(PS2-B35) Location Matters: ICE Facility Violations and Local Geographical Impact on Detention Suicide Deaths

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has been under scrutiny for its maltreatment of detained individuals particularly when it leads to untimely death by suicide. Martinez and colleagues (2013) describe ICE as an ideologically prejudiced system that fosters criminalization of immigrants.  This study aims to determine whether anti-immigrant ideology permeates the system federally or if it could be worse for detained individuals housed in areas with more anti-immigration sentiment, and if this could increase their chances for death by suicide.

We will analyze suicide deaths that occurred in ICE facilities from 2011-2018 from data retained from ice.gov Detainee Death Reporting and determine whether the frequency of PBNDS violations and ecology of anti-immigration sentiment are associated with these suicide deaths. We have operationalized anti-immigration sentiment for this initial project dichotomously based on whether the facility is in a sanctuary jurisdiction. Sanctuary cities are defined as counties, states, and jurisdictions where law enforcement do not cooperate with federal immigration law enforcement and limit law enforcement and ICE inquiry of an individual’s immigration status. We are also examining Performance-Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS) violations, defined as violations of standards of care set forth by the federal government and assessed after the death of a detained individual. These violations are documented in ICE’s decedent death records and we will analyze the frequency of each violation, per facility.

A mixed effects logistic regression model will be used to explore whether the number of PBNDS violations, the dichotomous sanctuary status controlling by facility type (state, city/county) are associated with suicide deaths. We predict that facilities in areas not under sanctuary status will have more suicide deaths and proportionately more violations associated with these deaths. The implications for this work could improve detained individual’s care by providing support that despite being a federal agency, there are problematic areas requiring more attention. Elucidating points of weakness in the federal system could signal where to best allocate more resources and offer more specialized suicide prevention training, in hopes of improving the human rights and health care for detained individuals.

If our findings do not show any significant differences this may provide evidence that ICE facilities uniformly have PBNDS compliance issues calling perhaps for change at the federal level rather than facility-level. A natural next step, would be to examine the differences between contracted ICE facilities and federally operated facilities. Future projects may also include state and local anti-immigration legislation and frequency of hate crimes.