Democratic lawmakers call for closure of ICE detention center in southwest Georgia

LUMPKIN, Ga. — Democratic members of Congress are calling for an immigration detention center in southwest Georgia to be shut down after conducting an oversight visit this week, describing conditions that included overcrowded cells and lack of adequate medical care.

Stewart Detention Center, a facility run by the private prison company CoreCivic, is one of the largest detention centers in the country. At least two people have died after being detained at the facility this year, including a man with leukemia whose family said he waited eight days for medical treatment after he began coughing up blood, according to reporting from WABE. He was later transferred to a hospital, where he went into a coma and died. 

Georgia Reps. Hank Johnson and Nikema Williams toured the facility for roughly four hours Tuesday alongside Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and North Carolina Reps. Valerie Foushee and Deborah Ross, and spoke with three people detained in the center. U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock also toured the facility Tuesday in a separate visit.

Jayapal, who serves as ranking member of an immigration enforcement subcommittee, called the facility “one of the worst in the country,” citing a 2023 government report detailing substandard conditions within the detention center after an unannounced inspection. She added that lawmakers were initially obstructed from conducting oversight by the prison staff during this week’s visit.

“We had to fight for access and for answers to be here,” she said while standing outside the facility talking to reporters. “We are horrified by the situation here at Stewart, and we believe this detention center should be shut down.”

Staff were also unwilling or unable to provide responses to many of the lawmakers’ questions, Jayapal said, such as the facility’s capacity or how many people were being detained without any criminal convictions on their record.

Johnson, who represents a metro Atlanta House district, also criticized the practice of having private, for-profit corporations running immigration detention centers.

“This whole racket is taking money directly from the taxpayers, the people, the wage earners of this country — those who don’t have the tax breaks that the wealthy have — and putting it directly into the hands and pockets and pocketbooks of these ultra wealthy people,” Johnson said. “They are profiting off of human misery.”

In a separate statement following his visit, Warnock echoed many of the lawmaker’s concerns about the conditions in Stewart Detention Center, citing an 11Alive investigation into recent increases in 911 calls made from the facility to treat detainees suffering from medical emergencies such as head injuries, suicide attempts and pregnancy complications.

“Regardless of your politics, we should all be able to agree on this, that everyone deserves to be treated with basic human dignity and respect,” he said in a statement. “As a member of Congress, I thought it was important for me, as a voice for Georgia, to spend time speaking directly to those in the facility.”

Ryan Gustin, CoreCivic’s senior director of public affairs, disputed lawmakers’ description of the facility, arguing the facility is maintained to the standards set forth by the federal government. He added that medical providers onsite provide the “highest standards of care,” which he said is available to detainees 24/7.

“The safety, health and well-being of the individuals entrusted to our care and our dedicated staff at all our facilities, including Stewart Detention Center is our top priority,” Gustin said in a statement.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Alexandra Smolyar, an immigration attorney with Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta, said the lawmakers’ concerns mirror what she’s heard from clients who were detained at Stewart. Recent changes to immigration enforcement under the Trump administration, including the practice of detaining people during routine immigration check-ins, may also contribute to a rise in immigration-related arrests and detentions. 

“People who had periodic check-in requirements, who may well have been living peacefully in the community without incident for many, many years, for decades even, are just being indiscriminately detained at their ICE check-ins,” she said. “That is, to my understanding, unprecedented.”

She added that the detention center’s location in Lumpkin — a town of about 900 people that sits about 45 minutes south of Columbus — might play a role in limiting public awareness about what conditions are like for detainees.

“These are places that are out of public scrutiny, where many, many people are detained,” she said. “And I think that that allows conditions, in some ways, to fester.”