MIAMI — A South Florida detention center that houses immigrants in federal custody has been accused of deleting surveillance footage of its facilities, in violation of federal record-keeping regulations, according to a complaint two national watchdog organizations made to top Biden administration officials.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington claimed in a Jan. 24 letter sent to federal authorities that the Glades County Detention Center keeps video records only for three months instead of the three years it is required to do. The local jail in Moore Haven, near Lake Okeechobee, holds migrant detainees as part of a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The groups said the deleted footage could have “key evidence” needed to “vindicate the rights of immigrants,” and that ICE has known about the situation at Glades for at least a year. They also say that Glades’ video storage practices point to a systemic issue within the federal agency, citing a DHS Inspector General report published in October that found ICE did not “always” guarantee records retention compliance at detention facilities, including instances of files destroyed before the minimum time had passed.
“The deletion of surveillance footage at Glades is the latest example of ICE’s appalling failure to follow and uphold critical record-keeping laws,” said Nikhel Sus, CREW senior counsel, in a press release. “It is shameful that ICE appears to be comfortable with keeping the public in the dark about abuses taking place in one of its detention centers.”
An ICE spokesman confirmed to the Miami Herald that the agency is looking into the matter. Glades County Chief Deputy Duane Pottorff, whose office runs the center, declined to comment.
The two organizations also asked ICE to ensure that the facility keeps all surveillance records required under federal law, among other steps, by March 10. They also requested remedial action, including the possibility of ICE terminating its contract with the Glades County Sheriff’s Office.
“Because of the ongoing risk that Glades will continue to improperly delete surveillance video, we will be forced to pursue legal action and injunctive relief absent timely assurances that adequate preservation measures have been implemented,” reads the letter.
The letter was addressed to ICE Acting Director Tae D. Johnson and Archivist of the United States David S. Ferriero. Copied in the correspondence are also top officials from the Department of Homeland Security and the National Archives and Records Administration, including DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and DHS Inspector General Joseph Cuffari.
A string of complaints
It is not the first time the Glades County Detention Center is at the heart of complaints from advocates and detainees.
A group of detainees said there was a lack of medical care and COVID-19 prevention measures, as well as constitutional rights violations, at the facility in a Feb. 2021 federal complaint. In another complaint in August, seven women detained at Glades said they were victims of staff-perpetrated medical negligence and sexual misconduct.
In a July 2021 letter, Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and seven other federal legislators urged Mayorkas to shut down the center, which they said “routinely disrespected the humanity” of immigrant detainees.
ACLU and CREW published a sworn declaration as evidence of their claims, in which Kate Blankenship, ACLU of Florida deputy legal director, stated that the facility’s operations commander, Chad Schipansky, told her in December that video records were only kept for a 90-day period.
“The practice of deleting footage at Glades violates federal requirements and actively obstructs key evidence that is pivotal to ensuring Glades County and ICE officials are accountable for their actions,” she said in a statement.
In a February 2021 email exchange, also attached to the complaint, ICE officials circulated a directive that detention facilities, in accordance with federal regulations, must retain all records “related to contract performance” for three years.
“We need to know as soon as possible if your facility will have any issues in meeting this requirement,” an ICE official asked Pottorff and Schipansky in an email.
Schipansky replied that the detention center did not have a system that could retain “that much information” for “that long of a period of time,” confirming a 90-day capacity.
“That would require [an] enormous amount of added hard drives at an astronomical cost,” said Schipansky, “Some quick calculations would put the cost estimate at around” $500,000.
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