On September 13, demonstrators – many of whom were Longwood students – stood in protest at the Farmville Town Council against renewing a contract allowing a controversial immigration center to function.
Immigration Centers of America (ICA) operates two private for-profit detention centers in Virginia, one in Caroline County and one in Farmville. Signed in 2008, the agreement between ICA-Farmville and the Town allows the facility to operate in exchange for a “day rate” set by the Town. According to invoices from 2016-2017, the Town charges ICA over $2 million per month to run the facility.
Senior Gabriella Bustillos emerged as an advocate for closing the facility at the September 12 meeting of the SGA. At the meeting, she encouraged members of the SGA to attend the demonstration planned for the next day. Following this, the SGA voted to support closing the facility.
Then, at the Town Council meeting, Bustillos spoke again. She cited her own experiences as a daughter of Immigrants, saying, “I may not be from this town, but this is where I chose to get my education and embrace the community - an opportunity my parents did not have.”
In an interview with The Rotunda, Bustillos spoke further on her activism, saying, “Those people in the facility could have very well been my parents. That could have very well been me, too, but I was fortunate enough to be born in the United States and given citizenship.” She referred to the fight for the rights of those in the facility as a “passion.”
ICA-Farmville has received increased attention from activists for several reasons, including a mumps outbreak in 2019 that led to a shutdown of visitation to the facility. Furthermore, the Center made national headlines in 2020 after around 90% of detainees tested positive for COVID-19. This outbreak resulted in the death of one detainee.
After these widespread COVID-19 cases, those at the center organized a hunger strike. Those who participated in the strike alleged the use of excessive force against them by guards, including pepper (OC) spray and solitary confinement, according to anonymous interviews with The Daily Beast.
Documents obtained by the Advancement Project through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) show a number of different incidents related to excessive use of force that resulted in government scrutiny of the facility.
One, in 2015, details a detainee being pepper-sprayed multiple times “within a padded cell behind a locked door” according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) report to the Town of Farmville. ICE, in the report, also noted that ICA-Farmville “admits that it failed to perform an after-action review of this use of force incident” following the incident.
Bustillos highlighted the estimated nearly 270,000 undocumented immigrants (2016) living in Virginia, pointing at the “threat” facilities like ICA-Farmville pose to their livelihoods. “Facilities like this pose a threat to the undocumented communities, even if they haven’t done anything wrong,” she said.
Bustillos and others have worked with Free Them All VA, a coalition of activists working to spread awareness about those held in immigration detention centers. This coalition, and others, have advocated the facility’s shutdown for years.
Senior Thai Copeland, another demonstrator, spoke on her need to provide support for other communities of color in Farmville. She said, “I care about this, not only as a person of color – every single day, I’m aware of the fact that I am black – but I am also aware that this area is not always the most accepting and I’m aware of the fact that true allyship is really hard to find.”
She referred to supporting the facility’s closure as “morally the right thing to do,” adding that “solidarity, in any way, is the very bare minimum that you can do.” Copeland also said, “There’s no way I’m not going to make my feelings known because everybody deserves to live and nobody should have to fear being taken from their home.”
Despite the vocal opposition, Farmville Mayor Brian Vincent signed a six-month contract extension with unanimous support from the Town Council in September that lasts until March 29, 2024. Vincent, at the October 11 meeting of the Town Council, said, “This Council is still moving in the direction of getting out, but as we said, we’re going to do it in a responsible way.”
ICA-Farmville Detention CenterCourtesy of The Farmville Herald
