On March 3, 2025, Innovation Law Lab received nearly 1000 pages of records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) regarding ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and CoreCivic’s Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF).
Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), on September 13, 2023, Innovation Law Lab requested records regarding all complaints submitted to CRCL from the time of the reopening of TCDF in 2019 through the present.
Snapshot from p. 76, Part 1 of FOIA records
While review is underway at the time of this publication, a mere glance reveals that harms still commonly reported by people detained — including but not limited to wastewater flooding, lack of due process, medical neglect, retaliation by staff — have been known to the federal officials for years.
Specifically, Innovation Law Lab requested:
- All complaints submitted to the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) pertaining to the Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF) in Estancia, New Mexico, from the reopening of TCDF in 2019 through to the date of this request;
- Any and all correspondence and communications between CRCL and the complainants and/or their counsel regarding the above complaints; and
- Any and all correspondence and communications between CRCL and other DHS component agencies or Executive Branch officials regarding the above complaints.
Many pages are redacted in part, and 17 are fully redacted. The responding CRCL FOIA officer indicated that they referred 659 pages to the DHS Office of the Inspector General and 1987 pages to ICE for direct reply to Innovation Law Lab.
Records are linked below as received, scanned for greater ability to search terms in the text, with black-box redactions added by Innovation Law Lab as appropriate upon initial review:
TCDF CRCL FOIA Production Part 1
TCDF CRCL FOIA Production Part 2
TCDF CRCL FOIA Production Part 3
TCDF CRCL FOIA Production Part 4
TCDF CRCL FOIA Production Part 5
TCDF CRCL FOIA Production Part 6
TCDF CRCL FOIA Response Letter
