Under Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s watch, detainees are being treated inhumanely
Rodney Taylor is a Georgia man from Gwinnett County who has become a tragic victim of a dark and ugly stain spreading unchecked across our state: the stain of neglect and abuse perpetrated on detainees at Georgia detention centers.
That stain is deeper and more pervasive than ever because of increasing Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests. Noncriminals like Taylor are being swept from our communities under the guise of a senseless, indiscriminate immigration policy and subjected to human rights violations at ICE facilities.
Taylor’s case exposes an even more tragic layer: ICE’s failure to provide adequate medical care for those with disabilities or medical conditions.
The circumstances of Rodney Taylor’s ordeal at CoreCivic’s Stewart Detention Center are well-documented by now. He is a double-amputee who was newly engaged and in the process of obtaining a green card when he was arrested by ICE in January.
Since then, it’s been reported that Taylor has experienced a lack of basic necessities in the overcrowded facility; no air conditioning; missed meals; solitary confinement; and, worst of all, agonizing pain and serious health problems because of medical neglect. After nearly nine months, Taylor’s fiancée, Mildred Pierre, reports that his life hangs in the balance. And he is not alone. Rodney Taylor is just one of thousands of individuals who pose no threat to public safety but are suffering horrific and often life-threatening conditions in ICE detention in Georgia.
Private prison companies have backed politicians like Kemp
Atrocities at CoreCivic’s Stewart are not new; in fact, they can be traced back to 2018, just before newly elected Brian Kemp was moving into the Governor’s Mansion.
At that time, CoreCivic was one of two companies operating private prisons in Georgia; both companies were facing lawsuits over allegations of neglect and abuse of immigrant detainees.
According to Freedom to Thrive’s Prison Industry Divestment Campaign, those companies donated a combined $24,000 — the maximum allowed — directly to Brian Kemp’s campaign for governor. They also funneled nearly $480,000 to the Republican Governors Association and the Georgia Republican Party, groups that supported Kemp’s campaign with millions of dollars. After Kemp was elected, GEO Group and CoreCivic continued to operate facilities in Georgia.
Prison conditions did not improve after that. In 2020, the Southern Center for Human Rights appealed to the Department of Justice to investigate alleged violations. In October 2024, the DOJ released its findings, stating, “Our statewide investigation exposes long-standing, systemic violations stemming from complete indifference and disregard to the safety and security of people Georgia holds in its prisons.”
A few months later, in January 2025, perhaps Gov. Kemp was thinking of his legacy when he unveiled a plan for $600 million to be directed to the state prison system for improvements. Kemp ordered those millions to flow toward strengthening prison security, increasing compensation for correctional officers and staff, and building more prisons.
Ga. governor should not focus any enforcement on noncriminals
The dark stain spread at an accelerated pace in the spring of this year when the new regime in the White House decided that mass arrests and deportations were the answer to the country’s immigration problems. In response, in March 2025, Gov. Kemp directed all 1,100 sworn officers in the Georgia Department of Public Safety to receive ICE training, repeatedly mentioning “criminal aliens” who “pose a risk to public safety” in his official statement to justify his actions.
However, news reporting shows over and over that most individuals arrested by ICE were not criminals. One can only conclude that Kemp and other elected officials either understood that they put innocent lives at tremendous risk or they simply didn’t care.
The people of Georgia do care. Gov. Kemp, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, Attorney General Chris Carr and Department of Public Safety Commissioner Col. William W. Hitchens III have a combined decades of experience in Georgia government. They must know their constituents by now.
No one — regardless of their immigration status — should be subjected to abusive, unsafe, dangerous and even deadly conditions while in state custody.
This, Gov. Kemp, is what the people of Georgia want you to do: Work to release wrongfully detained people like Rodney Taylor who are the opposite of a menace to society and who are experiencing abuse at the hands of CoreCivic. Exercise your executive powers to advocate for state law enforcement to adopt more targeted means to stop, arrest and detain only those individuals with serious criminal convictions. Enforce your oversight of the Georgia Department of Corrections and put a stop to the human rights violations at Stewart and elsewhere.
Gov. Kemp, this is on you. Your tenure as governor is coming to an end; don’t go out with this dark stain on your legacy. There’s still time to make this right, for yourself, for Rodney Taylor and other detainees, and for the people of Georgia.
Caroline Stover is a retired sales and marketing executive who has lived in the Atlanta area for over 15 years. She is active in political causes from reproductive justice to voting rights.
