be adopted. But life inside the pen wasn't for him, as those involved with a Shasta County horse sanctuary could see, so in May, they rescued him from the feds.

"Now he's released on 5,000 acres. He's in country that's comparable to where he grew up," said Dianne Nelson, founder of the Wild Horse Sanctuary near Shingletown. "He's free again."

At Wild Horse, One Ear joined 300 other horses and burros the sanctuary has adopted from the U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in recent years.

This month, the organization officially turned 40. Don't miss this lovely tale about second chances and the horse sanctuary that could. Also, if you're in the area, it's open to the public!

I'll leave you today with this good news:

The USDA cleared Mr. S. Nicholas Claus, a North Pole-based broker with Worldwide Gifts, Unlimited, to move about the country. The permit is in effect from 7 p.m. on Dec. 24 to 7 a.m. on Dec. 25.

And speaking of, I'll be back after the holiday for more fun. You want to get me a present, you say? I'll make it so easy: Sign up for In California and tell a friend.

Here's my present to you, in the form of a holiday movie recommendation that's so corny, funny and heartwarming you can watch it year-round (as I do): The Family Man.

In California is a roundup of news compiled from across USA TODAY Network newsrooms. Also contributing: Los Angeles Times, ABC, KTLA.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: ICE detention centers rife with abuse, investigation finds