A female migrant in mental distress was kept in solitary confinement for a month at a Florida detention center, then mocked and leered at by male guards after they strapped her almost naked to a restraint chair, a federal civil rights complaint alleges.
The reported sexual and mental abuse of the detainee, identified solely as Ana, took place at the Baker county detention facility, a rural camp 30 miles west of Jacksonville with a long history of allegations of mistreatment, harassment, retaliation and cruelty to detainees.
The center is operated by the Baker county sheriff’s office under contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice), and currently holds about 250 immigrants. It is expected to expand significantly as part of Donald Trump’s plan to detain and deport millions of undocumented immigrants.
The new complaint, plus a whistleblower disclosure from a nurse practitioner at Baker who said she witnessed systemic abuse and neglect, was filed by an alliance of advocacy groups, including the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Robert F Kennedy Human Rights and the Government Accountability Project.
Among the other allegations are that staff routinely racially and sexually harassed detainees, denied medical care and sanitary products to women, and then falsified records to cover their tracks.
The story of Ana, a 33-year-old victim of human trafficking and domestic violence, was “especially horrific”, the groups said. She was placed in immigration detention in 2023 amid a custody dispute with her husband over their young son.
Ana, who does not speak English, asked for feminine hygiene products while menstruating, and was yelled at and taken to solitary confinement for two days for not complying with commands she did not understand, according to a press release accompanying the complaint.
She said she suffered a mental health episode in a tiny darkened cell after being denied medical treatment for bleeding and vomiting, and damaged a sprinkler in desperation. For that offense, she said, she received an additional 30 days in solitary confinement, during which she had several mental health crises.
In one, she began hitting her head against a wall in distress, and “instead of addressing her mental health emergency, male guards stripped her, strapped her to a restraint chair in a ripped suicide smock that left her breast exposed, and laughed at her”, the statement said.
Baker staff inflicted additional emotional distress during that time by denying her legal counsel, she said, leading her to miss custody hearings for her son, and being told he would be better off without her.
“Ana came to Baker vulnerable and in need, and officers responded with malice and cruelty,” said Sarah Gillman, director of strategic US litigation at RFK Human Rights.
“Her mistreatment at the hands of Baker officials is a clear violation of the law including the Prison Rape Elimination Act and the Rehabilitation Act. More than that, it’s an affront to our most basic, foundational principles of human dignity.”
In September, a report from the homeland security department’s office of the inspector general, following a surprise visit, noted a number of deficiencies at Baker, including violations of use-of-force standards and failing to maintain a log of detainee requests.
The homeland security department’s office for civil rights and civil liberties acknowledged “immediate concerns regarding the health and well-being of persons detained at Baker” in a March letter to the ACLU of Florida.
Source: The Guardian