Trans woman detained in Aurora ICE facility for 2 years struggles to get court date

Without a chance for a reading, Vicky has been imprisoned for two decades by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement.

Vicky— whose lawyers asked that her last brand never be published to defend her health — is a trans woman who came to the U. S. looking for safety. Instead, she claims, relationships with law enforcement and her prolonged captivity have caused irreparable injury and unsure of her coming. Today, Vicky has a legal team pursuing a claim for shelter, and they eventually secured a reading to regard her release in a couple weeks.

Vicky fled Honduras as a girl in 1994 after being afraid for her career due to violent threats against transgender people. She then immigrated to the United States.

But because she did n’t speak English and did n’t have a support system, she was labor trafficked, and she was convicted of a drug offense. In the end, this caused her to be deported to Honduras in 2016.

Vicky continued to fear for her living while back in Honduras, but she left once in August 2019 to try and come back to the U. S. in search of security and support. However, she was accused of improper rehabilitation and has since been held indefinitely. She served time for an illegitimate rehabilitation judgment, and therefore got transferred to ICE confinement, where she has been held without any kind of reading since March 2022.

According to Jesse Franzblau, a senior policy analyst with the National Immigrant Justice Center,” Vicky’s knowledge has only been made worse by the care she has received in incarceration.”

Prior to moving to the ICE detention center in Aurora, where Vicky then lives in a capsule designed for transgender people, ICE had forced her to reside in the adult system at Pine Prairie in Louisiana. ICE has 43 people who identify as trans in its prison, with 11 of them detained in Aurora. Although ICE just requested information on gender identity, Franzblau said it’s likely an undercount because some individuals may not feel comfortable identifying themselves.

Both services Vicky has been detained in are owned and operated by the secret, for- income GEO Group on behalf of its buyer, ICE. A number of civil rights organizations complained to the Department of Homeland Security after Pine Prairie’s record of alleged abuse and neglect. The Aurora hospital has a comparable track record of misuse and abuse complaints as well.

Due to how challenging it was for her to live day to day, the NIJC even filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties while Vicky was also a resident of Pine Prairie. ICE placed her in the female component despite knowing she is a trans person. She was told that solitary confinement was the only option if she did n’t feel safe around the male population, an offer she accepted. After the NIJC filed the complaint, she was transferred to Aurora.

Vicky was afraid to even tell other people that she was trans, but she concealed that and was therefore essentially placed in solitary and went through a very serious mental decline as a result, Franzblau said.

ICE director Steve Kotecki said the company is committed to ensuring its inmates “reside in secure, secure, and compassionate environments”. He claimed that transgender prisoners may be incarcerated at any ICE service throughout the nation because a dedicated accommodation option is not always available due to factors like system capacity, the person’s preference, the person’s safety, as well as community or family ties in different places.

“ICE often reviews each event involving self- identified trans noncitizens and determines on a situation- by- case basis whether detention is warranted”, Kotecki said in a statement. ” Transgender noncitizens may be housed in a separate or designated unit, with the general population, or in protective custody, like all noncitizens.” ICE does not maintain LGBTQ+ pods in any ICE facility. In Aurora, Colorado’s Denver Contract Detention Facility, ICE maintains a dedicated housing unit for detained transgender women.

The Aurora facility is home to the only transgender- specific unit in the country.

The treatment Vicky has experienced inside privately owned ICE facilities has led to a severe decline in her physical and mental health, she says. Even within the transgender unit in Aurora, she finds herself isolated and struggles to connect with others. She also ca n’t see properly, because ICE has n’t given her the proper glasses prescription for over a year, and she has n’t been treated for dental issues causing her pain, she says.

Vicky claimed through her legal team that the mistreatment and lack of appropriate medical attention, among other things, make being detained “horrible” in court.

” Multiple due process violations”

In September 2022, Morgan Drake, an attorney for the NIJC, began working on Vicky’s case. She is helping Vicky apply for protection under the Convention Against Torture, an international treaty agreement that says the U. S. and other countries involved are not allowed to send anyone back to a country in which” they credibly fear they will be tortured”, Drake said.

In the spring of 2022, Vicky first requested protection under the convention without the assistance of an attorney, according to Drake. At the time Vicky was at Pine Prairie, so she applied on her own because she did n’t have access to immigration attorneys and did n’t know how to find one.

Drake claimed that the immigration judge denied Vicky’s case, which is typical for cases filed without an attorney, and that she faced a number of legal challenges when she applied for protection. The NIJC legal team started supporting her ahead of the appeals process. The Board of Immigration Appeals sent Vicky’s case back to the original judge, who once more rejected her case.

” She has been repeatedly victimized by multiple members in both the community in Honduras and in the United States and by the United States immigration system”, Drake said.

The NIJC team is currently assisting Vicky through a second appeals round. In early March, the board determined the immigration judge “erred in multiple ways” in denying Vicky’s case and granted her a new hearing.

A federal district court judge gave the immigration court a notice shortly after that, telling her that” the burden is on the government to show that her continued detention is justified,” according to NIJC spokesman Samantha Ruvalcaba in an email. While the hearing has yet to be scheduled, the district court judge ordered that it must take place on or before April 5.

It’s possible that we would n’t be here if Vicky had been represented before the immigration judge the first time, Drake said. ” It’s possible that those due process issues would n’t have occurred or at least could have been found out and remedied prior to Vicky receiving a denial in her case”.

Drake claimed that people who are detained face their immigration claims much more difficultly. Franzblau said many of the decisions ICE makes regarding cases are discretionary with little to no explanation. According to Drake, the NIJC has requested the release of Vicky three or four times, but ICE has never provided specific justifications for why they have refused to do so.

Having support from the NIJC has changed Vicky’s outlook for her future— she said she sees her team as “angels from God”.

” I see them this way because, when I think about it, I would n’t have a shred of hope,” Vicky said. ” But thank God, they exist”.

For profit-based detention facilities

The GEO Group facility in Aurora is just one of many private, for- profit immigrant detention centers in the country. According to an analysis from the American Civil Liberties Union, just under 91 % of those in ICE custody were housed in a prison run by a private prison corporation as of July 2023.

” Now it’s a bit more difficult to get people to speak out against detention in this broader climate where under the Biden administration, they’ve drastically increased the use of immigration detention”, Franzblau said. ” Even though candidate Biden promised to end private immigration detention, they’ve significantly shifted in the opposite direction and have increased immigration detention at genuinely alarming rates.”

Since President Joe Biden took office, the number of people in ICE detention has grown from 14, 000 to over 39, 000 people awaiting civil immigration proceedings, Franzblau said.

Kotecki claimed that since the beginning of Biden’s administration, ICE has reduced several detention facilities and that it is still committed to “promoting safe, secure, and humane environments for those in our custody.”

” We are committed to ensuring, to the extent possible, that individuals remain in a facility that is close to family, loved ones, or attorneys of record”, Kotecki said. The organization” continues to evaluate and improve civil detention operations to ensure that noncitizens are treated humanely, protected from harm, provided with appropriate medical and mental health care, and receive the rights and protections to which they are entitled.”

The federal government contracts with private companies like the GEO Group, which leads to a large profit — the GEO Group in 2022 made more than$ 1 billion from its ICE contracts alone, according to ACLU findings. Critics claim that the conditions and treatment for those detained remain subpar despite the large sums of money being given to the corporations that run the facilities.

” Their failures to fulfill their duties in detaining immigrants and facilitating their participation in court is a major part of what led to the due process issues and Vicky’s case in the first place”, Drake said.

Andrea Loya is the executive director of Casa de Paz, an organization that helps people released from the Aurora ICE facility transition out as they are released. She claimed that many of the challenges faced by people in detention centers are related to basic needs: some do n’t have functioning microwaves or shower curtains in their homes, and others struggle to access the number of underwear allowed.

Another one of the most common complaints Loya hears from people coming out of the Aurora facility is a lack of information, particularly when it comes to medical procedures. She claimed that the hospital will release someone after they undergo surgery without providing any recommendations for what they should do to recover.

Most of this, Loya said, is due to the privatization of these detention facilities. She claimed that it’s challenging to hold the GEO Group accountable because they simply accept the other person’s explanation for what transpired.

Kotecki said ICE generally requires a “medical intake screening” for every new arrival in their facilities within 24 hours of their arrival, as well as a” complete health assessment” within 14 days. He claimed that this was” the first professional medical care they had ever received,” which could lead to the discovery of previously undiagnosed chronic health conditions for many people in ICE custody.

” Facilities are further required to provide access to medical appointments and 24- hour emergency care”, Kotecki said. While incarcerated in ICE custody, detained noncitizens have access to a continuum of health care services, including screening, prevention, health education, diagnosis, and treatment.

To Loya, privately operated immigration detention facilities simply do n’t work. She said she ca n’t understand how anyone would consider it acceptable to lock someone who is already traumatized and looking for safety in another country.

” People make money off of keeping people detained, and that’s so problematic”, Loya said. You ca n’t make money off of those who want a better life, they say.

Even on Thursday, when the Denver area was under a major winter storm warning, Loya said the facility released 10 people. She claimed that a releaseee called and called to tell his family about the conditions, claiming that he had his hands and feet shackled. He told his family he “was treated like I was a murderer”.

” It’s heartbreaking because you do n’t understand what these people have gone through in their own countries, and you do n’t understand their trauma, and you then proceed with treatment with the shackles,” he said. Loya said. Even if someone who did n’t experience any trauma before entering the United States, they still have trauma today, according to the dehumanizing remarks made.

People Loya sees come out of the Aurora facility have been detained anywhere from four months to several years.

Several members of Congress have opposed using detention facilities like those operated by the GEO Group, including Centennial Democrat Rep. Jason Crow.

” I’m deeply concerned by recurring reports of harassment and abuse in Aurora’s GEO detention facility”, Crow said in a statement. I’ll continue to monitor and fight to end for-profit detention facilities.

Alternatives to detention

According to experts with the NIJC, immigrants seeking safety in the United States should n’t be held at all.

” In my opinion, someone coming to this country seeking protection should not be jailed for two years just because they’re trying to prove that they’re going to be tortured in their home country”, Drake said.

Franzblau argued that new laws to limit the use of reentry criminal offenses would benefit many people like Vicky. Drake said someone can get that charge just for showing up at the border and asking for help after being deported. Additionally, both parties agreed that anyone seeking asylum or protection should not be in detention and that mandatory detention is unnecessary.

” There are also multiple community- based alternatives to detention”, Drake said. In many cases, “ICE has so many ways to monitor cases,” but in many cases, those options are often not even necessary. Especially if the applicant has counsel, the rates of attending their court hearings — which is what ICE is purportedly concerned about — are very high”.

Vicky’s circumstances typically allow her to seek asylum, too, but because she has a criminal conviction, she is not. Franzblau said these limitations on asylum create additional barriers for people who need protection.

According to Loya, the American immigration system is all about the draw. Two people could cross over the border together, and she said one could end up in a shelter in Denver while another ends up detained by ICE.

” I think that elections happen and people are so involved, they’re so interested,” Loya said of legislators. ” We have to advocate all the time — we do n’t have to advocate only when they’re separating kids and children … We need to keep focus, because it’s wrong all the time. When it’s convenient for an agenda, it’s not just wrong.

Drake said despite everything she’s been through, Vicky maintains a positive outlook. Even when she’s not in the best position, she always makes an effort to assist other detainees. Drake remembers reading through transcripts from Vicky’s earlier court proceedings, and noted her answer when a judge asked Vicky to designate a country of removal.

” She said,” I ca n’t go back to Honduras, for XYZ reasons.” If you have to send me somewhere, can I go to Ukraine,’ because that was right after the war had broken out, and she wanted to help the people in Ukraine”, Drake said. So I believe that just sums up Vicky a lot. She’s very selfless. She is one of the most optimistic, most luminous people I’m likely to ever meet despite all she knows about is trauma, hardship, and the inability to be herself safely.

When she’s released, Vicky first wants to get some fried chicken from Popeyes. Then she anticipates taking care of herself and working on her hair and nails so that she can look better.

” There have been times where I feel depressed or feel hopeless, but I’ve spent time reading books, especially spiritual ones because they are uplifting”, Vicky said. After reading” Sosegar el Alma,” or” Soothe the Soul,” I came to be more optimistic and persuaded that good things could happen.