It’s over for the remaining California prison that still holds an immigration detention agreement

Yuba had been operating since 1979 under a court-ordered consent decree “due to numerous constitutional violations and a lack of adequate care”, pleads said in 2021 to seek termination of the prison agreement. They were joined by two dozen House lawmakers, who said Yuba (along with Otay Mesa Detention Center and Adelanto Detention Center) had been under multiple administrations “operating substandardly. , resulting in repeated violations of ICE standards and excessive waste of federal funds.

In a significant development that followed, an immigrant who had been detained in Yuba for three years has been freed. He had been the last immigrant still held in prison. But in a blow to defenders who hoped the release of Ricardo Vasquez Cruz would lead to a contract termination, Yuba resumed detaining immigrants a few weeks later.

Good news came last Friday, when local and federal authorities confirmed the end of the Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA). Lawyers and a number of media outlets said four immigrants were still being held in jail. Rather than transferring them elsewhere as seems to be the planadvocates have urged officials to release them to their own homes and communities.

“The directly affected individuals, attorneys and legal service providers have worked tirelessly for years to end the contract between ICE and the Yuba County Jail,” said the Yuba Liberation Coalition. “Today we proudly celebrate the end of a lucrative deal that has caused immense harm to our communities. We call for the immediate release of the remaining detained community members – we have depopulated the facility in the past without transfer and believe this is both possible and right.

In recent days, the Biden administration also announced that a Pennsylvania detention center that once imprisoned migrant families but has since detained adult women will also lose its immigration contract. Defenders also urged the release of women from this establishment, saying that they are “not going to end until every woman here is free and transferred to another place,” WITF reported.

California passed a law that band new contracts on for-profit prisons and immigration detention (although this is currently being fought in court by private prison profiteers). The Yuba Liberation Coalition said officials shockingly extended Yuba’s contract into the next century in response to this law.

“In 2018, after the state banned new contracts between local law enforcement and ICE, the government extended the IGSA with Yuba indefinitely, setting the expiration date to the year 2099. The contract awarded the county jail located in Marysville, California more than $8.6 million. dollars of taxpayers’ money a year to detain people fighting their civil immigration cases.