A state review into the treatment of immigrant teens held at a Virginia detention center confirmed that the facility uses restraint techniques that can include strapping children to chairs and placing mesh bags over their heads. Investigators said the treatment of detainees at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center did not meet the state’s legal threshold of abuse or neglect, the Associated Press reports. A top state regulator conceded that investigators did not attempt to determine whether allegations of past abuse at the locally run facility are true. Gov. Ralph Northam ordered the review in June after the AP published accounts by children as young as 14 who said they were handcuffed, shackled and beaten at the facility. They also described being stripped of their clothes and locked in solitary confinement, sometimes strapped to chairs with bags over their heads.
The incidents are described in sworn statements from six Latino teens included in a class-action lawsuit filed in November. They are alleged to have occurred from 2015 to 2018, under both the Obama and Trump administrations. The teens who made those complaints were subsequently transferred by federal authorities to other facilities or deported to their home countries. Angela Valentine of the state juvenile justice agency said investigators interviewed only the 22 who were being held at the facility in late June, after the AP’s report. Investigators were not permitted to review the case files or medical records of past detainees who say they were abused. The legal advocacy group representing the Latino teens suing the facility called the state’s review “deeply flawed.” “The children in this facility are denied necessary mental health care and subjected to abusive conditions,” said Jonathan Smith of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. “We look forward to proving our case in court.”