Venezuelan asylum seekers placed in solitary in retaliation for hunger strike, attorneys say

Migrants wait throughout the night Wednesday in a dust storm at Gate 42, on land between the Rio Grande and the border wall, hoping they will be processed by immigration authorities before the expiration of Title 42. (Photo by Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM)

Five Venezuelan men being held in immigration detention in southern New Mexico say they were part of a group of asylum seekers put in solitary confinement after staging a hunger strike against the U.S. policy to send them to Mexico, where the men say they will face violence if they return.

Immigration attorneys are asking the Department of Homeland Security to release the men and investigate the aftermath of the hunger strike in March at the Otero County Processing Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center run by private company Management and Training Corporation (MTC).

“We’re not being treated as we should be,” said Rounald Ricardo Silva Castaneda, a Venezuelan asylum seeker who’s been held at Otero for nearly a year. “At the end of the day, we’re humans, and until there is any kind of agreement for people to return to Venezuela, we’re going to be staying here, and it would be nice to stay in a place that’s not treating us like that.”

In an interview with Source New Mexico , Castaneda said after the demonstration, he was put in a cell, two meters long by three steps wide. There was only a bunk bed and a toilet with a sink, he said. The cells “appeared to be designed for one person,” the attorneys wrote in a letter to federal officials, but several people were put in one solitary cell.

This left Castaneda without any privacy while using the toilet or the phone, which guards had to pass through a small opening in the cell doors.

On May 23, attorneys with Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center (LAIAC) and ACLU-New Mexico asked federal officials to investigate allegations that ICE officers and Otero MTC guards violated nine separate ICE detention standards when they used solitary confinement in March and April to punish Venezuelan asylum seekers who took part in the hunger strike.

The company running the detention center insists that their use of solitary is not abusive and instead is used for what prisons call “administrative segregation” or “disciplinary segregation.”

Lawyers told DHS in the letter that the detention center put the five men in solitary confinement for participating with a group of Venezuelan asylum seekers who would not agree to be voluntarily removed to Mexico, based on their fear of harm in that country.

The letter and attached testimonies detail how the detention center engaged in collective punishment, failed to follow custody classification requirements, failed to ensure decent living conditions, made inappropriate efforts to deter the hunger strike, retaliated against people for exercising their due process rights, discriminated against people based on their nationalities, and failed to respond to their grievances.

Castaneda’s attorney Zoe Bowman said it feels like this use of solitary is intentionally trying to get people to just give up and leave the U.S., because people were sent to solitary almost immediately after they refused to go to Mexico.

“It seems like the officials who are doing this have to be aware of the impact that this is having on people because they’re the ones that are seeing them and interacting with them every day,” Bowman said.

Source New Mexico sent ICE a request for comment on the letter via email on June 12. ICE spokesperson Leticia Zamarripa said that day she was seeking answers to our questions about the letter. As of Friday, she had not followed up.

In response to our questions, a spokesperson for Management & Training Corporation denied their use of solitary is retaliation.

“The safety and well-being of the residents at the Otero County Processing Center is our top priority,” said MTC spokesperson Emily Lawhead. The “special management unit” at the detention center is operated “in full compliance” with detention standards, she said.

In their letter, LAIAC and ACLU-NM called on Homeland Security to release their clients and anyone else who faced retaliation, ensure no more retaliation, investigate the alleged abuses, and pursue accountability for any personnel and contractors involved.

Leadhead said MTC have not formally responded to the letter but will provide ICE “information relevant to the specific allegations as requested by ICE.”

‘They did not resist’

The asylum seekers staged the hunger strike on March 7. One said in a sworn statement that after the group refused to eat breakfast and lunch, he saw a guard physically harm another hunger striker in the yard, pushing him to the ground, beating and kicking him.

A guard told the hunger strikers to return to their barracks, and when they didn’t immediately comply, they were put in handcuffs and taken to solitary “without a hearing or further information,” the lawyers wrote.

“They did not resist,” the witness said.

One person would not get out of solitary confinement for the next 45 days.

Around March 28, ICE officers spoke to a group of Venezuelan men who had already received final orders of removal by immigration judges, including Castaneda. They told them they had the option to sign a form saying they would be returned to Mexico, and if they agreed, they would be released from detention.

This was part of ICE’s broader effort to deport Venezuelan asylum seekers — not to their home country but to places in Mexico that are potentially dangerous for people migrating. The Venezuelans had removal orders but the U.S. couldn’t remove them to Venezuela, because of a breakdown in diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Venezuelan refugees detained in NM fearful of more deportations to Mexico

Three of LAIAC’s clients refused, saying they were afraid of future harm in Mexico, according to the letter. The ICE officers left, and returned on April 1 with some Otero MTC guards, and together they entered two pods where there were many Venezuelans with removal orders.

One by one, officials called asylum seekers’ names, including Castaneda’s. LAIAC’s clients estimate between 18 and 27 people were taken to a hallway, handcuffed, and put in solitary “without explanation,” the attorneys wrote.

One of LAIAC’s clients was let out of solitary after one day, on April 2. A captain and lieutenant who escorted him back to his room asked him if he had any information about a hunger strike, the attorneys wrote.

MTC declined to comment on specific matters involving individual people or specific reasons why anyone may have been placed in solitary. Lawheaad said the company denies anyone was placed in solitary in violation of detention standards or in retaliation for the hunger strike.

Under the standards, “absent particular safety and security concerns,” people in solitary “receive the same privileges as those housed in the general population,” Lawhead said.

MTC denies anyone’s due process or other constitutional rights were violated, Lawhead said. They also deny the conditions in the unit do not meet the required detention standards.

MTC also refutes the allegation in the records that people held in solitary “are denied phone and other privileges,” Lawhead said.

Castaneda said he was kept in the cell for three days, and only let out one time for 30 minutes to get sunlight and fresh air.

He said there was food and drinking water in the cell, but the food was served cold, at unusual times. He said the cell was extremely cold, and the thin sheet they gave him was not enough to keep him warm.

Castaneda said he thought he was abused and treated inhumanely. He reported what happened to a Department of Homeland Security human rights line.

Castaneda said what keeps him motivated is hearing from his five-year-old son and his mother, who have been asking him to return to Venezuela.

“What makes me keep going is my mom, for her to be aware that I’m still alive, and that I will be there someday” Castaneda said. “And for my son to grow, and maybe one day, when the situation in my country is a little better, I can go back and be with him.”

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