Positive CRCL Outcome Against Cibola and ICE El Paso

Sophia Genovese writes: "[Here] is a response from CRCL regarding a complaint the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center filed last year against Cibola County Correctional Center and the ICE El Paso Field Office. 

As a quick background, our client suffered a knee and ankle injury while playing soccer at the facility. Not long after, he was denied asylum and did not appeal the decision, and he was staged for deportation. He was ultimately not deported due to his physical condition. During his transfer to another facility for deportation and back to Cibola, his ankles were shackled for nineteen hours and he was in excruciating pain. It was later found that this shackling aggravated his existing injury and caused a fracture in his ankle (that did not previously exist). We then helped this individual file a CRCL complaint, detailing this and other issues he experienced while detained at Cibola. 

In their response, CRCL found that ICE discriminated against our client in violation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, specifically by not providing a reasonable modification to the ICE ERO Use of Restraints policy (Number ERO 11155.1) and failing to engage in an interactive process. As a remedy, CRCL orders: "ICE shall update the ICE ERO policy Use of Restraints, Number ERO 11155.1 to account for situations when an individualized assessment of a noncitizen with disabilities is required prior to the use of restraints. The amended policy and procedure shall be disseminated to appropriate ICE ERO personnel and detention facility staff and shall also be incorporated into existing training for ICE ERO and detention facility staff."

I hope this is helpful to any advocacy others in this group are engaged in.

Sincerely, 

Sophia Genovese (she/her)

Managing Attorney, EJW Disaster Resilience Fellow

New Mexico Immigrant Law Center

625 Silver Ave. SW, Suite 410

Albuquerque, NM 87102

C: (505) 895-2609

E: sgenovese@nmilc.org

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