One of the country’s largest immigration detention centers had no psychiatrist on staff, “chronic shortages” of almost all medical positions and was described by its own staff as a “ticking bomb” because noncriminal detainees were mixed with high-security offenders.
Federal records obtained by WABE and Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting show the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General found widespread problems at Stewart Detention Center in southwest Georgia, including drug smuggling and staffing shortages that employees said endangered detention officers and detainees.
Illegal drugs were “continuously coming into the facility,” federal inspectors wrote after speaking with the facility’s internal inspector. The inspector said that the DHS Office of Inspector General recently arrested “multiple employees for smuggling drugs into the facility.” The inspector and other officials interviewed as part of the investigation are not named in the records.
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