Monday, November 7, 2022

Hello! 

In today’s newsletter you’ll find: Female immigrants in Florida report waking up to ICE officers taking photos of them in their undergarments, and that officers watch them shower and change clothes.

Also in the news: Twitter employees on H-1B visas fear being deported following Elon Musk’s abrupt layoffs 

Plus: Free clinics and organizations that support immigrants in NYC

Florida jail knows immigrant women are sexually abused by ICE officers, but hasn’t stopped it share

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has received numorous reports from female immigrants detained at Florida’s Baker County Detention Center about ICE officers sexually abusing them. But ICE and the Baker County Sheriff’s Office have still failed to share any long-term remedy, according to a new ACLU Florida complaint. 

Now, the ACLU is urging ICE and the federal Office of Inspector General to facilitate access to U-visas for the women, which would provide them temporary immigration status as victims of crimes. 

What happened? Female immigrants — including 60 year-old Hyacinth Marlene Bailey from Jamaica — have reported waking up to officers taking photos of them in their undergarments. They’ve also reported officers watching them use the bathroom, including when taking a shower or changing clothes. 

Bailey has written a personal complaint to the Baker County Sheriff’s Office. She said she became a victim of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) in May and then faced retaliation for speaking out. 

The ACLU wrote in their PREA complaint last week that a male officer demanded Bailey keep her cell door open when she needed privacy to use the restroom. Bobbeth Morgan, another detainee, reported that an ICE officer took photos of her while in her undergarments in bed, the complaint noted.

Katie Blankenship, the Deputy Legal Director at ACLU Florida stated that “women who have been detained at Baker for more than a year confirm that they have never been provided privacy curtains,” and “women have been threatened with solitary confinement if they attempt to cover their cell windows with a blanket for privacy.”

Even after these incidents were reported to the Baker County Detention Center Staff and the Sheriff’s office, they did not provide the women with privacy curtains. The women were moved a different housing pod, but reported they can still be seen undressing in one cell. Several cells are also now housing multiple women, forcing some women to sleep on the floor.

ICE is being urged to treat these women’s allegations as evidence of crime: The ACLU recommended a number of solutions in their new PREA complaint: Victim services at no charge to the detainees; U-visas providing them with temporary immigration status; their release; and an investigation of the abuses; among other things. 

Baker County has a history of abuse: The Florida Immigrant Detention Database shows that there have been over 100 complaints filed out of Baker county alone since 2017. In May this year, immigrants went on a hunger strike after being subjected to racism, bug-infested food, use of force, and other things. Just last month, the ACLU sued the Baker County Sheriff’s Office for illegally denying in-person attorney visits to people detained at the Baker County detention center. 

Read more in the complaints and personal letters the female immigrants wrote about illegal voyeurism and more.

If you have heard similar complaints from female immigrants in detention centers, please reply to this email.