Two civil rights groups are calling for an investigation into “alarming reports” about a 29-year-old immigrant with a disability who was allegedly assaulted repeatedly by deputies at a Calhoun County jail that has contracts to serve as an immigration detention facility.
The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (ACLU MI) called on the probe in a letter to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Calhoun County Correctional Facility (CCCF).
On three separate occasions in February, March, and April, deputies threw Luisa Martinez, a torture survivor with a physical disability and mental impairment, against a wall, yanked her arm, dragged her down a hallway, and used excessive force to transport her, causing her to cry out in pain, the letter alleges. She was also placed in solitary confinement, according to the letter.
The reported behavior is “cruel and unacceptable,” the groups said, and violates federal civil rights laws protecting people with disabilities.
“I felt beaten, abused, kidnapped, like I was in a world where I didn’t belong,” Martinez said in a statement Thursday. “Totally misunderstood, and unable to communicate because of the language, they put me in segregation [solitary confinement], and gave me food that I couldn’t eat because of my stomach problems. It was like living all over again when my ex-partner kidnapped me and locked me in a room and only fed me once a day. I was so frightened for my life, so afraid of what the guards would do. I was afraid of the noise of the door opening, because I didn’t know who would walk through or what they would do to me next. I didn’t know if I would leave the facility alive.”
Martinez was held at the jail on behalf of ICE.
As a result of previous trauma, Martinez has a visible limp because of a recurrent dislocation of the patella in both of her knees.
She alleges that jail deputies physically abused her multiple times and withheld necessary accommodations such as a knee brace or wheelchair. The Federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973 requires authorities to provide reasonable accommodations, the civil rights groups said.
After advocates got involved, Martinez was moved to another facility out of state.
Both civil rights groups are worried that similar treatment of detainees will continue at the jail, pointing to “a pattern of concerns at CCCF.” In 2021, an immigrant detainee died while in custody at CCCF “due to the facility’s failure to provide adequate medical care,” according to the groups, which are requesting in-person visits in accordance with ICE’s National Detention Standards.
“What happened to Luisa is abhorrent, but unfortunately, not an exception,” Mel Moeinvaziri, staff attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said in a statement. “ICE has failed time and time again to protect those in immigration detention from gross mistreatment, and particularly those with disabilities. The practice of immigration detention at Calhoun County Correctional Facility should be discontinued.”
In the letter to ICE and CCCF, Moeinvaziri is demanding an immediate investigation. If abuse was found, Moeinvaziri called for the facility to “amend policies, improve training, and address these conditions to ensure that no individual within CCCF custody and control, regardless of ability, is ever treated this way.”
“We demand an immediate and transparent investigation into this disturbing behavior – denying fully appropriate accommodations for persons with disabilities, limiting access to medically necessary services, mistaking insubordination/other behavior as purposeful and not as a result of disabilities, and using excessive force and solitary confinement as punishment instead of complying with federal law and agency guidance,” the letter states.
Martinez said people should be treated with respect, regardless of where they are from.
“We all are born the same, and die the same,” Martinez said. “It doesn't matter where you are born, or your origin, we are all people. If this happened to you how would you feel?”
