Dozens of asylum seekers in custody document egregious and flagrant abuses by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to NMILC
Access to food, water and hygiene are all examples of what most would consider are even the most basic human rights. Yet these and many other rights are being continually denied for long periods of time to those who seek asylum in the United States, many of whom would be either killed or jailed if returned to their home countries by authoritarian regimes.
Cibola County Correctional Center and Torrance Country Detention Center ICE facilities, as well as the El Paso CBP sector soft-sided facilities, are all designed to temporarily hold asylum seekers for processing. ICE and CBP facilities must all adhere to basic human rights and due process. Nevertheless, the New Mexico Immigrant Law Center continues to document dozens of examples that illustrate a devastating pattern of human rights abuses clearly exposing ICE and CBP of outright failure to meet even basic standards of human decency.
In a recent complaint filed on December 20 to the Department of Homeland Security, NMILC took firsthand accounts by detainees that lay bare numerous flagrant abuses such as verbal and physical abuse, lack of access to minimally necessary hygiene products, plainly inadequate food, and needless family separations. Detailed below are personal accounts from asylum seekers who have disclosed abuse in ICE and CBP custody to NMILC staff.
In a second complaint, NMILC has escalated the concern that asylum seekers were, often without access to legal orientation, being rushed through the Credible Fear Interview (CFI) process at Torrance County Detention Center. Additionally, after their interviews, they were subjected to prolonged periods of time for USCIS to issue decisions, some upwards of weeks or months before being served with an NTA and released to their sponsor.
NOTES FROM THE INSIDE:
The following letters were submitted by detainees at Cibola County Correctional Center.
Hello, good day. I write this so that you pay more attention to our immigration case. I am a Guatemalan immigrant. They have us detained in a federal security jail in which they are violating our rights. They discriminated against us. We do not have freedom of expression. The food is not adequate. I have been 85 days without a response. They give us severe punishments, like turning up the cold [air conditioning]. They do not give us food. They close us in the cold room. We urgently ask for help. Thank you.
—Sincerely, a prisoner in the detention center Core Civic New Mexico. Permission to share confidentially.
Good day my name is Lopez Salmeron Braylio de Jesus. I address this to you all with the end of making this letter public. I am a Venezuelan immigrant, father of two children, and a provider for the home. I will recount something of my story. When the constituency in Venezuela of the dictator government, I was on foot in fight in my country of origin against all the outrages and the eligibility of the laws that the government put at its convenience. Especially now that it had the 4 powers at its disposition and we remained helpless [to] them. In 2017, being in a protest, I was unjustly detained. And as it is not a crime to protest, they opened an adverse case against the situation “resistance to the authority.” I was detained for 5 days violating my rights, where I was tortured, beaten, and mistreated. As I didn’t have prior criminal penalties because I am a father of family, a man of good, they exonerated the charges but with a very firm warning from the judge, that if I continued protesting against the government I would be detained again. I would [go] 30 years in jail. I was hidden for a time, and I returned to go out into the street to protest.
On the 12 of December coming from a protest, armed police kidnapped my brother and killed him [on] the 12 of December of 2017 without any type of justification. They shot more than 8 gunshots and with signs of torture. Where we just saw him 2 hours before giving him a burial, after [the authorities had] him kidnapped for more than 4 days, the body was already in decomposition. Where we wanted to make police reports to the competent authorities without having any response. The only repeated more threats against me and my family. Where they threatened my mother and my father and my brothers that if we did not desist in putting the police report, they could lose another son. Now that they had me identified for being against the government where I could not work after that. [Now…I] was afraid of being killed because I am [a] father of [the] family and [the] provider of the home with my deceased brother.
Now that he left two children orphans and a widow wife. Where I had to leave from my country fleeing with my family, with children and wife, for fear of being imprisoned or killed. Where I came searching for any humanitarian help or political asylum. Where I find myself unjustly detained in this country. Where I came seeking help. Where they brought us to a federal jail with deceit. Where they have violated our rights since the first day that they brought us to this federal jail.
Where we had three days in quarantine without any type of legal information and they passed us to do a credible fear interview in inadequate spaces. For the process where our group of more than 30 people have had negative responses and only 4 or 5 without any answer at all. Where we have been verbally and psychologically mistreated in these facilities. Where the food is not adequate for an adult person, etc. We find ourselves detained against our choice in a federal jail where there are detained people with over 30 year sentences.
We are in Torrance Estancia, New Mexico, County of Torrance, from the 11.11.2023 until now the 12.15.2023.
Good day I write this letter with the motive that you help us with the migration process. [The officers] are playing with us. They take a very long time. I have been [here detained] for 85 days and they have not given me a response. They violate our rights. We are verbally and psychologically mistreated. My family is destroyed because I am the economic provider. My girls are very small and they are suffering for food and emotionally. I ask you all help so that they give us freedom they are finishing/ending with my life and the life of many of us. Help/rescue please human rights have mercy.
Good day my name is Aaron Moises Chacon Hernandez. I am Venezuelan. I want to share this now that I am deprived of freedom with hundreds of immigrants. We who are tortured psychologically, the food is not adequate for a person. We are human beings, and we deserve just judgment in freedom. We have not committed any serious crimes to be deprived of freedom unjustly. We have been incarcerated here a long time, with any type of response, some with responses positive of leaving and they take months more to be freed. To me it seems Torrance ICE is not adequate to have migrants detained in a federal prison, where we are oppressed.
Thank you for your attention. I hope you can help us…
My name is Sojo Moreno Aaron. I have been detained [for] 35 days after turning myself in. I am a Venezuelan migrant. I have my pregnant wife who turned herself in with me and they separated us. I spent a time without knowing anything about her because they brought me here deceived, without any legal information. I already had my credible fear that which the judge gave me positive and I have [been waiting] more than three weeks for my asylum documentation in order to leave and reunify with her. It is very sad all that we go through every migrant here in the central or federal jail called Torrance. We receive bad treatment from the officers. We have no rights. The food is unhealthy, and with this letter I would like them to do justice so that migrants do not go through what we are going through every one of the people that are here inside. It is very difficult to express it with words.
— Signed, Aaron Sojo
Good day my name is Lopez Salmeron Braylis de Jesus. I dedicate this to you all with the end of making this letter public.
I am a Venezuelan migrant, father of 2 children, and provider of [the] family. I find myself in a federal jail called CoreCivic. Where I turned myself in voluntarily to the appropriate authorities like any migrant. Without giving us any type of information and with lies they brought us to this center where we undergo a process of 3 days of quarantine. And without any type of legal information they put us through a credible fear in inadequate spaces. After the credible fear was when they did not give us any type of information. I have not had any type of response about my case. Where we came more than 30 people compatriot migrants, where 26 have been negative and 4 awaiting response. When we arrived [on] the 11 of November of 2023 and until the date we have not had any response about our cases. And why the detention in a federal jail where they told us that it was a detention center. Where there are criminals with sentences of over 30 years. And we have been verbally and psychologically mistreated. The rules of the center are such that they are already sentenced because of the mistreatment in how the officers control access to light or day or the patio. When we see the light of day or we go out in the patio just one hour and when they decide.
Where they give us unhealthy food and very little for a human to survive [on]. Where we have eaten only a sandwich “morning” “afternoon” and “night.” Where many of us more than a month, we have lost many kilos, without the right to ask anyone and without the right to speak to anyone. Where many companions have attorneys and they cannot get into this at this present. On many occasions we have requested human rights and we only receive punishment of not being taken out [of our cells] to watch television and they enclose us more than the normal. According to them they are 2 hours inside the cell and only one hour and 45 minutes to see the television and talk with companions.
This is a public letter for any organization that can help us. We find ourselves in the detention center of Torrance Estancia, New Mexico.
—Signed, Braylis
I want to tell you all my story. My name is Hoswald Gamaliel, a Venezuelan youth who has fled from his country in order to have a better future, a better life. [I am] a just person who protested his disagreement with the government of Venezuela many times. I have a beautiful daughter and a special partner. I committed a crime, the attempt to enter into the United States illegally. My crime was to seek a better future for my little daughter. My crime was to want to work in a country of possibilities. I passed through 7 countries, and a dangerous jungle. I experienced hunger, cold nights and danger. I do not blame anyone for what happened [on the way here], because I was aware of the risks. Upon arriving at the border of the United States I thought that my suffering would end, and I was wrong. It was only the beginning. The day of today I write this letter, it has been 56 days in detained. For me this is the worst that has happened to me.
To be handcuffed, incarcerated, and dressed like an inmate is something absurd to me, for someone who has never been a bad person, for someone who only sought a better future. I never thought that this would be the situation. I never thought that I would be deprived of liberty for searching for something good for my family. I am tired of this imprisonment. They have taken away the most important thing in my life which is my freedom, my time with my daughter and my wife. They switched it for bad treatment from the officers. They switched it for three insipid meals a day. They switched it for a 4x2 meter cell. They switched it for a prison uniform!
I am someone honest, hardworking, and dedicated to their family, that which is waiting to be reunited with me. My daughter needs me. My wife needs me. My dog needs me. And I need them and miss them more than anything. Like me there are hundreds more immigrants, each with a different story, each with the wish of freedom, each with something to fight for. I hope this can help make a difference, I hope that people read this and understand the things that happen to us immigrants. And all that we want is a better future, but we are paid with an imprisonment in a federal jail.
—Thank you. 12-15-2023
My name is: Nelson Rosales. I am a Venezuelan immigrant. I was separated from my wife. She is pregnant and even then we were separated. They do not want to expel me to Mexico. That was the country to which she was expelled. When they brought me to this federal jail Torrance we were deceived. They make $400 daily for every one of us. They never give us a legal orientation for credible fear. They deny us the opportunity of legal rights. The translator never says the whole truth and the whole story. I ask for justice. A Brazilian killed himself here because of so much mistreatment. The food is terrible and very little. We have no privacy. At bedtime they are psychologically mistreating us. Just now in December it is a very sad time for me. They just deprived me of the right to be with my wife, especially now that we are waiting for a baby. And I had to leave my country because they killed 4 members of my family. And we were threatened with death and later with my wife [sought] the opportunity to take my mom out of Venezuela. They did this injustice of separating me from my wife. In Venezuela the dictatorship is giving us 5 years in jail for betraying the country. I imagined my hopes of meeting my son and being able to be with my wife. Especially in these moments that they need me so much. What a huge sadness when I cannot be with my family and without knowing if I will meet my son. Please we need help. They are killing us. I only want to be with my wife and son. Every day we are losing weight. They denied every type of opportunity to my wife and my son. They are the most important that I have. Now there are even fewer opportunities for us. Without my family, without my son and my wife, life does not matter to me. They already ended my life. I am dead inside. Please help.
