Fort Worth-area congressman Marc Veasey raised concerns about conditions at the Prairieland ICE detention center in Alvarado Tuesday, after a tour in which he said he met detainees who weren’t allowed basic family or legal information.
Veasey said he spoke with detainees who couldn’t get into contact with their infant children, and who couldn’t get information on their deportation status, he said at a press conference after the tour.
“I was able to speak to people that are detained here, people on a variety of different charges, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done,” Veasey said. “The facility that we saw was clean, but there are just some basic conditions that really need to be improved at this facility.”
The visit comes just two weeks after the conviction of nine people on terrorism-related charges in connection to a nonfatal July 4 shooting of a police officer outside the detention center.
Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman from New Jersey arrested during a protest at Columbia University in 2024, was released from Prairieland about two weeks ago after spending a year in federal immigration custody. Kordia said after her release the conditions were “horrible.” She had a seizure and was hospitalized while in custody this February.
Prairieland had about 1,000 detainees on Tuesday, many of whom have no previous criminal record, Veasey said.
“Anyone that's here, regardless of what they may have done or didn't do, whether they're a nonviolent offender or someone that has done something that we find more reprehensible, everybody should be treated with decent dignity,” he said.
KERA reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for comment and will update this story with any response.
Veasey visited the Dallas ICE Field Office earlier this month to assess the conditions there. He said he was concerned that a third of the people there didn’t have a criminal record.
Last July, Veasey, along with U.S. Reps. Jasmine Crockett and Julie Johnson, sent a joint letter to immigration authorities calling for an investigation into the facility after receiving complaints from constituents.
Those complaints included no access to proper ventilation, overcrowded rooms and people being detained for several days before being transferred to a detention facility.
In a statement, an ICE spokesperson at the time denied the allegations.
The rush to carry out mass deportations has led to disorganization that has violated the due process of detainees, Veasey said.
“This whole scheme to commit mass deportation was hatched sometime in January of last year, and they're still working all of this out,” he said. “And in the meantime people's human rights are being violated.”
Dylan Duke is KERA's Breaking News Reporter. Got a tip? Email Dylan Duke at dduke@kera.org.
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