Formerly-Detained Advocates Demand that Farmville Town Council Sever Ties with Abusive Detention Center ICA-Farmville
Advocates urge the council to stop accepting dirty money gained through suffering and abuse
Farmville, VA . May 20, 2021 — Formerly-detained community members testified before the Farmville Town Council Wednesday evening to demand that the town cancel its contract with ICA-Farmville, a notoriously negligent immigrant detention center. As the Council heard comments on the 2021–2022 town budget, advocates challenged council members to envision a town budget that is not fueled by profits from suffering, abuse, and death.
Community members like Elder — who was incarcerated at ICA-Farmville for 15 months — recounted their experiences inside the infamous facility.
“I wanted to mention how the COVID situation was. They had us like animals, a lot of people couldn’t even get up, they didn’t implement social distance practices. They didn’t care that we were basically sleeping face to face, caring only about the money that they were making. I have a lot of evidence of all of this. They only practiced social distancing when they knew they were going to have an inspection. Then they did separate us, caring more about the inspection than us.”
The company that operates ICA-Farmville — Immigration Centers of America (ICA) — is a for-profit private detention company. The facility itself operates through an Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA) that the Town of Farmville signed with ICE. In this arrangement, the town acts as the go-between, taking a small cut of funds from ICE. Meanwhile, the company, ICA, receives the lion’s share of profit for incarcerating people on behalf of ICE. These profits to the town increase as more people are detained, adding a profit motive to detaining human beings. The National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) describes some of the dangers of this system:
“This ‘middleman contracting’ arrangement has been found to be improper under federal procurement law, and stifles accountability for violations that occur within the facility walls.”
Initially, ICE established a per diem of $79.89 per individual detained in Farmville. As time went on, the per diem rate increased to a base rate of $120.75 per day per person jailed. This arrangement also included smaller increases for every additional person the facility held over 500. Documents obtained through public records requests show the financial link between ICA-Farmville, ICE, and the town. In April 2019, ICA-Farmville billed ICE for $2,069,258 while the town took a cut of $20,489.
ICA has taken these profits and used them to abuse the people within its walls. Since ICA began detaining people for ICE in 2010, the Farmville facility has been the target of several lawsuits and ongoing investigations. Most recently, ICA-Farmville gained national notoriety for being the site of the worst COVID-19 outbreak to occur in any ICE facility in the country. The outbreak tragically led to the death of 72-year-old James Hill, originally from Canada, who contracted COVID-19 while detained in ICA-Farmville.
Internal documents obtained by The Advancement Project through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exposed a long history of abuse before COVID-19 had even appeared on the scene. People in ICA-Farmville have long faced indiscriminate use of force, including pepper spray. Detained individuals have been fed inedible food filled with worms, and guards have targeted many with threats and retaliation.
At the town council meeting last night, community members spoke bravely despite the fact the Council created a hostile and inaccessible environment, including verbally interrupting speakers, not providing an extension of time for interpretation, and not adjusting to technological difficulties. Despite the frosty reception, advocates made a compelling case that the Council should cut off this exploitative and abusive revenue stream by canceling the town’s contract with ICE.
An organizer with Free Them All VA testified that
“[The Farmville Town Council] could accomplish something significant by voting to end the contract with ICE and ICA, and take a stance against the system of immigration detention by refusing to fund [the] town budget with profits obtained at the expense of basic civil and human rights.”
Free Them All VA is an abolitionist coalition centered around amplifying the organizing of those incarcerated in Virginia detention centers, jails, and prisons. Our demand to free them all has no asterisk. All means all.
