Law enforcement agencies move immigrants through multiple detention facilities, passing paydays and delays along the way. 

Howls echoed through the anxiety-stricken dormitory as Sam Jones* tried to fall asleep. Men screamed and cried, hooted and heckled. Just after midnight, a prison guard entered with a document that held the numbers assigned to men from as many as 60 countries who’d be deported later that day.

“Suddenly, the room is filled of people screaming, hugging each other, exchanging phone numbers and addresses, people praying and people wishing each other well,” Jones scratched into a journal, a collection of personal reflections he wrote on loose printer paper. “These truly are moments of more than happiness. De-stressing moments, like pinching a balloon full of butane gas, an outburst of emotions that touched even the security guards.”

Jones’ number wasn’t on the list that night. He returned to his limbo, at least another few days of uncertainty, for the next inventory of numbers that may or may not hold his own, and little chance, in the meantime, of figuring out if it would.

For 22 days, Jones occupied one of hundreds of beds inside Colorado’s foremost immigrant prison, known both as the ICE Processing Center and the ICE Detention Center, in Aurora. Such facilities have fallen to increasing attacks from civil liberties and human rights groups across the country for claims ranging from inhumane treatment to unconstitutional incarceration of U.S. citizens. And a report released on July 6 by the federal Government Accountability Office confirms multiple problems at the Aurora detention center.

Jones calls the jail “hell between four walls,” and he descended into it by way of a law enforcement maze that began with a traffic stop in Larimer County.

LIGHT OUT

Sam Jones knew the left headlamp of his car was out as he drove to work, a job that kept him busy with duties like payroll and other administrative odds and ends, on the morning of March 28. It was around 6 a.m., and 63-year-old Jones, wearing blue jeans and a shirt, a brown belt and tan Airwalks, had just turned southbound onto Highway 287 from Carpenter Road when he noticed the red and blue lights of the Colorado State Patrol car in his rearview mirror.

Jones, an Italian citizen with thinning gray hair who’d been living in Mexico for the past 20 years, had never been pulled over. The fact that he’d been in the country illegally for about six months didn’t help to calm his nerves. Even worse, Jones’s English, unlike the myriad European languages he speaks, wasn’t even fluid, much less fluent. So when officer Clinton B. Rushing queried Jones for his name and date of birth, Jones quickly provided his generic American moniker but fumbled with the date, which didn’t correspond with the one listed on his Mexican driver’s license. Rushing continued to press him, and Jones became increasingly nervous. He finally fell silent. Rushing “gave him one more chance to not lie,” Rushing wrote in his affidavit.

Jones says Rushing’s voice grew louder and more forceful.

“The fear and the nerves just left me in a state of not being able to speak at all,” Jones explains.

After a handful of failed attempts to match his date of birth with the one on the Mexican ID, Rushing arrested Jones and took him to the Larimer County Detention Center, or LCDC, where he was charged with criminal impersonation, false reporting to authorities and two traffic infractions: driving without a valid license and driving with a defective headlamp. Among the possessions that LCDC officials confiscated were a wallet, keys, a cellphone and an orange Bic lighter that Jones used to light Camel cigarettes when he had them.

During his week inside LCDC, Jones was visited and interviewed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. For more than a year, county officials have submitted lists of all foreign-born detainees at the local jail to ICE, previously known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which was rolled into the Department of Homeland Security in 2003.

ICE agents visit the county jail multiple times a week to determine if individuals are in the country illegally and if they should be deported. With sufficient proof, officials can place a retainer, or “immigration hold,” on LCDC prisoners. Which is exactly what happened to Jones, except he didn’t find out until he thought he’d been freed.

Jones posted the required $200 bond, then pled guilty to the false reporting violation, a misdemeanor, in a deal that dismissed the other charges. He shoveled out an additional $159 in court costs, and the district court judge sentenced him to time served. He was then released — to ICE officials. He’s one of 36 individuals Larimer County had turned over to ICE as of May 24. Last year, the county logged 118 such transfers.

Mekela Goehring, executive director of Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, a Denver-based nonprofit legal program that provides Know Your Rights presentations to detainees in Aurora, says she believes the practice is common in counties throughout Colorado.

And Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden praises the partnership.

“It’s been successful having them come into the detention center on a regular basis and to make those determinations,” he says. “We take a very strong position on arresting illegal immigrants who are involved in criminal activity.”

The sheriff says he also encourages an aggressive stance against traffic violations. Minor infractions, such as broken taillights, burned-out license plate lights or a failure to signal for turns, he says, can lead officers to drug dealers and burglars as much as drivers without insurance and those holding false documents.

“If somebody has a defective taillight and they get pulled over and it turns out they’ve also got a forged driver’s license, they’re definitely going to get arrested for having a forged driver’s license,” Alderden says, “which is a felony.”

Sam Jones wasn’t convicted of a felony in Larimer County, but ICE doesn’t make a distinction when it transfers immigrant detainees. On the road to the big pen in Aurora, burglars and traffic violators are one in the same.

PAY TO STAY

Sam Jones’ trip from Larimer County to Aurora took a brief detour in Park County, home of South Park, a trio of popular fourteeners and the Park County Jail, an ICE-contracted local prison — the same one that held dozens of the more than 200 workers netted in the Swift Meatpacking raid in Greeley last December.

“They cuffed us by the hands, the feet, around the waist, and they chained us to each other. And in the van, they chained us to the floor,” Jones says. “We were 50 in one cell the size of my kitchen. They gave us French fries and water.

“The people remain as they arrive. They didn’t allow them to get dressed before they left. They wore the same thing they had on when they were taken. I had been working, so I was more or less well dressed, but there were people there who were freezing. It was after the last snowfall; they were wearing tank tops and shorts. Others had been taken from bed” in their pajamas.

Jones spent a few days in Park County before he was hauled to Aurora, where he finally had a chance to bathe and was clothed in a fresh prison jumper. Almost immediately, though intermittently, Jones began collecting his observations, and transcribing the thoughts of others, in journal-type entries on loose sheets of white paper. (Most of them have been translated and are available at the end of this article.)

Although ICE contracts with Park County, the Aurora facility is their largest in the Rocky Mountain West. The prison, which first began detaining immigrants in May 1987, is owned and managed by the GEO Group, a Florida-based private company with more than 50 jails across the country, including one in U.S.-controlled Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and more in Canada, Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom.

Formerly known as Wackenhut Corrections Corporation — which was charged with several alleged scandals stemming from abuse, neglect and sexual assault — GEO boasted $860.9 million in revenues last year alone. That pushed a 40 percent increase from 2005 and marks the most financially successful year for the company in its 22 years of operations.

The Aurora facility detains immigrants apprehended throughout Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho and Montana. During the past two decades, the jail has expanded its holding capacity from 150 beds to more than 400. As of July 10, the prison had processed 9,547 inmates since the beginning of last year.

One current lawsuit against the GEO Group alleges poor and inhumane medical care, a common gripe about the company and one that the federal government itself notes in a report recently released by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO reviewed “alien detention standards” at 23 facilities across the country, including Aurora’s, finding sporadic “deficiencies” in medical treatment, food service, recreation, access to legal materials and the processing of complaints as well as the use of “hold rooms,” physical force and overcrowding.

The Colorado branch of the American Civil Liberties Union also reports stories of overcrowding and poor medical care.

The GAO claimed to find only one “pervasive” problem throughout the system, however: telephone access. Against medical care and use of force, phone calls might not seem like such a big deal, except the best means for an inmate to submit complaints — grievances that “mostly involved legal access, conditions of confinement, property issues, human and civil rights, medical care, and employee misconduct at the facility” — is to call the Office of the Inspector General inside the Department of Homeland Security. Yet the “GAO encountered significant problems in making connections to…the OIG complaint hotline,” as well as consulates and pro-bono legal providers.

Jones says the misery that stemmed from a lack of communication with the outside world was matched only by the maddening dearth of information about his detention status.

“The big problem is the anguish of not knowing,” he says. “Psychologically, it’s terrible.”

Throughout the three weeks of Jones’ confinement in Aurora, he filed several requests that addressed the difficulty of making telephone calls. On his fifth day, he filed a grievance form with a simple request: “Phones are not working. I’m trying to call long distance (area code 970). I need to speak with my family and my lawyer. Please help me. Thank you.”

In a second request, filed five days after the first, he asked for clarification about why he was being held and when he would be released or deported. The next day, he received a response: He would be detained until his citizenship could be verified. Jones continued along the mostly fruitless course of attempting to contact the Mexican consulate and friends and family, including his wife and best friend, both back in Larimer County.

On April 27, Jones was suddenly released on a $1,500 bond.

START OVER

Upon entry to the Aurora detention facility, Sam Jones had the option of signing a form for voluntary return to his home country, but he declined. Some of the 50 detainees with whom he was transported signed return forms. Others opted to await an appearance before a federal immigration judge who rules on deportation status. Detainees in removal proceedings have access to presentations about their legal rights by the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network.

“People are feeling a tremendous amount of pressure, because they are told, ‘Look, you can either sign this and go back right now, or we’re going to take you to the detention center, where you are going to languish for weeks,’” says RMIAN’s Goehring. “Particularly for people who have never been in the criminal justice system, who haven’t been to a jail before, they will avoid that at any price.”

In November 2006, the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General revealed detrimental problems in the detainee tracking system, called DACS, that includes both ICE-operated and private-run detention centers. Their audit found that “DACS and detention facility records did not always agree on the location of detainees” and that “ICE had no formal policy regarding what information it would provide to anyone inquiring about detainees in their custody.”

But the U.S. immigration detention system isn’t known for transparency. In May, the U.S. State Department invited Jorge Bustamante, the Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants for the United Nations, to visit some of the country’s immigrant jails. But the Department of Homeland Security unexpectedly denied Bustamante entry to jails in Texas and New Jersey. The shafted official is expected to present a report on immigration issues, in the U.S., to the U.N. General Assembly later this summer.

Legal advocates say the government and private-prison operators should have nothing to hide from the public’s scrutiny.

“It’s always important to have a check and balance,” says Taylor Pendergrass, a staff attorney with the Colorado ACLU. “Especially when what you’re talking about is a deprivation of liberty, of taking someone’s freedom of movement entirely away and locking them up.

“Transparency benefits the people who are being detained. It also lets the public know that the government is treating those detainees in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution.”

Richard Stana, the GAO director for homeland security and justice issues, says it’s too early to tell what might result from their recent report.

“We will, after an appropriate period of time — in this case it may be several months — follow up with the agency with the actions that they’ve taken and try to assess whether that’s going to assess the problems we’ve found,” he says.

“Let’s hope that these deficiencies get corrected soon.”

The next GAO review of the Aurora facility is scheduled for October. Both a spokesman for the GEO Group and Aurora Warden Teresa Hunt referred questions about the problems outlined in the federal report to ICE.

ICE central region spokesman Carl Rusnok says the agency “places great value on the data and feedback” that it receives from the government watchdog, adding that ICE is establishing a weekly review of all detainee telephones to ensure they work, as well as an internal inspections group that will provide oversight during the detention standards review process.

Whatever changes may or may not occur will have no impact on Sam Jones’ future.

And he is still visibly shaken from his run-in with the U.S.’s amalgamated and defective immigration enforcement.

“For a broken car light, you are not a criminal. For being undocumented, you are not a criminal,” he says. “Yet the treatment is the same. They treated me as if I’d killed 10 people.”

Still, Jones isn’t expecting much from his next court hearing. The most he can realistically hope for is a delayed deportation and for authorities to ship him back to Mexico instead of Italy so that he will be closer to his family. But he doesn’t hold onto any delusions of freedom in the United States.

“I am illegal,” he says, lighting a Camel cigarette with his orange Bic. “Totally illegal.”

* Real name has been changed.

Inside the Aurora detention center: Sam Jones’ diaries

Editor’s note: The following has been translated from the original Spanish.

The hell within these four walls
This detention center houses about 50 people per area. There are the orange, blue and red areas. Generally the orange and blue are for those with immigration problems, some awaiting deportation, others waiting to get back to their countries voluntarily. The rest are waiting court hearings to take care of their immigration status.

You ask what the problem is? The problem is that there is no uniform treatment and a very distressing lack of information. It’s there that the hell begins. Some, for not knowing the laws, don’t know what to do. So many things are said [things people guess might happen to them that may or may not be true] that people get exhausted from stress, since the majority of those awaiting court hearings have no idea what the results will be.

Maybe they’ll pay the bond and get out and not be deported. Maybe they’ll get out and take care of their paperwork. Or maybe they’ll get deported regardless. Always after deportation, a desperate family is left behind. They act as if these people do not have families. A family that cannot pay the expenses, because the breadwinner is detained. … If this isn’t hell, what is?

April 12, 2007
Today the psychological pressure is more than in past days. After arriving in Aurora on the night of Friday the sixth, paperwork can’t be processed on Saturday and Sunday, and Monday was a public holiday. Here people are freed on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Tuesday nobody from the group that came in with me on Friday got out. On Thursday only one of us was released, the one who signed a voluntary exit form. However, there are many others that signed SVs and others who have received deportation.

The predictions [about what will happen] vary and are distressing, being that some believe re-entry is a federal crime that requires 24 months of prison. Others believe they’re going to be able to pay bond and get out. Others have no clue.

Today I haven’t been able to talk with my friend; the phones for collect calls are all busy. Tomorrow I’ll buy a phone card to call him. Today I feel very anguished. It’s incredible but illegals are the new business for the US. Let me explain: An undocumented worker is arrested for any given reason, even for being suspected to be illegal, and is taken to jail. After several days the county sets a bond for release. The person pays, then when you ask to be released, they tell you that you have an immigration hold. The funny thing here is that the police claim that they do not cooperate with immigration. But at the county’s police station, there is an immigration office so when the suspect arrives, they investigate. About four or five days later, immigration takes him to be detained at Aurora, where some are given court dates and others sign voluntary exit forms and even others are deported; nonetheless, everyone is said to be “retained” not “detained.” The curious thing is that liberty is not an option. Those who are given the chance at a court hearing have to pay a very high bond of about $10,000 or they are deported. After paying, you’re released on the condition that you’ll come back for a second hearing, which means that your case is not closed. If during the new hearing, the judge’s verdict is negative, you are deported, therefore losing the bond money: you end up losing money from the county bond as well as the one imposed by immigration, and in the end you get deported anyway. What a great business!

Today we had picadillo for dinner and some sort of fruit cocktail as desert, with no flavor at all. Seems like today phone calls are prohibited. It’s around 8 p.m. and I’m a little sleepy, but I don’t want to fall asleep because it is too early. The TV has no sound; there is a lot of bulla from the fifty of us full of stress. Everyone with their own problems. We played dominoes all afternoon, one of the few things we do, play dominoes or cards.

April 13, 2007
Today is Friday. I woke up at 5 a.m. I went back to sleep until 7, waiting for breakfast. After eating, I couldn’t get a hold of my friend, and it’s urgent.

I finally got a hold of him to ask him whether he or my wife called Morelia so that they could immediately send my identification, since I don’t have any other way of identifying myself. Hopefully they understand the urgency. Tomorrow, the 14th, I’ll call again to check if they were able to do it.

Today we got lunch around 11 a.m., quite early but the dog’s vomit was enough that now it’s 9 p.m. and I’m still satisfied. But it feels like it’s noon, because everyone here is anxious. Today, since we’ve behaved very well, they gave us cokes and potato chips (how sweet they are!). …

It’s 11 p.m. but no one is sleepy. It’s very moving to hear people speaking about how tired they are of the system, and they yearn to go back to their countries, even though after a while over there, the disillusion will come after the face the reality of their low quality of life. Then they start thinking about coming back again, into the evil, repressive and uneducated system of the U.S.

April 14, 2007
Today we were woken up at 7:30 for breakfast, which was sparse. The phones aren’t working again today. I’m hoping my friend truly understood what papers I need. I’m hoping next week I’ll be able to talk to my wife.

We got lunch at 11 a.m. We’ll eat again around 6 or 7.

It’s noon, and they’ve taken all of us out to the patio. They finally listened to us and gave us razors, but they don’t cut for shit, so I only shaved half my beard so that I don’t end up all cut up. They’re showing a movie, “Christopher Columbus” [“Cristobal Colon”]. I’m not watching any Christopher Columbus movie. …

I took a nap until 6, when it was time for dinner. They are training the new security personnel, and it’s funny how the fucking gringos don’t understand the dynamics of Latin American society: loud, a lot of loud speaking, laughing, joking and games that they just simply don’t understand and don’t exist in their manuals.

April 15, 2007
Today is Sunday. As with any other day, breakfast was served at 7:30, then I went back to sleep until it was time for lunch. Then I went back to bed. … It’s now 2pm. You get so desperate from listening to everyone around you talking about their cases and the uncertain future ahead. Not evening knowing how long they’ll be retained. The psychological punishment of not communicating and not giving you details is worse than committing you to jail.

April 20, 2007
It’s midnight and they just passed on the list of names of those who are going to be sent back to Mexico. It’s indescribable the happiness and the relief from so much accumulated psychological pressure that we’re all under. Suddenly, the room is filled of people screaming, hugging each other, exchanging phone numbers and addresses, people praying and people wishing each other well. These truly are moments of more than happiness; de-stressing moments, like pinching a balloon full of butane gas, an outburst of emotions that touched even the security guards.

April 25, 2007
After several days of having explained to the fucking Mexican consulate my problem, which he was aware of, he told me, “I’ll see what I can do.” I believe nothing because it didn’t feel sincere, and until today nothing has been resolved. …

Today I found myself in between angry and fearful about going back to Mexico. But tonight at 11, after lying on the couch for a while, I went for a walk through the dormitories. I told myself, “If Mexico doesn’t want to give me entry, I don’t care if they send me to Italy.” My wife’s dream was to see her grandchildren, which she already has, and together save some money within three or four years to build a small house and live peacefully somewhere near the ocean.

Anyway, in the past when the lira (Italian currency) wasn’t worth as much it would have been foolish, but now that the euro is worth more than the dollar it wouldn’t be bad to work in Europe. I think I’d like to go there for a year while my wife goes to find a spot by the beach to build a house, and I’ll send her money to make our dream a reality. Unless she wishes otherwise. Besides, that lately I’ve been getting over this fear of the unknown, since I know I can safely get to Mexico with the whole family, wife and kids, why not to Italy by myself?