SANTA FE, NM – The private prison company CoreCivic paid a settlement to the estate of Kesley Vial, the 23-year-old Brazilian asylum seeker who died by suicide while in ICE custody at the Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF) in Estancia, New Mexico, in August of 2022. The terms and amount of the settlement are confidential.
“No words can truly express the impact that losing Kesley has had on our family. He was full of life, adventure, laughter, and love, and we miss him deeply every single day,” said Irlaine Vial, Kesley Vial’s cousin. “While nothing can bring him back, we take some comfort in knowing that he will never be forgotten and that this case has brought us a sense of justice. Our hope is that no other family has to endure the same grief we have experienced.”
The wrongful death lawsuit was filed in 2023 in the First Judicial District Court of New Mexico by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico, the law firm of Benoit Legal, PLLC, the Touchet Law Firm, PC, and Rachel Higgins, Attorney at Law on behalf of the estate of Kesley Vial.
The case addressed the TCDF’s serious systemic failures and shortcomings in its mental health care and CoreCivic’s extreme negligence, which resulted in Vial’s tragic and preventable death. CoreCivic had already been on notice that it was endangering the lives of people detained in ICE custody at the TCDF. In March 2022, federal inspectors called for all detained people to be immediately removed from the facility due to health and safety concerns.
“This settlement is a milestone in New Mexico and the nation, not only because Kesley’s loved ones deserve justice, but also because it sends a clear message that the harms that people face in immigration detention will not be tolerated,” said Rebecca Sheff, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of New Mexico. “We are proud that New Mexico took a historic step this session by passing the Immigrant Safety Act. It’s proof that our state will do what it can to protect immigrants from Trumps mass deportation machine. We must do everything in our power at the state, county, and city level to prevent other people in New Mexico from ending up in a dangerous detention facility like the one where Kesley lost his life.”
On the day of his fatal suicide attempt in August 2022, Vial was distraught. He had expected to be imminently transferred out of the TCDF to be deported but learned that morning that his deportation date had been postponed yet again. Despite his obvious signs of extreme distress, CoreCivic staff failed to take appropriate precautions. Instead, CoreCivic staff allowed him to take a bedsheet to an unoccupied cell to which he was not assigned, locked him in that cell alone, and left him there unsupervised for almost 30 minutes.
"Kesley Vial deserved safety, dignity, and a future. Holding a corporation of CoreCivic’s size accountable in court is never easy. We are honored to have stood with Kesley’s family in this fight, and we hope the settlement brings them some measure of peace so they can begin the healing process," said Christopher Benoit, attorney at Benoit Legal, PLLC.
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