In late January, the Mesa Fire and Medical Department responded to a medical call at a lesser known U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, where it found such severe overcrowding that it gave ICE a list of corrections it needed to make.
ICE said that the 238 people records show were detained that day at the Arizona Removal Operations Coordination Center, located at the Mesa-Gateway Airport, was an aberration because of a measles outbreak at another Arizona facility. The agency promised the number of detainees would be back under the listed maximum capacity of 157 within a week.
But the next day, records show the daily population was 646 people. The day after that, it was 526. Within a couple of days, there were 777 people being housed at AROCC, which ICE says is designed to hold people for less than 12 hours. On Feb. 4, the day ICE had said the overcrowding would be resolved, there were 513 people locked in the facility’s detention rooms…