People arrested for ice that nobody speaks

Andrea stopped outside her Florida apartment with her 8 -year -old son waiting for the police to arrive on Sunday night in February. She had called the police after a fight with her boyfriend became a physical. She said she had bruises on her face and neck, but the police arrested her and took her to a county jail in Orlando.

His family published his link, but Andrea was not released. She told News themezone that she was still asking the officers why she was still in jail, but they didn’t give her any information. She was scared and confused. He had never spent a night in jail before. When the police finally told her that they were freeing her to the US immigration application and customs, Andrea had a panic attack.

Andrea, 32, who is being identified with a pseudonym because she fears for her safety, was born in Argentina and moved to the United States when she was 3 years old. She has lived in the United States essentially her life, and is currently the owner of the green card with permanent resident status.

When ICE arrived at the county jail, all Andrea could think was her three children: her 8 -year -old girl, her 3 -month -old girl she was breastfeeding at that time. I need to be with my children She kept thinking.

The ice chained the wrists of Andrea, the ankles and the waist, and carried it on a bus with a group of other immigrants headed to the Krome detention center, a men’s detention center in Miami with a long history of accusations of inhuman conditions and sexual abuseaccording Human Rights Clock.

When they arrived, Andrea said that she and another 30 women were kept in a small room for visitors because it was the only way to separate them from the largest male population. He had no bed, or shower, or outdoor access. There were no windows in the visitation room, which made it impossible to know what time of the day was. Women repeatedly denied access to a shower because officers said it was an installation only for men without any place for women to bathe.

Andrea was not given a milk extractor, so she had to expel her breast milk on her own. The installation provided menstrual pads, but supplied the room of more than two dozen women with only 15 pads at the same time. There were cameras directly on the bathrooms, which women had to share with the other male detainees. Andrea said that men sometimes stopped at tables or chairs to look at the posts while women used them. They would lick their lips and tell vulgar things to women.

“I felt like a sitting duck,” Andrea told Hoffpost. “There was no privacy anywhere. You are not human when you are there.”

“You are not human when you are there.”

– Andrea, a woman arrested by ice

Around 56,000 people have been arrested in ice custody in a given day since President Donald Trump took office. They are carried out in the more than 175 facilities throughout the country that stop immigrants, an expanding network of county prisons, state and federal prisons, military bases and dedicated immigration detention centers.

Many of the detained people are women like Andrea. They called the police for help, but the local police delivered them to the ice. They languished for weeks or months in overpopulated detention centers sometimes not equipped with appropriate care for gender. They were pregnant or postpartum and were offered little or no prenatal or maternal health care. They were torn from their children and families, not knowing when they would see them again.

The National Security Department and ICE did not respond to News themezone’s request for comments for this story.

In the early days of Trump’s deportation agenda, the country watched with horror when immigrant men were chained and flown to a mega prison in El Salvador. Their humanity was stripped while the guards shaved their heads and put them in the prison cells to sleep on crowded metal literas. The administration assembled these images, using them as fodder to promote the lie that Trump’s immigration repression was to protect Americans from Americans from “illegal criminal foreigners. “

But we rarely saw images of detained or deported women. The few that circulated included Rümeysa Öztürk be taken from the streets by officials in full daylight; to Woman grabbing her newborn in the middle of the street when Ice arrested her; a mother sobbing and saying goodbye to her family after her He was arrested In the immigration court.

Michael M. Santiago through Getty Images

At the end of June, there were around 22,000 women in ice detention, according to Detention Reports data, a platform that analyzes publicly available data on immigration arrest. ICE does not provide data on the gender breakdown of people in immigration custody, and the agency did not respond to multiple information requests. The fact that no one seems to know how many women are detained is a cause for concern and inherently part of the problem, defenders tell News themezone.

It is estimated that there are 56,000 immigrants in detention every day, which means that women represent about 40% of detained immigrants, probably the largest population of women detained in the history of the United States immigration application. They must navigate increasingly punitive immigration systems, which operate with less and less supervision thanks to Trump’s policies.

“If you are a woman who lives in a precarious situation: you are afraid of your author, you are afraid of deportation, you are afraid of being sent to jail, you are afraid of losing your children” ” [it] Exacerbate the levels of violence and the levels of impunity that we are seeing in this country, “Elida Elida Cabrera, a defender of women’s rights and rights for a long time with the Women’s Equality Center, told News themezone.

“And who are the people who are more affected? Immigrants, undocumented immigrants, but especially immigrant women.”

A reversal of rights

Women face unique damage in immigration arrest, often experiencing violence that is exacerbated by a series of factors, such as colored women, mothers, gender violence survivors or primary caregivers in their families. Immigration lawyers and defenders fear that women suffer the greatest consequences of Trump’s mass deportation agenda due to problems such as unbridled sexual abuse and the lack of adequate gender segregation that leads to worse conditions for women. The number of pregnant women and postpartum in detention has probably also shot, defenders said to News themezone, and are increasingly concerned about inadequate prenatal care, the dangerous results of pregnancy and childbirth conditions.

These problems are the direct consequences of Trump’s political decisions to delay protections for immigrants detained by ICE, Customs and Border Protection. Triumph He rescinded an immigration memorandum In May, that was destined to protect vulnerable populations, including the limitation of pregnant time and postpartum women could be in CBP custody. A similar ICE directive regarding pregnant and postpartum women is still in place, although defenders suspect that they are not being still.

A congress report published after an April visit to two Louisian ice detention centers noted that the Trump administration “has begun to stop a greater number of pregnant women in poorly equipped facilities to handle their well -being and safety.” According to the report, there were 14 pregnant women in an installation when the employees of the Judicial Committee of the Senate visited, according to the report. Many of the detainees described the bad medical care for pregnant and newly postpartum women.

Eric Lee through Getty Images

There has been at least one loss of pregnancy in a detention center since Trump promulgated his mass deportation agenda. Iris Dayana Monterroso-Lemus had a dead dead while he was stopped by ice in Nashville, the Nashville Banner reported. Monterroso-Lemus had repeatedly requested medical attention when he had pain in his belly and did not feel any fetal movement, but the ice agents ignored her.

She gave birth surrounded by federal guards who, she said, chained her feet to the hospital bed. While Monterroso-Lemus was afflicted in the hospital, ICE agents arrived at the detention center to try to deport her to Guatemala.

DHS and ICE did not respond to News themezone’s request for comments on the experience of Monterroso-Lemus.

ICE recently declared Millions of undocumented immigrants not eligible for bond audiences, which will keep more people, including undocumented pregnant women such as Monterroso-Lemus, in detention for longer periods. This could put more women and their pregnancies at serious risk.

“The health risk that poses and the conditions that exist in detention at this time make people particularly vulnerable to really horrible results,” Zain Lakhani, director of Rights Rights and Justice of the Women of the Women’s Refugee Commission, told News themezone.

Local application agencies of the law can opt for what are known as 287 (g) agreements with ICE, which empowers local authorities to identify and detain immigrants on behalf of the federal agency. Since last month, more than 730 state and local law agencies in 40 states have 287 (g) agreements on the rocks.

This has had a huge impact on immigrant survivors of domestic violence, which are reportedly Do not call the police, go to the hospital after being assaulted or renewing the restriction orders against their abusers. The threat of detention or deportation by the Local Police that works for ICE has left many immigrant victims of domestic and sexual violence Too scared to seek help – Fearing that they could end like Andrea, arrested for months to seek the security of their abuser.

There have also been multiple reports of men who go through ice to attack and kidnap immigrant women. Immigration officials are often completely masked and with simple clothes, which makes it more and more difficult to identify who performs arrests. “ICE tactics for simple clothing arrest, family separations and intimidated tion simply blur the lines between state and vigilant violence, and put immigrant communities, but especially women, in serious danger, “said Caballero Cabrera, of the Women’s Women’s Equality Center.

“His contempt for women’s health and safety is not just a unique instance, abuse and negligence are part of a larger and more systemic failure to treat women with dignity, compassion and basic medical care.”

– A letter from the Caucus of Democratic women to Trump’s immigration officials

In March, Trump closed government agencies that once monitored detention centers for human rights abuse, which means that serious problems such as sexual violence, exploitation and medical negligence can run out of control. Surveillance agencies – sometimes Only resource For immigrants subject to inhuman conditions, they were “bureaucratic obstacles” that were “obstacles to [immigration] compliance ”, a DHS spokesman saying At the moment.

“This is an intentional action of the administration and not an involuntary consequence of mass detention,” the democratic women’s caucus wrote in a July letter demanding an investigation into the alleged abuse of women of ICE and CBP. “His contempt for women’s health and safety is not just one time, abuse and negligence are part of a larger and more systemic failure to treat women with dignity, compassion and basic medical care.”

A recent one Cable research 911 calls from the 10 largest immigration detention centers in the country found that at least 60% of the facilities reported serious complications of pregnancy, accusations of sexual assault or suicide attempts.

In spite of all this, the new tax bill of the Republican party has just delivered immigration officials $ 165 billionincluding $ 45 billion for new detention facilities and $ 30 billion to hire more ice agents.

“They are creating this black box of impunity, where they keep pregnant women or who have advanced health needs,” said Lakhani. “There is no one watching human rights abuses.”

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE

Many women have been arrested in facilities not equipped to handle the specific needs of women. Before Trump assumed the position, there was only a handful of immigration facilities that would accept women, but that number has exploded since ICE began operating under a mandate to stop 3,000 immigrants per day.

Now more and more women are sent to male or prior facilities to men, where overcrowding has made conditions horrible for women. The number of detainees in Krome, where Andrea remained, has increased by 249% since the inauguration of Trump, according to Human Rights Clock.

Alon Skuy through Getty Images

Beatriz, an immigrant from Mexico who is using a pseudonym because he faces deportation, He saw the consequences of first -hand twisted while ending a prison sentence in a federal prison in Miami. FDC Miami, who houses men and women, began to stop the ice immigrants while Beatriz was there. When Beatriz arrived for the first time in April 2024, several floors housed the inmates and a floor housed inmates. In the spring of 2025, as more immigrants were arrested in FDC Miami, the installation transferred more men to its floor.

She said FDC Miami divided the women’s floor by half to leave more space for male ice detainees, limit the movement of inmates and access to recreation rooms.

Beatriz said the prison guards were overloaded with the influx of ice detainees. “Many of the officers stopped working … because they were tired and worked more than the hours they were supposed to work,” he told their lawyer in a call from Ice Detention, in response to News themezone’s questions about their experience. “The officers began to act badly with us … because they were tired. Sometimes they used to be in their office sleeping when we needed something.”

The Prison Office (BOP) declined to comment on the specific conditions that Beatriz described in FDC Miami, but told News themezone that the human treatment of people in BOP custody is a priority.

“It is the mission of the Federal Prison Office to operate the facilities that are safe, safe and human,” BOP spokesman told News themezone. “We take our duty to protect people who trust our custody, as well as to maintain the safety of our employees and the community.”

When Beatriz finished his sentence in June, Ice picked it up and took it to the same Orlando County prison where Andrea was initially held. He was later transferred to another county jail that rents beds to ice. She is still there, facing a possible deportation.

Similar to High rates Of sexual violence in the prison system of the United States, the lack of supervision and the dynamics of power deeply disproportionate between detainees and guards often lead to exponentially high rates of sexual aggression and violation.

“Sexual abuse is part of the systemic abuse of the immigration detention system”, the program director, the director of the program of Watch network arresta national organization that works to end immigration arrest in the United States, he told News themezone.

Sexual abuse and systemic reproductive coercion often have gone hand in hand with the immigration application of the United States. In 2020, during the first Trump administration, immigrant women at Irwin detention center in Georgia They were subjected to Excessive and invasive gynecological procedures, which include unnecessary hystectomies. The reports were later corroborated by a Senate investigation. Non -consensual hysterectomies made in immigrant women five years ago are similar to those backed by the United States government. Forced sterilization of Puerto Rican women In the 1930s, ’40 and 50.

“It is not surprising that when you have a complete system designed to dehumanize and punish people that sexual violence would be unbridled in a situation in which no one has privacy,” said Suh.

“They are creating this black box of impunity, where they keep pregnant women or who have advanced health needs. There is no one watching human rights abuses.”

– Zain Lakhani, Women’s Refugee Commission

Beatriz, now 49, fled from Mexico when he was 15 years old to escape years of sexual and physical violence. As an adult, she was convicted of a drug crime and imprisoned for more than a decade in a federal prison in northern California called FCI Dublin. There he says that she was sexually abused by Darrell Wayne Smith, one of the prison guards who supposedly used it and the immigration status of other inmates against them. He allegedly threatened to alert ICE about the state of immigration of inmates or promised to help with citizens if they made sexual favors for him.

Beatriz’s lawyer, Susan Beaty, told News themezone Beatriz was interviewed by the United States prosecutor, FBI and the Department of Justice about his accusations of sexual abuse against Smith. Beaty, a main lawyer of California’s collaboration for immigrant justice who has worked with victims of FCI Dublin for years, said Beatriz’s story is one of the hundreds of accusations of sexual abuse in FCI Dublin.

Sexual abuse perpetrated by FCI Dublin prison staff was so common that inmates and guards called him “The Rape Club.” In a collective claim filed by former FCI Dublin inmates, women described the abuse and sexual exploitation unbridled in the center, including the alleged cases in which prison staff used immigration status to exploit and abuse prisoners.

“Federal criminal investigation has made it clear that FCI Dublin staff explicitly addresses immigrant women for abuse, taking advantage of the threat of deportation,” according to the lawsuit, that the United States government then paid an agreement of $ 116 million to more than 100 survivors. “In relevant cases, the officers told the survivors who” looked in their archives “and knew that they were subject to immigration stopators, or threatened to notify the immigration authorities if the survivors reported their abuse.”

FCI Dublin finally closed in April 2024 after the director at that time said he could not solve prison problems, which included the culture of sexual abuse. Ten prison guards, including Guardian and Chaplain, were accused of sexually abusing inmates; Most have been convicted or declared guilty.

Smith, who maintains his innocence, was accused of 15 positions of sexual abuse of five inmates, the largest number of positions of the other nine prison guards, according to judicial documents. Smith is accused of masturbating while seeing women shower, forcing inmates to perform sexual acts with each other, and retain mail if women did not show their breasts or make sexual favors, as shown by judicial documents.

Via News

His first judgment ended in a null trial in April; His new trial is scheduled for September. Beatriz did not testify in Smith’s first trial and has not been summoned to testify in his second.

“He said: ‘Do you think you are special? Do you think you are different? There is no difference. I can go there [Mexico] And I can find you, “Beatriz recalled Smith telling him:” Not even when sports, when you go to Mexico, you can’t even be safe. ”

Although Beatriz worked with federal researchers to put the abusers of FCI Dublin after bars, Ice stopped immediately after she was released from prison, and now faces deportation.

Less than a year and a half after FCI Dublin closed due to prison staff who used women’s immigration status to attack them for sexual abuse, Los Angeles Times reported in February that the Trump administration was looking to reopen FCI Dublin as an ice detention center. The prison office told News themezone that there were no plans to reopen FCI Dublin, and ICE did not respond to multiple requests for comments.

Immigration defenders and victims of the FCI Dublin are still deeply concerned that the idea is not dead, with ongoing protests outside the closed federal facilities. Some pointed out that ICE aggressively seeks space in bed in northern California, since the agency currently has zero detention facilities in the area.

“The ABUSE HISTORY IN FCI Dublin is also a story of abuse of immigrants, “said Beaty, who has represented hundreds of victims of FCI Dublin, News themezone.” The prison has become a symbol of sexual abuse of prison staff, and put anyone again in that center would be deeply inhuman. ”

Beatriz qualifies for a visa, part of federal protections to ensure that undocumented immigrant survivors who denounce crimes are provided towards citizens. The United States government refused to certify Beatriz’s U Visa, despite working with federal investigation of sexual abuse in FCI Dublin. She is still following other asylum paths. If he returns to Mexico, he is terrified to face the same type of sexual and physical violence that forced her to flee when she was 15 years old.

“Doctors of immigrant women [from FCI Dublin] They have reported abuse to federal authorities and then have been ruled out and deported, ”said Beaty.

“The story of abuse in FCI Dublin is also a story of abuse of immigrant women.”

– Susan Beaty, immigration lawyer that represents the survivors of sexual abuse of FCI Dublin

Women who emigrate to the United States are more likely to seek asylum from gender violence such as domestic violence and sexual trafficking.

In an important decision this month, the Department of Justice denied asylum to a woman from El Salvador, who was a victim of gang violence. The ruling indicates that future cases of asylum -based asylum, such as domestic and sexual violence, will be more difficult to win: decades of work that recognize women’s rights as human rights.

During the first Trump administration, the Department of Justice ruled against an asylum applicant named Anabel for similar reasons. The 2018 decision was finally revoked and Anabel received asylum.

“I have felt very happy that my case has been able to help other women to escape similar situations of violence,” Anabel said during a press call with journalists this month. “But now I am listening that this government is trying to do the same with another woman, put her life in danger and use her case to close the door to other women.”

“When they tell people who have to return to the country they have fled, where there is so much violence, many are sent back to die.”

‘I feel really lost’

Andrea was released from ice custody 2 1/2 months after she was arrested. He spent his first week in Krome, the male facilities, then was transferred to a detention center in Houston, Texas, where he stayed until April. Immigration officials cited a cannabis sentence of a decade as the reason they stopped it, but was finally resolved since their case had been eliminated.

When Andrea arrived home, her baby had begun to drag and sit alone. It was devastated, such great milestones had been lost. Andrea’s boyfriend watched the children while she had left, as did her mother and several other family members who had stayed in Florida for almost three months to help.

She is happy to be at home, but things are simply not the same. “I wake up from the nightmares crying. The smallest things make me cry now,” he said. “I’m anxious all the time. I can’t eat. I feel really lost after everything.”

His children are also fighting. The three seem to be stuck to their side in each moment of vigil, fearful of disappearing again. His 2 -year -old son has a collapse every time he uses the bathroom. His eldest son gets nervous when he leaves the house.

“I did my whole life here. I grew up here. I have more American in me than Argentina,” Andrea said. “The United States is a country to which my whole life dedicated and turned its back on me.”