Ana María left a dangerous country for a fresh start in America. She worked multiple jobs, built a community, and had filed for asylum with a court date set years ahead. Everything seemed possible. Then ICE arrested her, and what followed was a descent into a detention system she describes as deliberately humiliating and punitive.
The 23-year-old was shuttled through at least six detention facilities across three states over roughly three months. Each transfer came with painful restraints: handcuffs cinched around her wrists, shackles biting into her ankles. Guards tightened the chains so aggressively that she couldn't walk properly, couldn't breathe comfortably, couldn't even pull her hair back. She had no criminal record in the US or her home country.
"They treated us worse than criminals, like dogs. A dog lives better than that in the US," she said in phone interviews conducted from South America after her eventual deportation.
Ana María had fled her native country in 2024 after two of her sisters were killed by a gangster ex-boyfriend. Her family received ongoing death threats. She was weeks away from finishing her nursing degree when her mother begged her to leave. With her friend, she took a plane to Mexico City, then a grueling 40-hour bus ride through Mexico toward the California border, where both women turned themselves in to border patrol. After a week in detention, they were released to pursue asylum claims under the Biden administration.
For months, she was stable. She cleaned houses, worked in restaurants, packed products in a warehouse, and even sold sweets from home to build a life. An asylum hearing was scheduled for early 2027. She dreamed of bringing her mother to visit one day.
But by January, fearing the anti-immigration climate under Trump's administration, she and her boyfriend decided to flee to Canada. He had family there. They watched TikTok videos of people being arrested and deported, terrified it would happen to them. Even people with pending cases and paperwork weren't safe.
On a winter day, they took a bus to the US-Canada border and turned themselves in to Canadian police, requesting asylum. The move proved catastrophic for Ana María.
Canadian authorities accused her boyfriend of being a trafficker, apparently because of his tattoos. No amount of her insistence changed their mind. They arrested him and sent her back directly to ICE.
The detention ordeal that followed was, by her account, designed to break her. On her first flight with ICE, guards shackled her wrists and ankles so tightly that the metal left marks on her skin. Officials wouldn't tell her where she was being taken or why. She was flown from a northern state to Louisiana, then transferred to multiple facilities in Arizona and Texas.
At one detention center, she asked guards to loosen her handcuffs because they were cutting into her skin. "Only to have one of them laugh and another start to dance" in front of her, mocking her plea, she recalled. She was not alone in suffering.
The food was often stale or rotten, sometimes nonexistent. She would beg for something to eat, saying she was hungry, only to be told "later, later." Meanwhile, she watched guards eat lunch from their own boxes, their food visibly fresh and appealing. "Tears were rolling down my face because my stomach hurt," she said. "I begged for water just to fill it."
The lights stayed on 24 hours. Guards yelled constantly, even at night, depriving detainees of sleep. Searches were frequent and invasive. The chains would tighten as she moved, constricting further with any shift in position. She couldn't lie down without pain. She couldn't breathe deeply.
Isolation compounded the psychological toll. Detainees cannot use cell phones. When arriving at a new facility, they get one free phone call, but the length varies wildly from 30 seconds to five minutes depending on the location. Most detainees don't memorize phone numbers anymore. Ana María couldn't reach her mother for weeks until a friend she made in one of the jails improvised a chain of contact through Facebook to reach someone who knew her mother's number.
Devyn Brown, a founder of Güeras Aliadas, a volunteer organization helping migrant families navigate ICE detention, witnessed this pattern repeatedly. "Many times, we know that somebody has been arrested, but if they still don't have an assigned center, we can't locate them. And even when we can, and finally get to communicate with them, they move them to another center for some reason and we lose communication," Brown said.
After months of this treatment, Ana María was told a judge had ordered her deported to Ecuador or Honduras, neither her home country. Exhausted and terrorized, she reached a breaking point. She asked Güeras Aliadas to help her withdraw her asylum request and agree to voluntary removal back to her native country instead.
She is now back with her mother but living in constant fear. The death threats that drove her to flee in the first place remain a present danger. She doesn't leave her home. She's considering whether she can somehow reach Europe and request asylum there instead.
Her boyfriend is in Canada. The life she built in America has evaporated. She watches TikTok videos from ICE detention facilities and sees her own experience reflected in every account. "Everything you see in those videos, I lived it. It is exactly as they say it. We all go through the exact same thing," she said.
When The Guardian contacted the Department of Homeland Security with detailed questions about the detention conditions described, DHS asked for Ana María's identity to respond. When told that protection of her identity was necessary for her safety, ICE did not respond further. DHS has consistently stated there are no substandard conditions in ICE detention when asked about specific facilities.
Author James Rodriguez: "This isn't a gray area or a matter of perspective,it's a straightforward account of a young woman ground down by a system designed to discourage people from seeking protection, and it worked exactly as intended."
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