John,
My tour of the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia left me horrified.
Stewart Detention Center is one of the largest private immigration facilities in the country, run by CoreCivic — a for-profit prison company that has built a business off of human misery for years.
The facility is over capacity by hundreds, and has been since Trump returned to office. The conditions inside reflect it:
❌ Black water coming out of the taps.
❌ Limited access to medical care.
❌ Verbal abuse from staff.
❌ Poor living conditions.
ICE officials claim these are not problems within Stewart, but I heard stories from detainees who are so desperate for clean, drinkable water that they’re spending money to buy bottled water from the commissary instead. Stories of medical malpractice and abuse. Stories of unhygienic, unlivable, and undignified conditions.
Some people are being detained in these terrible conditions for a year, even two years.
They are not the “worst of the worst.” 73% of those in immigration detention have no criminal record. And the vast majority of remaining 27% have minor convictions like traffic tickets. This is according to ICE’s own records. They deserve dignity and respect, and are instead worried every single day about their own survival, and the family members they left behind.
This is what our tax dollars are funding, John. $150 a day to hold people who in an overwhelming number of cases, should never have been detained in the first place.
Every person inside of these detention centers deserves their dignity and humanity to be seen and respected. Instead, people are being starved of their basic needs while a corporation is making hundreds of millions of dollars on human suffering, fueled by this administration’s campaign of cruelty.
I refuse to accept this level of cruelty as normal.
Stewart is a failure of the promise of America. I won’t stop working until the doors of this facility are shut, and all private, for-profit detention centers are shut down for good.
In solidarity,
Pramila Jayapal
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