Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana.

The Cornell Law School Immigration Law and Advocacy Clinic, Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Human Rights,  and the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition filed a federal complaint in August on behalf of detained individuals at Winn Correctional Center, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Louisiana. The complaint, which was submitted to the Department of Homeland Security’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office (CRCL), outlines the widespread lack of translation and interpretation services at Winn, leading to adverse outcomes in asylum cases, prolonged detention, 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 day-to-day 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.”

“People who are fighting their removal while indefinitely detained at Winn face enormous obstacles that make winning nearly impossible, regardless of the merits of their case,” said Lucy Oh ’24. “They are required to fill out complex immigration forms in a language they do not understand and with no access to basic legal resources in their language, all while living in horrible, abusive conditions. Dignity and due process are a fiction at Winn.”

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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 LaSalle Corrections, the private prison company that operates Winn, regularly fail to provide detained individuals with resources in a language they can understand.

The complaint documents instances of LEP individuals being punished for refusing to sign documentation in a language they could not understand or waiting months to move forward in the asylum process because they could not communicate in English. The lack of translation and interpretation services also negatively impacts detained individuals’ ability to represent themselves—which is especially problematic as the majority of people detained at Winn are left to defend their asylum claims on their own, with no legal assistance.

“Language access is crucial for safeguarding other rights in detention,” said Sarah Decker, staff attorney at RFK Human Rights. “When detained individuals are unable to communicate, they can face life-threatening barriers in accessing medical and mental health care. When language needs are not met, people are more likely to experience prolonged detention or retaliation such as placement in solitary confinement when they don’t understand instructions from guards.”

Winn Correctional Center has been the subject of complaints from advocates and detained individuals for years. Given the facility’s history of systemic failures — including the inability to provide language access to detained people — the complaint calls upon DHS to shut down Winn.

“An investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s CRCL in 2021 found that Winn had conditions leading to mistreatment and recommended reducing the detainee population to zero until issues were addressed,” said Martha Alguera, community organizer with the Southeast Dignity Not Detention Coalition. “Language barriers in detention centers delay immigration processes and negatively impact people detained. We demand immediate language access and translation services in all Louisiana detention centers. If we, as a volunteer organization, can find interpreters, then so can the management and ICE officers at Winn Correctional. Above all, Winn Correctional Center should be immediately shut down and no longer be allowed to detain anyone at this facility.”

This story is excerpted and posted with permission from RFK Human Rights.

Fall 2023 Trip to Louisiana