by Jack Randall, Florida Trident

Conditions at the Baker County ICE Detention Center in rural northeast Florida, where more than 200 immigrants are being held, have been unbearable and at times appalling for years, according to numerous complaints.

Immigrants awaiting court hearings and sometimes deportation there complain of unsanitary conditions, physical abuse and denial of medical care, legal counsel and adequate food rations, according to the ACLU of Florida, which filed suit on their behalf in September 2022. The ACLU has also joined with 16 other civil rights groups to file a 22-page complaint with the Department of Homeland Security about the “unbearable” conditions at the center.

Inmates are not the only ones reporting the terrible treatment in the Baker County Sheriff’s Office prison. Two former guards at the facility, who are Florida Trident speaking on condition of anonymity, they said they too have seen — and experienced — substandard conditions. Both allege the facility is poorly managed by Baker Sheriff Scotty Rhoden, who is named in the ACLU lawsuit and is also the subject of an ongoing and apparently unrelated criminal investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The complaint filed with DHS called for the termination of ICE’s contract with Baker County, calling the latter an “unfit partner by any standard.”

Rhoden refused to discuss specific allegations against the facility, citing the lawsuit. When asked if the detention center had a history of civil and human rights violations – abuse, racism and retaliation – the sheriff replied, “No, that is not the case.”

The guards deny this. One said the conditions are so terrible that the prisoners resort to a “frequently used last resort”: hunger strikes.

“After so many hunger strikes, you get used to it,” the former prison officer said of the hunger strikes. “It’s not unusual. I’ve seen people who don’t eat and mean it, and I’ve seen them waste away.”

The former guard said one method used at ICE’s Baker facility to end the strikes and collectively punish detainees was particularly inhumane and degrading: turning off all running water in the facility.

The warden said when the main valve was shut off, every faucet and shower in the facility dried up and every toilet wouldn’t flush, affecting inmates throughout the living area and creating unsanitary conditions. The BCSO’s ostensible reason for the water shutoff was to measure water intake during the strike, but the former correctional officer said the real reason for the water shutoff was to weaken morale.

These staff accounts are consistent with a claim in the ACLU lawsuit describing a large hunger strike involving more than 100 inmates in May 2022. The BCSO initially threatened to cut off access to water if the strike began, and when it did, the agency made good on its threat.

““Essentially, they were given the task of ending the hunger strike,” Amy Godshall, an attorney with the ACLU, told the Trident“The guards instigate such things and let the people held there attack each other. This is psychological warfare.”

The dispute is apparently being heard in court after the mediation period expired on July 15 without the parties reaching an agreement.

“After we started talking about the facility, the sheriff and deputy sheriff showed hostility toward us and those who also voiced their opinions,” Godshall said. “We’ve heard from many people who are afraid to talk to us because they fear retaliation. There are always officers nearby who can overhear conversations about the conditions, and those who control the conditions are standing right next to them.”

Patrolling the facility

The two former BCSO correctional officers paint a grim picture of the Baker County Ice Detention Center, not only in terms of the inmates but also in terms of the guards.

“The cells, the dormitories, the living areas – it’s all pretty bad,” one of them said.

Unlike the other two ICE-contracted detention centers in Florida, the Baker County facility is operated by the sheriff’s office and includes the county jail with general population detainees. County detainees are housed in Block “A,” while migrants are held in Block “B.” Corrections officers rotate, working on both sides of the jail, sometimes on the same shift.

Working a shift is a long, lonely job, the former guards said. Cell blocks A and B are often guarded by only one guard at a time, they said, and when you call for help, nothing usually rings, they said.

According to the former officers, guards work 12-hour shifts without formal breaks, and the mental strain of being on “constant guard” creates tense working conditions. One of the former officers said he once worked 12-hour shifts for two weeks without a day off. Staff turnover is high, the guards said.

“You honestly couldn’t build personal relationships because you never had any time off. And on the few days off we did have, we tried to recover and prepare to start over again,” one said.

Ironically, the few days off that were available despite the 12-hour shifts led to the guards feeling imprisoned themselves.

“It was mentally stressful because I had children who had to go to daycare and I couldn’t see them,” said one. “It’s not fair that employees’ children have to be punished because of the administration.”

“They would constantly call me and tell me to come to work or threaten to fire me and others,” said the other. “Personal relationships were affected because you could never do anything with your family due to the possibility of having to work on your day off.”

The former officials said that while Sheriff Rhoden was largely absent and “had no idea what was going on at the jail,” his undersheriff Randy Crews had taken over the primary leadership role there. Crews, who is also a defendant in the ACLU’s lawsuit, like his boss, declined to discuss conditions at the facility in detail when contacted by police. Trident.

“Quite frankly, on the advice of our lawyers, we’re not really allowed to talk about it,” he said. “I’m not going to get involved in any immigration or ICE issues. I’m not going to answer any questions about it, whatever they are.”

The other side of the bars

Inmates like 44-year-old Bobbeth Morgan from Kingston, Jamaica, complain about terrible conditions in the facility.

“What happened to me at the Baker County Detention Center left me falling to my knees and begging God for mercy,” Morgan wrote in 2022. “The cell was so dirty that there were several millipedes crawling around in it and the cot and walls were covered in blood stains. I cried and asked God to perform a miracle and wake me up from this nightmare.”

Instead, Morgan claimed she was awakened in the middle of the night by a sergeant who sneaked into the prison cell to take photos of her and her sleeping cellmate.

Morgan’s letter is one voice in a continuing barrage of human rights complaints Baker has raised over the past decade: physical and mental abuse, medical neglect, sexual voyeurism, unclean water, no running water, widespread racism and retaliation when detainees speak out.

“Baker is notorious among immigrants: ‘Do whatever you can to avoid being transferred to Baker,'” said Katie Blankenship, a former ACLU attorney who is representing the plaintiffs pro bono. “It’s common knowledge that Baker is a hellhole.”

Inmate testimony obtained for the lawsuit points to a vicious cycle of abuse, racism and retaliation. One immigrant was allegedly beaten, handcuffed, sexually assaulted and called a “porch monkey” simply for asking for the air conditioning to be adjusted.

Both former officers said they were appalled by the excessive use of solitary confinement. Inmates are held in small rooms with no windows and human contact is limited to meals passed through a hatch.

District detainees, detained migrants and patients at state hospitals are moving in and out of solitary confinement through a “revolving door,” they said, adding that some of them remain in solitary confinement for more than a year. Those placed in solitary confinement often have no free time and, although they have access to a tablet, they often have limited access to legal phones, they said.

“Can you imagine being in there? It must drive you crazy,” the former officer said.

This article first appeared on Florida Trident and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.