Legal advocates have called on Massachusetts authorities to launch an investigation into alleged civil rights violations against immigrants detained at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. A civil rights complaint filed with Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s office Thursday details obstacles created by the prison to block communication between detainees and legal advocates, often resulting in severe consequences for immigrants seeking legal recourse.
The prison is in violation of state and federal laws by imposing severe restrictions on phone calls, video-calling access, mail access, in-person visits and access to information in languages other than English, according to the complaint.
“The ability to get documents from your family and connect with an attorney on the outside can mean the difference between deportation and staying here,” said Bridget Pranzatelli, a clinical student with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, one of the advocacy organizations that brought the complaint. “It can mean the difference between life and death.”
The prison prohibits all incoming calls and blocks attorneys from scheduling calls with their clients or leaving voicemails, according to the complaint. No space is provided for confidential calls, all mail is opened, and 30-minute videoconference calls cost detainees $69.99.
“Without the ability to communicate with their attorneys and others to assist with their immigration cases, people in ICE custody at Plymouth are more likely to be deported to countries where they face persecution or death,” the complaint said. “This is a clear and significant risk to their liberty and lives.”
Through a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, immigrants are held at the facility while they await legal proceedings with “life-altering consequences,” advocates wrote in the complaint, filed by immigration advocacy organizations including Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network, Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Reform Institute, MIRA Coalition, and New Haven Legal Assistance Association.
Citing violations of procedural protections afforded to detainees via Massachusetts state laws, advocates called on the civil rights division of Campbell’s office to launch an investigation. The Attorney General’s office has received the complaint and started a review, according to a spokesperson for Campbell.
The prison’s contract with ICE expires pending renewal in September, according to the complaint. If the alleged civil rights violations aren’t amended, advocates encouraged the Attorney General to terminate the facility’s ICE contract and release the 37 detained immigrants currently being held at the facility.
A spokesperson for the Plymouth County Sheriff's Office, which oversees the prison, declined to answer questions about the specific allegations detailed in the complaint.
“If the attorney general opens an investigation, we will cooperate fully and demonstrate that the Department fully respects the rights of the people committed to its care and custody,” Plymouth County public information deputy director Karen Barry said in a statement.
Mario Noe Paredes, an attorney with Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts, says he received a call in 2021 from a detainee at the prison, asking for his help.
The detainee, who Paredes declined to name, alleged that he had been pepper sprayed and beaten by officers who slammed his face on the floor of his solitary confinement cell. When Paredes came to document the man’s wounds, he said prison officials told him photography was not permitted. Paredes was initially denied an in-person visitation he said, but was allowed to speak with his client through glass in a phone booth. The phone system wasn’t working, Paredes said, forcing him to communicate as best he could by yelling through the glass.
“I had to yell to this individual from across the glass, trying to communicate as best I could,” Paredes said. “When I tried to pass information about his rights to him, I was also disallowed from handing him any documentation that outlined what his rights were.”
Paredes says he lost contact with the man who initially sought his help. Losing touch with clients is a common conclusion in many cases involving detained immigrants, Paredes says, in a process where access is rare and limited.
“A lot of the abuses go unreported, because when people start speaking up against what they are facing, they are retaliated against, sometimes by being placed in segregation, sometimes by being transferred out of state,” Paredes said, adding that many immigrants face language barriers and are not adequately informed of their rights. “If you add communication issues, it becomes pretty much impossible for some folks to make contact with the outside world and find the support and resources that they need.”
Legal advocacy organizations have filed multiple complaints against the Plymouth County Correctional Facility in previous years, including one last year with the Department of Homeland Security that includes testimony from detained individuals struggling to communicate with their lawyers or family members.
“Phone is expensive … I spend $150 a week just on phone,” a detained individual said in the 2022 complaint. “Here they try to make it as hard as possible for you so you get deported.”
Previous complaints allege civil rights violations including a lack of adequate medical care, unsanitary prison conditions and deficient COVID-19 protocols. Issues that impact every aspect of life in detention are “intentionally withheld” from public knowledge, said Pranzatelli.
“The nature of these civil rights violations is that they block people on the outside from seeing what's going on inside,” she said, adding that the yearslong investigation into protocols at the prison was a process of “peeling back one curtain at a time.”
Unlike detainees in criminal custody, who have the right to government-appointed counsel, immigration detention is a civil proceeding, meaning detainees must pay for their own lawyers or find free counsel. Only 37% of all immigrants and 14% of detained immigrants have legal representation, according to a 2016 American Immigration Council study.
“One thing that seems to be constantly lost in all of this is that this is not criminal, these are not people who are even being accused of a criminal violation, just a civil violation, and yet they're being punished and being denied any opportunity for due process,” MIRA Coalition political director Sarang Sekhavat said. “These kinds of abuses that we see, it's not just Plymouth. It's everywhere.”
