Why Are Immigration Detention Facilities So Cold?

[G_j]

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/why-are-immigration-ice-detention-facilities-so-cold


Children sleep under mylar blankets in a makeshift Customs and Border Patrol facility. Ross D. Franklin/AP

There's a reason Spanish-speaking detainees call them "hieleras."
—Molly Redden on Wed. July 16, 2014 6:00 AM PDT

In early 2013, three undocumented immigrants sued US Customs and Border Protection for abuse they suffered while spending days in custody. The three women claimed that CBP agents refused to give them soap or toothbrushes; sometimes, agents refused to feed them more than once a day. But the women's biggest grievance was the unrelenting cold. "Her lips eventually chapped and split," read one woman's lawsuit. "The lips and fingers of her two sisters and her sister's child also turned blue. Because of the cold, she and her sisters and her sister's child would huddle together on the floor for warmth…There were no mattresses or blankets."

If you've been following the immigration crisis at the Mexican border, you've probably heard about these freezing temperatures that migrants endure at border detention facilities. Migrants—especially unaccompanied kids—allege suffering a lot of harm at the hands of CBP agents: sexual assault, beatings, a lack of basic toiletries. But few forms of abuse are more pervasive than the hielera—the Spanish word for "icebox" that detainees and guards alike use to describe CBP's frigid holding cells.

But why are CBP facilities so freezing?

The answer is elusive. That's partly because CBP refuses to acknowledge that its detention facilities are consistently cold. Rather, the agency says that cells are kept at about 70 degrees, and it denies that its agents use the term "hielera."

"We have heard those reports before, and you have to understand, when these folks come in from the desert, they're hot," a spokesman with CBP's Rio Grande Valley sector told me. "They're sweating…We're not going to adjust the temperature for a each new group. It would work the system too hard." He added that keeping the facility at 70 degrees helps control the spread of bacteria.

I replied that many detainees who complain of ice-cold temperatures have not come in from the desert—instead, they have been at a CBP facility for days. "We got that," the spokesman says. "Sometimes, cells aren't filled to capacity…and those people may say they're a little cool."


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[pipoman]

1. 70 degrees? on the Mexican border? why?

76 degrees is comfortable with clothing on and just a little bit cool with minimal clothing. 70 is frigid over a long period with minimal clothing...especially trying to sleep. .

[Louisiana1976]

2. Exactly. Especially when you're used to much warmer temps.