Detention Snapshot: Fall 2022
This publication contains a summary of documented human rights abuses and acts of resistance organized by people detained that occurred in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention throughout the months of September, October and November 2022. It also provides an example of how the adverse effects of immigration detention reach well beyond ICE’s walls and into our communities. Abuses described were primarily reported to Freedom for Immigrants’ (FFI) free and unmonitored National Immigration Detention Hotline, which receives roughly 600 calls per week, and by community-based detention visitation groups within FFI’s National Visitation Network. Detained advocates are an important group of contributors, as they courageously communicate with FFI and other organizations to report the unfair and inhumane treatment they experience despite the known risk of retaliation.
This quarter, we are exposing the ways in which detention amounts to psychological torture and how ICE weaponizes pandemics to block community access and further its abuse. While this Snapshot does not capture the entirety of the abuses endemic to detention, these incidents shed light on ICE’s abusive practices and the inability of oversight agencies to address them. The exposure of systemic injustice faced by people detained is a direct result of their acts of collective resistance, which demonstrate the need to dismantle the immigration detention system and replace it with just, community-based alternatives that support our communities.
Internal Resistance and Organizing
As detained advocates are often deprived of basic rights, many have continuously resisted and organized against abuses to demand their collective freedom and abolition of detention. For example, during the late summer and early fall, there were several hunger strikes led by detained advocates who protested exposure to toxic chemicals, unfair asylum restrictions, confinement past deportation dates, and restrictions to connecting with those outside detention. Recently, California-based organizations and detained advocates at Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center and Golden State Annex developed a “Know Your Rights” handbook; this was a result of the feedback received from inside leaders who informed outside partners that they were looking for immediate legal support for those participating in labor strikes and the retaliation that followed.
Torrance County Detention Facility (Torrance, NM): Over a dozen detained advocates wrote and signed a demand letter and undertook a hunger strike to protest exposure to toxic chemicals, dangerous conditions and mistreatment by ICE and CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates the facility.
Torrance County Detention Facility
Webb County Processing Center (Laredo, TX): Detained asylum seekers began a hunger strike on October 25 to protest the unfair asylum process which does not account for the discrimination and danger they will face if deported to El Salvador. On October 26, the jail imposed a full lockdown, yet the strike remained ongoing for weeks.
South Louisiana Detention Center (Basile, LA): A detained advocate went on a hunger strike from August 8-15, demanding medical care and proper nutrition. An ICE Officer responded by telling her he would prevent her from going to the immigration court unless she ended the strike.
Psychological Torture
Beyond the constant abuse and endemic medical neglect, the detention system is intrinsically punitive. It relies on uncertainty, fear and isolation to push detained people into giving up their organizing efforts, immigration cases, and in some cases, even their own lives. The Center for Victims of Torture has established that the indefinite nature of immigration detention can rise to the level of inhumane and degrading treatment, resulting in severe consequences, even for healthy individuals. These systemic practices equate to psychological torture, which pushes detained people to resort to desperate measures, including suicide or suicidal ideation. Tragically, on August 24, Kesley Vial died of suicide while being indefinitely detained at the Torrance County Detention Facility (Estancia, NM). His death came after he was pulled from an airplane to be deported to Brazil, which was his wish, and returned to detention without knowing when he would be released.
Krome North Service Processing Center (Miami, FL): A non-binary individual has attempted suicide at least five times due to ongoing transphobic discrimination, physical assault, sexual abuse and mental health neglect that they’ve faced in detention. The detained advocate is also frequently a target of racist, anti-Black and transphobic slurs as facility staff tell them to go back to their country, and that their family should be ashamed of their transgender identity. Additionally, they have reported facility staff trying to convince them that they are not trans and refusing to provide estrogen and requested support for their gender dysphoria, further abusing them psychologically. Despite advocating for themselves by filing numerous complaints with oversight bodies, the complaints remain unaddressed. On October 13, FFI, Immigrant Action Alliance, Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project, and ten other organizations submitted a complaint to ICE leadership, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), and Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) officials highlighting the escalating abuse the detained advocate continues to face. Recently, a Lieutenant in charge reportedly told hospital workers to "fuck with him.” Others have enabled off-camera physical and sexual harm to take place by guards in the psychiatric hospital where they were placed following a suicide attempt. Now back at Krome, they remain a target of abuse, with their communication highly restricted and visitation by external communities blocked.
Jena/LaSalle ICE Processing Center (Jena, LA): The detention facility has held a detained advocate in prolonged solitary confinement for almost a year. According to the United Nations, “[s]olitary confinement may only be imposed in exceptional circumstances, and ‘prolonged’ solitary confinement of more than 15 consecutive days is regarded as a form of torture.” The ongoing use of solitary confinement amounts to torture, and this inhumane treatment has exacerbated this individual’s mental health issues, which the facility has failed to address. He is only allowed one hour outside in a fenced, cage-like enclosure once a day. The segregation unit where he spends the vast majority of the time measures five by eleven feet, and his mattress was so thin that he could feel the bars of his bed frame, causing him to suffer from constant back pain. Due to untreated mental health issues, he has been placed on suicide watch at least six times. While on suicide watch, he was put in a hospital gown and forced to sleep on the floor without a mattress while under constant surveillance. These conditions only increased the severity of his suicidal thoughts.
Krome North Service Processing Center
Weaponization of Pandemics
ICE has a recorded history of retaliating against advocates inside and outside of detention under the guise of “safety.” Thus, it comes as no surprise that ICE has taken advantage of recent pandemics to justify suppressing human rights monitoring as well as internal organizing and advocacy. In Mesa Verde, California, for example, ICE has continued to weaponize COVID-19 to deny visitation to advocates and organizers, while allowing family members to visit detained people. In response to ICE’s continued denial of full visitation access, 140 organizations signed on to a letter to the Biden administration asking for the full reinstatement of visitation. However, ICE’s lack of real concern for the impact of viruses on detained people and surrounding communities is evident by the agency’s actions. Thousands of doctors and public health experts have recommended that the best way to protect people from the virus is to release them back into the safety of their communities. Instead, ICE has chosen to restrict access to visitation and increase abuse, especially the use of solitary confinement, under the guise of protection.
Webb County Processing Center (Laredo, TX): This past summer, FFI and the Laredo Immigrant Alliance (LIA), along with detained advocates, submitted complaints with the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) regarding ICE’s reckless and life-endangering practices. The complaint described ICE’s practice of leaving detained people in a van for up to ten hours in over 100 degree weather without access to air conditioning or restrooms when transporting them to immigration hearings. While ICE justified this practice as a way to avoid COVID-19, continuous organizing by LIA and local advocates led ICE to stop the practice. One of the detained advocates who submitted this complaint was held in solitary confinement under the excuse of him being ill with Monkeypox. However, the detained advocate was evaluated by a doctor who confirmed that he was not sick, nor was he ill with any infectious disease. He remained in solitary confinement for over a month, only released after media coverage shed light on the abuse taking place. As another act of retaliation for bringing this to the public, he was nearly deported by ICE and was denied access to his attorney as ICE continued to cite “quarantine” to justify the denials, even after his return to “general population.” Eventually, due to community pressure and congressional intervention, his retaliatory deportation was stayed.
Moshannon Valley Processing Center (Philipsburg, PA): Detained advocates reported that the whole detention facility was on lockdown and that their recreational time outside had been reduced from five hours a day to just 30 to 60 minutes. According to facility staff, these restrictions are in response to COVID-19. Yet, the detention facility has not taken any other measures, such as releasing medically-vulnerable individuals, providing adequate PPE or ensuring that everyone has access to vaccines and boosters. In fact, those who have tested positive for COVID-19 are kept with the general population and are handling laundry. ICE is clearly using the pandemic to significantly cut back the time that individuals in detention can spend together outside their cells.
The Effect of Immigration Detention in Our Communities
Communities continue to collectively mourn the deaths of Kesley Vial and Melvin Ariel Calero-Mendoza, who both died in ICE custody. Kesley Vial passed away on August 26 after months detained at the Torrance County Detention Facility in New Mexico. His death had a deep impact on other people detained with him, who reported experiencing nervous breakdowns and started a hunger strike after learning of his death. Melvin Ariel Calero-Mendoza died on October 13 while detained at the Denver Contract Detention Facility in Colorado. Melvin was a father of two and was hoping to be reunited with his family in Indiana. On Day of the Dead (November 2), advocates held vigils for Kesley, Vial and six others who died in custody this year. These deaths, abuses, restrictions of freedom and threats of deportation have a deep and lasting psychological impact on our communities, who continue to be terrorized with the risk of losing their lives or a loved one to detention.
The experience of an eight-year-old, whose father was in immigration detention, inspired the creation of a children’s book that helps them understand how the current immigration system affects their lives, and how they can begin to change it. Because immigration detention, and the enforcement of immigration laws generally, leads to the separation of families, the title of this book is Where is Daddy? This book serves as yet another example of how the immigrant community is able to turn a horrible experience into an opportunity to help individuals realize the power they have to change a flawed system.
Relevant News This Fall
Two currently detained individuals pen an op-ed on their experiences in detention, with one of the advocates already facing retaliation: Erik Mercado and Ramon Dominguez Gonzalez write from two different California detention centers to shed light on what life is like behind bars, stating that “the unthinkable is daily procedure.” In addition to describing the abuses they have survived and witnessed, they recount their resistance efforts and the retaliation they have faced as a result. In fact, in response to co-authoring this piece, ICE transferred Erik Mercado away from his legal counsel in Southern California to a county jail in rural Nevada on November 8, 2022.
A major new report from Freedom for Immigrants, Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project (BLMP), Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), and the UndocuBlack Network shows how Black migrants face far higher levels of abuse and are subject to a disturbing pattern of racism and violence while in immigration detention: Drawing on nearly 17,000 call records from FFI’s National Immigration Detention Hotline spanning a six year period, this first-of-its-kind study illustrates the pervasive and systemic anti-Black racism inherent to immigration detention. Learn more about the new report here: Uncovering the Truth: Violence and Abuse Against Black Migrants in Immigration Detention.
140 organizations demand Biden fully reinstate visitation for immigration detention: In a letter sent to the Biden administration, FFI and its partners are calling for updated visitation guidelines to alleviate the adverse effects of prolonged isolation. The groups demand the Biden administration create guidelines that immediately and fully reinstate social visitation at all ICE detention facilities, in addition to providing free, unrestricted virtual video visitation.
The Senate heard testimony on November 16, 2022 on the medical abuse that occurred at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia: Our friends at the National Immigration Project summarize the issue here, as did Project South, Georgia Detention Watch, and the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights.
The National Immigraiton Justice Center filed a complaint that sheds light on the mistreatment of people with mental illness in ICE detention.
Legislation FFI supports, and congressional offices can too:
Actions constituents can take:
Educate your lawmakers on the effects of immigration detention and on bills they can support (see above). Here you can find out who your Senators and/or Representative are and their contact information.