A property owner that leases a crowded, windowless warehouse in New Jersey to private prison company CoreCivic has sued to end its contract, alleging the private prison profiteer has failed to protect immigrants detained at the Elizabeth Detention Center (EDC) amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, NorthJersey.com reports.

Portview Properties says CoreCivic, which holds a federal contract to detain up to 145 people for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has failed to meet basic safety standards inside, resulting in more than 50 cases of COVID-19. The report said that during one nine-day period last month, a dozen detained people tested positive.

“The company alleges that CoreCivic failed to meet the basic safety, health care, sanitation and hygiene needs of all those detained,” NorthJersey.com reports. “Furthermore, the lawsuit states, the company does not permit individuals to maintain social distancing, and that detainees sleep in dorms with 40 beds or cots in one room, clustered closely together, and must share a restroom.”

“Defendant’s failure to implement these required measures represents not only a threat to the health, safety, and wellbeing of those individuals detained within the EDC, but also, a breach of the ICE Contract and, therefore, its lease agreement with Plaintiff,’’ the report said the lawsuit the states. “The physical threat to these individuals, which has been exacerbated by Defendant’s inaction, has become even more dire in light of the spread of new variants of the virus causing COVID-19.” 

The allegations against CoreCivic are in no way shocking. Carlos Ernesto Escobar Mejia, the first detained person to die from the virus while in ICE custody, had been detained at a California facility operated by CoreCivic. EDC itself made headlines in the first days of the pandemic, when a staffer went into self-quarantine after testing positive for the virus. The Marshall Project reported at the time that it was “the first case confirmed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement of an employee contracting the virus.”

“How long has @CoreCivic ’s ICE detention center in Elizabeth, NJ, been a problem?” tweeted reported Matt Katz. “In 1995 detainees attempted to take over the facility, making same allegations that continue today: inedible food, lack of fresh air, bugs, filth & crowded sleeping quarters.”

“Given the grave concerns expressed by those individuals who have experienced first-hand the dangerous conditions within the EDC, Plaintiff demanded assurances from Defendant that it is operating the EDC in accordance with its contractual obligation to adhere to and implement federal COVD-19 safety guidelines, regulations and requirements,” Gothamist reports, as stated in the lawsuit. “In response, Defendant offered only a naked statement that it is in compliance with its obligations under the ICE Contract.”

Interesting, because when members of Congress last year questioned private prison executives, including some from CoreCivic, about allegations of abuse against detainees, the executives feigned ignorance about what was going on inside their facilities. “In reality, people at CoreCivic facilities have been pepper-sprayed on at least four occasions” for protesting dangerous conditions amid the pandemic, Mother Jones reported at the time.

Should Portview succeed in its lawsuit, its contract with CoreCivic would be terminated more than a year early. NorthJersey.com reports the company had expressed interest in renewing its lease until 2027 (highlighting the ongoing need for the Biden administration to take steps to cancel ICE’s contracts altogether). “Edafe Okporo, a public health and gay rights activist who was detained at Elizabeth after fleeing Nigeria in 2016, said he wished the detention center could be turned into housing for asylum seekers,” Gothamist reported.

“The news of a potential possibility of closing the center came with a relief that no one would have to go through the horrible system as I did,” Okporo said in that report. “It’s coming late, but slow progress is better than no progress.”