Thirty-five men who were detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement in the Lower 48 and held for weeks in an Anchorage jail have now been transferred out of state, officials say.
Last month, the state Department of Corrections announced that it had taken in 40 men who were arrested and detained in the Lower 48, and housed them at the Anchorage Correctional Complex, under a deal with the federal government. The move triggered backlash, as immigration attorneys raised concerns about conditions in the Anchorage jail.
Meghan Barker is a spokeswoman for the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska, which sued the state last year over the conditions at the Anchorage Correctional Complex.
“ACC and all DOC facilities have a long track record of not being able to keep people safe and alive in custody,” Barker said.
In a statement Monday, DOC spokeswoman Betsy Holley said the remaining 35 men held in the state were recently transferred back into the custody of the federal Department of Homeland Security. She declined to say where the men were transferred to, citing security reasons.
“Alaska DOC is a holding facility for the federal government,” Holley said in an email. “It was never intended that the detainees would be in Alaska for long-term.”
Announcement of the transfer came two days after the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska sent a letter to state Attorney General Treg Taylor, demanding that the state not hold ICE detainees at the Anchorage Correctional Complex for more than 72 hours until conditions improved at the facility. In June, ACLU attorneys testified at a state House Judiciary Committee hearing that detainees were being held in “punitive conditions,” which they claimed violated ICE standards. At the same hearing, state DOC Commissioner Jen Winkelman acknowledged several “bumps in the road” in the detention process.
Barker said ACLU attorneys have been working to connect detainees with their legal representation, and to make sure their rights weren’t violated. They were alerted to the transfer after they tried to confirm pre-scheduled meetings with some of the detainees.
“It's definitely jarring to know that those folks are no longer in Alaska, but also very disconcerting to not know where they are,” Barker said.
Even though the detainees have left the state, Barker said her organization remains worried that others will be held in the state before DOC facility conditions improve.
“We kind of see this as an open door at this point for further action from those agencies, and we are definitely waiting to see what comes next," Barker said. "Though we are deeply concerned that they're going to send more detainees up to Alaska DOC facilities.”
Holley said there is currently one man in custody in the state who’d been detained by ICE officials in Alaska. She said he was arrested before the group of 40 detainees were flown to Anchorage. Barker with the ACLU said her organization is aware the man is from Mexico, but didn’t have any additional details on him.
Regional ICE spokespeople did not immediately respond to questions Tuesday regarding the transfer, including where the men were sent and why they were transferred to Alaska in the first place. In at least one instance, a man arrested by ICE officials in Anchorage was transferred out of state to an immigration facility in Tacoma, Washington.
