STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

April, 24, 2024

CONTACT:
James Woo, Advancing Justice-Atlanta, jwoo@advancingjustice-atlanta.org

English: Monica Whatley, 251-623-1368, shutdownFIPC@gmail.com

Spanish: Li Ann Sanchez, 470-798-8713, communityestrella2@gmail.com

FOLKSTON, GA. – The campaign to shut down Folkston ICE Processing Center (FIPC) sends our most sincere condolences to those who knew and loved Mr. Jaspal Singh, a 57-year-old man from India who died on April 15, 2024. Mr. Singh was in ICE custody and detained at FIPC when he was hospitalized. The exact cause of his death is still under investigation pending an autopsy.

Mr. Singh’s untimely passing occurs within the context of FIPC’s history of mistreating Indian nationals. In April through September of 2018, hundreds of Sikh asylum seekers detained at FIPC, Irwin, and Stewart faced collective retaliation when a smaller group of Sikhs detained at FIPC went on a hunger strike to protest ICE’s decision to change FIPC’s court venue from Miami to Atlanta, where South Asian asylum seekers routinely were denied bond.To block what they referred to as an “Indian Mass Hunger Strike,” ICE and the private prison company guards retaliated by putting hunger strikers in solitary confinement, placing them on suicide watch, blocking access to commissary and medicine, using intimidation tactics to force individuals into eating, and transferring Sikh asylum seekers to detention centers where they would be isolated from other Sikhs. Records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act indicate that individuals from Cuba and Pakistan also went on hunger strike, that numerous men were hospitalized, and ICE force-fed at least one Indian national who was transferred to Stewart in May of 2018.

Underscoring the discrimination, ICE officials tracked the status of the 2018 hunger strikes in a document they referred to in emails as “the Indian list” and called Indian nationals who had been hospitalized “problem children.” FIPC’s warden sought permission to force hunger strikers to watch a video of a force-feeding that references Guantanamo Bay and depicts a man strapped and chained to a chair, screaming while a feeding tube is forced into his nose. It is unclear whether ICE approved the Warden’s request.

It is clear that people are not safe from abuse at FIPC and must be released. In June of 2022, the Office of the Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security found that poor conditions at the Folkston ICE Processing Center “endangered the health, safety, and rights” of detained immigrants, citing squalid conditions, excessive and inappropriate use of physical restraints, mishandling of detained immigrants’ property, inadequate medical and mental health care, deficient ICE communication practices, and systemic failures to respond to grievances or provide required services to immigrants in solitary confinement (1).

Tragically, Mr. Singh’s name joins a long list of more than 230 people who have died while in ICE custody since its creation in 2003. Mr. Singh was the fifteenth person to die in ICE custody in the state of Georgia, and the seventh person to die in ICE custody nationwide this fiscal year.

“We are heartbroken by Mr. Singh’s passing while he was confined in this abusive and poorly managed facility that has been violating immigrants’ human rights since ICE began detaining people there in 2017,” said Meredyth Yoon, litigation director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta.

Mr. Singh was a human being deserving of his freedom, his dignity, proper healthcare, and most of all, his life. Charlton County doesn’t even have a hospital, an obvious sign it is not equipped to warehouse human beings. Yet corporations and our own government continue to prey on rural towns in South Georgia without regard for the basic infrastructure necessary to run a megaprison.

“Mr. Singh deserved to be alive today. Instead, we are mourning his untimely and unnecessary death. I call on all people of conscience to take a good look at what happens inside deadly ICE detention centers, and to join our demand that they be shut down for good,” said Laura Rivera, co-founder and former member of the campaign to Shut Down FIPC.

“We refuse to allow ICE and Geo Group to continue operating with impunity, causing the loss of innocent lives who were simply searching for refuge, security, protection, and a better future in a country recognized worldwide for its human rights protections. Each time with each death in those jails, their hands become more stained with the blood of innocents. We will remember Mr. Singh,” said Li Ann Sánchez, Executive Director of Community EsTr(El/La).

The campaign to Shut Down FIPC was launched in 2022 to demand a halt to federal plans to expand the Folkston prison into the nation’s largest detention center for immigrants. In addition to calling for the complete shutdown of FIPC, the campaign demands include full rights for all immigrants, an end to racist mass incarceration, and a stop to U.S. imperialist exploitation, the cause of migration and refugee crises. The same imperialist interests shape U.S. policies overseas, wreaking poverty and violence by destabilizing governments and economies across Latin America, Africa, and Asia — driving people from their homes.

Private prison companies like GEO Group profit directly from the exploitation and abuse of incarcerated people. Under the former agreement, the federal government paid the corporation at least $1.6 million monthly, while Geo Group paid Charlton County just $2,500. Charlton is currently the fourth poorest county in Georgia.

1 Office of the Inspector General (OIG), OIG-22-47, Violations of ICE Detention Standards at Folkston ICE Processing Center and Folkston Annex (Jun. 30, 2022) https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2022-07/OIG-22-47-July22.pdf.

Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the civil rights of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (AANHPI), and other marginalized communities in Georgia and the Southeast