“The world needs to know what is happening to people like Rodney,” including abusive solitary confinement, no access to water, and limited to no medical attention, said the wife of one detained man
A surging number of immigrant neighbors have been kidnapped by masked deportation agents “while those who pose a threat are free,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (WA-07) said during a shadow hearing shining a light on parents, hardworking contributors, and other long-settled individuals who’ve been targeted and detained, oftentimes under inhumane conditions, under the Trump administration’s cruel and unsparing mass deportation agenda.
“ICE has been arresting people at courthouses when they’re trying to follow the legal process. They are profiling immigrants around the country, picking people up for the language they speak or the street corner they hang out on,” Rep. Jayapal said during the Dec. 4 “Kidnapped and Disappeared: Trump’s Detention Abuses” hearing. “So immigration detention centers are full of mothers and fathers and beloved community members while those who pose a threat are free. Amidst this surge in detention, conditions have gone from bad to worse with terrible overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, long waits to get medical help if received at all, and inedible food, described by some as ‘dripping with blood.’ Multiple pregnant women have been shackled and even suffered miscarriages due to their mistreatment in detention.”
The conditions in many immigration detention centers are horrifying.Inedible food. Individuals forced to sleep on the floor next to overflowing toilets. Pregnant women shackled and suffering miscarriages.It is a system designed to break peoples’ spirit, akin to torture.
— Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) 2025-12-08T01:32:27.629Z
Mildred Pierre, one of the speakers at the shadow hearing, described in oftentimes brutal testimony some of the indignities that her husband, double amputee Rodney Taylor, has been forced to endure while jailed at the notorious, privately-operated Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia.
“Taylor trained as a barber, established a successful career, fathered seven children, and became a fixture in his community, “The Nation reported in September, “the man who would cut hair for free at back-to-school meets, church fundraisers, and breast-cancer awareness walks,” But while at the CoreCivic facility, Taylor has been forced to sleep in his prosthetics out of fear they could be stolen while he sleeps. Because prosthetics should not be worn for more than eight hours a day, he’s now enduring boils on his body. He’s also lost 20 pounds because walking is too painful for him and detention center staff “often won’t allow other inmates to go to the cafeteria for him and bring his meals back to his cell,” as The Nation reported and Pierre said during her testimony.
WATCH: Mildred Pierre gives a powerful testimony on behalf of her husband, who is currently being held at the Stewart Detention Center.”Some days I feel like a widow, even though Rodney, my husband, is still alive.”
— America’s Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2025-12-05T21:05:26.078Z
Pierre also testified how her husband was forced to go almost two weeks without a shower because detention center staff would not give him a place to safely remove his prosthetics. She said that when he finally received a shower stool, the shower area “was covered in mold, feces, urine, and human bodily fluids. Rodney had to crawl on his hand and his limbs through those conditions just to take a shower. Again, “no dignity” for detained immigrants like Rodney, she said.
Attorney Sarah Owings, whose clients include some of the 54 Korean workers from the Georgia Hyundai plant that was raided in September, testified that “the ‘detain everyone’ policy that is pushed by the Trump administration has exacerbated a range of already serious problems within the immigration detention system.”
WATCH: Sarah Owings, the attorney representing 54 Korean workers from the raided Hyundai plant, describes the horrible conditions some of her clients are enduring in ICE custody.
— America’s Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2025-12-05T15:59:11.421Z
ICE is failing to address the medical needs of the people they detain. Inhumane and shameful.
— Representative Becca Balint (@balint.house.gov) 2025-12-05T21:14:27.087Z
The mistreatment of individuals while in federal immigration detention is not new and has only been worsening under the current policies of the administration. The number of ICE detainees has increased to a record 65,135 individuals while key oversight entities have been gutted and private prisons are seeing mega-profits thanks to lucrative federal contracts. This past summer, the initial findings from an ongoing investigation by Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff revealed more than 500 credible reports of violations against immigrants in detention facilities, including dozens of allegations of physical and sexual abuse and the mistreatment of pregnant women and children as young as two.
“The partner of a woman in DHS custody reported to the Senator’s staff that the woman was pregnant and bled for days before facility staff would take her to a hospital,” the report said. “Once she was there, she was reportedly left in a room, alone, to miscarry without water or medical assistance, for over 24 hours. In another case, a detainee reportedly ‘nearly miscarried twice’ while in ICE custody.”
Remember that the overwhelming majority of individuals in ICE custody have no criminal conviction at all. “Today, according to ICE’s own statistics, 73 percent of people held in ICE detention have no criminal conviction,” Rep. Jayapal said, “and the vast majority of the remaining 27 percent have minor convictions such as traffic violations.”
WATCH: Laura St. John of @florenceproject.bsky.social discusses how the administration is creating “hopelessness by design.”
— America’s Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2025-12-06T15:45:54.213Z
“In short: I am scared for each & every single person in ICE detention.”Watch Kate Voigt, Sr. Policy Counsel at @aclu.org describe how the elimination of the Office for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties (CRCL) will lead to no oversight at ICE & endanger the thousands of people in immigrant detention.
— America’s Voice (@americasvoice.bsky.social) 2025-12-07T16:06:33.389Z
Our immigrant neighbors have also been targeted for masked kidnappings as the administration has been “diverting resources and letting the real criminals run free,” Rep. Jayapal noted. The administration’s anti-immigrant obsessions have been a boon to drug traffickers, domestic extremists, and child predators, who are now getting away with their crimes because federal agents formerly tasked with investigating these criminals have now been reassigned to hunt down loving parents, faith leaders, decorated U.S. military veterans, DACA recipients, day care workers, individuals following the rules by going to their immigration court dates, and even American children with cancer.
As Trump detains immigrant fathers, mothers, and beloved community members, his administration is diverting resources and letting the real criminals run free.Weapons seizures are down 73%. Narcotics arrests are down 11%. He is not at all going after the “worst of the worst.”
— Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal (@jayapal.house.gov) 2025-12-04T14:57:23.098Z
2025 has become the deadliest year for detained immigrants in federal immigration custody in two decades, lawmakers noted during the hearing. They have been as young as 27-years-old. Brayan Garzón-Rayo, a Colombian immigrant who died by suicide in April, “did not receive a mental health evaluation due to staffing shortages,” KCUR reported in May. “Jail staff found Garzón-Rayo unresponsive in his cell with a blanket wrapped around his neck on April 7, according to the ICE report.” Isidro Pérez, a 75-year-old Cuban man, died while in immigration custody after six decades in the U.S. The fishing aficionado “lived on a boat anchored near a park in Key Largo, south of Miami, and spent his days sitting on a bench in a coastal park, his family says,” EL PAÍS reported in July.
During a September shadow hearing also led by Rep. Jayapal, witnesses shared how the administration’s anti-immigrant obsessions are making orphans of American citizen children. Oregon resident Mimi Lettunich said she and her husband took in four U.S. children after the kids and their mom were detained while enjoying an outing in Washington’s Peace Arch Historical State Park this past June. “Despite the fact that the children all have American citizenship, Lettunich testified at the hearing that Customs and Border Patrol officials ‘expedited passports to send children out of the United States, their country of birth,’” MSNBC reported.
“But worse was the state-sponsored abuse the children endured,” Lettunich testified at the time. “They were threatened constantly with foster care, separated – even from each other. Agents interrogated the children without Jackie. They were asked ‘where did they live? Did they have any money? Did they have relatives? Did they have a father?’ Shortly thereafter, ICE took their dad. The children believe that was their fault.” The detained mom, Jackie Merlos, would not be released and reunited with her children for four months.
“The world needs to know what is happening to people like Rodney, including solitary confinement, no access to water, limited to no medical attention, and deplorable conditions at Stewart Detention Center,” Pierre said during last week’s hearing. “Thousands of people now face months, if not years, in detention if they fight their case without any review by a judge to determine whether their detention is fair, just, or necessary,” said Laura St. John, Legal Director at the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project. “At the same time, conditions in detention centers are rapidly worsening.”
Kate Voigt, Senior Policy Counsel at the ACLU, said that “ICE is turbocharging $45 billion in taxpayer dollars to rapidly expand ICE detention capacity across the country. Without the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties – and other oversight agencies that were also eliminated in March – there is no effective internal oversight mechanism while immigration detention is exploding in scale.”
