The Cornell Law School Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, and the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition filed a federal complaint in August 2024 on behalf of detained individuals at Winn Correctional Center, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana. The complaint, submitted to the Department of Homeland Security’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office, outlined the lack of translation and interpretation services at Winn, leading to adverse outcomes in asylum cases and delays in medical care.
The complaint was submitted after interviews with detained individuals revealed consistent language access issues for those with limited English proficiency (LEP). From September 2023 to March 2024, student attorneys and supervisors from the clinic interviewed twenty-one detained individuals, many of whom described being unable to understand or complete crucial asylum documents; limited communication with facility staff; and delays receiving medical care due to a lack of interpreters.
“While working in Winn, our clinic team encountered numerous immigrants with so little access to language resources that there was no way they could present their case,” said Jaclyn Kelley-Widmer, clinical professor and director of the Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic. “Speaking to detained people through phone interpreters, we were sometimes the first to communicate with these individuals in their language, even though they had been detained for weeks or months. We hope the government will recognize the miscarriage of justice that is happening daily at Winn and close the facility.”
According to ICE’s own standards, immigration detention facilities are required to protect LEP immigrants from discrimination and unfair removal proceedings. The complaint states that despite these regulations, ICE and La- Salle Corrections, which operates Winn, regularly fail to provide detained individuals with resources in a language they can understand. Winn Correctional Center has been the subject of complaints for years. Given its history of systemic failures, the complaint calls upon DHS to shut down Winn.
