The Alaska Department of Corrections is holding dozens of immigration detainees in Anchorage under conditions that violate federal standards for humane treatment, a trio of lawyers told Alaska legislators at a hearing Friday.
Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, called the hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. He said that the state has assumed a new role since June 8, when it agreed to take in 41 men from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility near Tacoma, Wash. The Department of Corrections regularly houses a few federal detainees picked up in Alaska, but for the first time ever, Gray said, it is holding people transferred from the Lower 48.
“We Alaskans could be on the hook for financial damages if we are sued and lose,” he said. “So it's our duty as a committee to understand why these people are here, what we are doing with them, and what financial liabilities we Alaskans may be responsible for.”
Three immigration lawyers said the men were denied phone access to their attorneys and consulates, held in lockdown for long periods and, in one incident, subjected to pepper spray.
Immigration attorney Cindy Woods of the ACLU of Alaska said the men at the Anchorage Correctional Complex have legal rights as civil detainees and are just waiting for officials to decide if they can remain in the country.
“In fact, at least four of them have been granted immigration relief in the form of asylum, or withholding of removal by an immigration judge after a full hearing on the merits,” she said. “Yet all of these individuals are being held in punitive conditions.”
Testimony at the hearing suggests that Alaska prisons, set up to separate criminals from society, aren’t easily remade into facilities that can relieve overcrowding as the Trump administration ramps up migrant arrests and deportations.
Members of the public filled every available seat in the Anchorage Legislative Information Office. They sat quietly, other than occasional scoffing as Alaska Corrections Commissioner Jen Winkelman testified.
Winkelman said the detention was going well after a number of “bumps in the road” during the first few days. She cited one deployment of pepper spray, which she said was used to overcome a “verbal demonstration” and enforce a lockdown order.
Gray said he’d heard about that from several people, including relatives of the men.
“It seemed, from the story that I heard, that there was one detainee who was asking for permission to access his property so that he could get the contact information for his consulate representative,” Gray said. “And the result was that all the detainees were pepper sprayed. Is that your understanding of the event?”
Winkelman disagreed.
“Nobody was ever sprayed,” she said. “It was deployed in the area to get individuals to move to their individual cells and lock down.”
That didn’t sound right to Rep. Andy Josephson, D-Anchorage.
“I mean, the nature of pepper spray is to move and drift,” he said.
Gray said he’d heard that several men reported respiratory distress afterward and that they weren’t allowed to shower or change their clothes.
He cited federal standards, updated during the first Trump administration, saying that ICE detainees are entitled to daily changes of socks and underwear, access to all their belongings including paperwork, confidential phone calls with their attorneys, outdoor time and visitors — conditions that he or the attorneys said have not been consistently met.
At the start of the hearing, Winkelman sounded confident that the men were being properly treated. She said Corrections staff had medical information on each detainee and were able to supply them with telephone PIN codes.
“Our kitchen prepared bag lunches so the influx of detainees were immediately given food upon arrival,” she said.
She sounded less sure as she heard more from the legislators and the attorneys.
Winkelman repeatedly told legislators she was unaware of specific complaints and alleged violations of federal standards.
“I will commit to this committee to look into that,” she said. “This is the first I've heard of this.”
Josephson and Gray questioned why the state agreed to accept the ICE detainees, given the liability.
“All we're doing is getting refunded for our costs,” Josephson said. “Why are we doing this at all?”
Winkelman said the state is trying to be a good partner to the federal agencies, including ICE.
