ICE accused of punishing Eloy immigration detainee

• Migrant who spoke out about conditions at the Eloy Detention Center is put in solitary confinement
• ICE official says detainee was not punished for criticizing the center during a media tour
• Officials say detainee was attemption to organize a strike at Eloy detention center

A detainee who last month accused officials of providing inadequate medical care at the privately run Eloy immigration-detention center has been placed in a monthlong solitary confinement forattempting to organize a strike, ICE officials said.

An immigrant-rights group and the detainee’s wife, however, said the punishment is for speaking out to the media. The wife also denied he was trying to organize a strike.

A federal immigration official confirmed that 38-year-old detainee Juan Miguel Cornejo has been placed in “protective custody” in his own cell, segregated from other detainees. But the official vehemently denied the allegation that Cornejo was being isolated in retaliation for complaining about medical conditions at Eloy.

“That is absolutely, emphatically not true,” said Yasmeen Pitts O’Keefe, a spokeswoman for the Phoenix office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We don’t penalize people for talking to the media.”

ICE officials said Friday that Cornejo was placed in disciplinary segregation after a hearing officer at the facility determined following an inquiry that Cornejo had attempted to organize a disturbance at the center.

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) takes the health, safety, and welfare of those in the agency’s custody very seriously. Protective custody is utilized only after a careful case review demonstrates that no other option will ensure detainee safety or facility security," ICE officials said in a written statement.

Pitts O’Keefe noted earlier that ICE officials set up media interviews with Cornejo in July. Cornejo was one of two detainees who were allowed to speak to reporters during a tour of the 1,550-bed facility run by the Corrections Corporation of America under contract with ICE.

Cornejo was previously deported to Mexico four times. He has been detained since May pending the outcome of his deportation case in Immigration Court after he tried to re-enter the U.S. at the Nogales port of entry, according to ICE.

During an interview at the Eloy facility, he told The Arizona Republic that he had complained to detention officers that he had a fever but he waited nearly three hours before being allowed to see a nurse or receive medicine.

A second detainee, Ricardo Pedroza Noriega, 57, also told The Republic that he was not being given proper medication to treat his depression and other mental-health issues.

ICE agreed to allow members of the media to tour the facility after questions arose about medical care at Eloy following the death of 31-year-old Jose de Jesus Deniz-Sahagun in May.

His death was ruled a suicide, the fifth suicide in 10 years and the 14th death at the facility since 2003.

In June, an immigrant-rights group, Puente Movement Arizona, alleged that about 200 detainees launched a hunger strike at the facility to protest inhumane conditions at the facility, though ICE denied that any protest had occurred.

Sandra Ojeda, Cornejo’s wife, said on Friday that the same day Cornejo spoke to reporters at Eloy he was called to an office and warned by officials at the detention center not to complain to the media about CCA again or he would be punished.

“They called him to the office and said if he made any more comments against CCA they would put him in the hole,” Ojeda said. Detainees call the cells used to hold detainees in isolation “the hole.”

Ojeda said Cornejo, who typically calls her nightly, told her on Aug. 18 that he had been placed in solitary confinement the day before but he didn’t know why.

She said he called her again on Tuesday and told her it would be his last call to her for a month because he was being held in solitary confinement and his calling privileges had been revoked.

She said Cornejo said officials had accused him of trying to organize another strike but he told her that was not true.

Pitts O’Keefe said she could not comment on whether Cornejo had been accused of trying to organize a strike.

Francisca Porchas, organizing director for the Puente group, said that both Cornejo and Pedroza Noriega, the second detainee who spoke to the media in July about inadequate medical care at Eloy, are being held in solitary confinement. ICE officials said Pedroza Noriega was not placed in protective care. 

The Puente group also demanded on its Facebook page that they be released from solitary confinement. The statement also said the two “are being punished for speaking to media about Eloy Detention Center conditions.”