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Martin and Ronald are two men who are currently detained. They sent their stories to Detention Watch Network to share some of the brutal realities found in detention centers. Names and exact locations have been omitted or changed to protect their identity.
Constant suffering
I am Martin and I was arrested in my apartment for charges related to alcohol and a problem I had with my friend. After I served my sentence, I remained in the custody of Immigration. Since my arrest, I have been in five jails over eight months.
I suffer a lot in the jail where I currently reside. If we get sick, we have to be in agony for them to help us. It’s hard to get medicine. Food is very limited. They give us portions fit for a young child. The showers are only on after 4:00 in the afternoon, and many don’t even use the bathroom because the water is so hot it burns us…Our blankets are never changed… and they stink. These factors cause many illnesses.
If someone makes a mistake, they blame us all, and it is not just one that is punished. If people have goods from the commissary and if someone steals it, nothing is done to them. If you say something, one of them will hit you. It is clear that racism exists towards Hispanic detainees. It is unfair that Immigration is holding us here for so long without being deported. They ask us for passports and birth certificates and take all of our addresses and phone numbers, even those of our friends and family. We have no control over what they do with it. They only one who can do justice is God. This will soon end.
Tired of injustice
I, Ronald, am from Mexico. I was originally arrested for drunk driving and received a one year sentence, which I completed in Virginia. From there, I was put in the hands of immigration officials who brought me to stay at another jail nearby.
Eventually, Immigration brought me to their offices. There, they keep you for a couple of days as you grow cold and hungry. They don’t give you blankets or anything, just some food in plastic bags like in the military. Later, a group of us was brought to another state, and the same stuff happened. They kept us on a basketball court. We were cold and hungry. When we complained of the cold, the officials just told us to be quiet if we didn’t want to be sent to “the hole.” Immigration came to bring us back to one of the old jails. On the way, our drivers were speeding and two of them crashed. Two of my friends hurt their necks in the accident. All they were given were a few pain killers. That was it. The officers told us not to worry, and joked that at this time next week, we would be in our country eating “taquitos.”
And still, we remain in jail. We have spent more than two months here and have not been told details about when we will be deported. The worst is that in this jail, more bad things have happened to us – discrimination, robbery, and insults from prisoners and officials. There are days when many of my friends are not given their food – they go hungry. We tell the officers about robberies we witness, but they don’t punish anyone – they just smile and take down our information. We receive threats from the prisoners – they tell us to keep quiet, that we don’t know with whom we are dealing.
We are tired of these injustices. If Immigration doesn’t do anything, I don’t know what will happen to us. Immigration doesn’t have any clue of how we are treated in the jails. We are left without protection, left to fend for ourselves.
* These stories were originally written in Spanish and translated by Kelsey Cambronne.
