Faith leaders and community members rallied for transparency outside the San Diego federal courthouse amid concerns over immigrant detention conditions.
SAN DIEGO — Community and local faith leaders gathered outside the Edward J. Schwartz Federal Courthouse on Thursday for a prayer vigil that became a rallying call for transparency regarding the conditions immigrants may be facing in the building’s basement.
Attendees held signs, including one reading “Nosotros Pertenecemos,” as they pressed for answers. The vigil comes amid growing concerns about how long detainees are being held and the conditions they face.
“I personally know a couple people in North County who are immigrants who have had contact with some of their family members who are in there and I’ve heard their deplorable but the fact that they’re not willing to let our own representatives, our members of congress from this area to go down there, people should be outraged and be on this corner every day protesting,” said Dana Fudurich, a community member.
Local members of Congress have been denied entry to the facility multiple times. Representative Juan Vargas, who attended Tuesday’s vigil, said he has received reports that detainees are being held in the basement far longer than the 12 hours allowed, with some individuals detained for up to a week, according to Vargas.
“So first they said we didn’t give them enough time, then when we gave them enough time they said ‘Oh, now it’s because of the government shutdown,’ so they changed the reasons they weren’t consistent,” Vargas said.
Now that the government shutdown has ended, Vargas says his oversight requests are moving forward.
“We’ve submitted the request again, in fact, we’ve submitted the request. We’re also going on the request that was [previously] so in other words, there’s two requests now. So they want the seven days, we’ve done that. They want seven days over; we’re going to do that, we’re going to give them 48 hours also. We’re going to go through all the darn rules, they just keep changing the rules cause they’re hiding something,” said Rep. Juan Vargas.
Representative Scott Peters is also seeking answers about the detention facility. In a statement to CBS 8: “I will be submitting another request to visit and conduct oversight at the downtown San Diego ICE facility. I want answers to my questions about the conditions for people being detained there.”
CBS 8 reached out to the Department of Homeland Security to request a statement from ICE about the conditions detainees are being held in or plans to address the concerns raised. We will update this story when we receive a response.