In 2016, A.B. was forced to leave their home country of Guyana, where homosexuality is a criminal offense. They arrived in New York seeking asylum and spent the last nine years calling various New York City shelters home.
A.B., who identifies as queer, said they regularly faced poor living conditions, including moldy mattresses, insect infestations, and staff who were unaware of how to navigate the trauma many homeless queer youth have faced.
To improve support for the city’s homeless queer youth, they began taking leadership roles on city advocacy boards. They said they were making progress until this summer, when they suffered a psychotic breakdown and were hospitalized. They returned to Guyana at their mother’s request, but after an attack, they flew back to the U.S., where they were detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the airport.
Since August, A.B., who out of safety concerns has only shared their initials, has been living in the Batavia Detention Facility in Buffalo, New York, which several nonprofit groups have recently cited for documented cases of detainee abuse, including federal audits in 2024 that reveal inhumane treatment of detainees by guards through instances of excessively using force and deploying chemical agents, concluding that in each incident “staff did not take the time to assess the possibility of resolving the situation without resorting to force.” The Batavia facility is also the subject of a Supreme Court lawsuit alleging the facility exploits detainees by paying them $1 a day to perform menial labor. An ICE spokesperson told Documented the agency does not comment on ongoing litigation as a matter of policy.
Also Read: Facing Uncertainty, Caribbean LGBTQ Immigrants Find Support and Solidarity
When A.B. first arrived at the detention facility, they were warned by officers “not to express” their sexual identity because of violence they could face from other detainees, they told Documented in phone interviews. A.B. also said, “we are in our cells for 17 hours a day,” and described it as a challenging situation given their diagnoses of several mental illnesses, including schizophrenia, psychosis, and bipolar disorder 1.
This month on March 10, three civil rights groups also sued the facility and ICE over the facility’s failure to protect the confidentiality of legal mail in violation of the First Amendment.
Now, as President Donald Trump’s administration continues expanding immigration detention policies, LGBTQ+ detainees like A.B. face dwindling options for legal and human rights support.
‘Insults against LGBTQ+ people’
Anthony Enriquez, an attorney working with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, a nonprofit organization that advocates for key human rights issues and one of the civil rights groups that recently sued Batavia, says he visits the Batavia facility on a bimonthly basis to give legal rights presentations to detained people and consistently hears from detainees at Batavia that there is a “de facto lock-in policy” that “keeps people locked into their cells for nearly 18 hours a day.”
Detention facilities like Batavia hold some of the country’s most vulnerable populations, including asylum seekers and those persecuted for their sexuality like A.B. They operate as punitive, jail-like environments with inadequate support for trauma and mental illnesses many in these populations suffer from.
Speaking to Documented, A.B. said that they have had “PTSD breakdowns and racing thoughts, some suicidal,” because they are “in a facility that is not LGBTQ+ affirming,” or lacking social support services, which can be particularly triggering for people who have faced repeated violence over their sexual identity.
They were offered few solutions for safety when they felt threatened by staff and other detainees, namely options to enter solitary confinement, a legal referral sheet of phone numbers to various organizations, like mental health support, and a visit to the facility’s medical unit. At the medical unit, they said they were “on a medical observation and locked in a cell with no interaction with others for three days.”
Their experience is not entirely unique, as Buffalo’s Batavia Detention Facility holds the third-longest record of holding a person in solitary confinement in the country — for a total of 652 days, or over a year and a half, according to a 2024 Physicians for Human Rights report. Its instances like this — where solitary confinement goes beyond 15 days — that can qualify as torture, says Enriquez, citing international human rights law.
The 2024 report also describes how, in one instance, a 56-year-old man detained in Batavia who “was asked by the guards to ‘suck my d**k, you b***h,’ or perform oral sex on them.”
Also Read: NJ’s Fight Against ICE Intensifies as Detention Center Plans Move Forward
When asked specifically about the size of cells and hours detainees are required to stay inside them, an ICE spokesperson said it cannot confirm information related to the facility’s characteristics for operational security reasons, and also told
Documented, “ICE is unable to provide any information on the individuals detained to ensure the safety and privacy of those in our care.”
According to the National Immigrant Justice Center, ICE’s use of solitary confinement for “vulnerable and special populations,” including those who identify as LGBTQ+ or have mental illnesses, has increased by 50% since March 2023.
The country’s physical detention facilities are also detaining more people without a criminal conviction or pending criminal charges: the number of people detained went from 39,238 in early February to 41,169 by the middle of the month, or 41% of the 4,422 total new detainees in that period, according to ICE data reviewed by NBC News. As of March 12, U.S. detention facilities are filled to capacity with 47,600 detainees.
There are several reasons why detention centers are as harsh as they are, Enriquez says, but he namely points to how the majority of detention centers are run by for-profit private contractors that are not incentivized to provide supportive services and because they are “set up to be a punitive model to discourage people from applying for asylum and to pressure people to accept orders of deportation as soon as possible.”
While Batavia is owned and operated by ICE, as of July 2023, 90% of people detained by ICE are held in detention centers operated by for-profit private companies, according to a policy brief by the National Immigrant Justice Center. While the federal government is responsible for operating Batavia, it has hired a private prison provider and contractor called Akima Global Services to operate the facility.
Corporations like Akima can be thought of as “a type of corporate welfare,” Enriquez says, where the federal government arranges to transfer taxpayer dollars and privatized contracts to private companies, he explained.
“Those people then leave government service and become leaders in the business for the detention companies whose contracts they set up,” he said. He added that one of the big reasons why detention continues to last is because taxpayer funds act as a “built-in consumer base,” while the law mandates people to be held in detention. “Executives have decided this is a really great deal.”
Akima Global Services did not respond to Documented’s repeated requests for comment.
Ultimately, the punitive environment and prevalence of physical detention create a paradox where immigrants end up experiencing the same detention and lack of freedom they hope to avoid, especially those who face legal persecution over their sexuality or religion in their home countries, as is the case for A.B.
Filing grievances
According to ICE’s procedures for detainees to file grievances, each detention facility develops and implements a standardized operating procedure for detainees to file complaints, and mandates that “all grievances will receive supervisory review,” and “must include guarantees against reprisal.”
A spokesperson for ICE told Documented that allegations of misconduct against ICE employees must be reported to the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and said “any allegations of misconduct by ICE employees or contractors are thoroughly investigated to ensure the safety and privacy of those in our care.”
When specifically asked about required training for detention staff and corrective actions that can be taken against officers who mistreat detainees, a spokesperson for ICE declined several requests to elaborate details.
Detainees also face humiliation and aggression from staff. After submitting a grievance report against an officer who wanted to take them to protective custody, A.B. said the officer “forced my cellmate to enter the cell while I was naked and on the toilet.”
Also Read: ICE Can Renew Elizabeth Detention Contract After NJ Judge Ruling
These isolated medical observation periods, along with another alternative called “protective custody,” A.B. explained, are the only options detainees can take when they feel unsafe. Both options, they described, are essentially “solitary confinement in a cell with only two hours outside it.” They declined to participate after experiencing intense paranoia and talking to themselves while they were under medical observation.
There are cheaper, more humane solutions
Attorneys and nonprofit groups argue that alternative models of detention, like those that use electronic surveillance instead of physical detention, prioritize a sense of community, along with mental health and legal support. These programs are also much cheaper and could redress the huge sums of taxpayer funds currently spent on physical detention centers.
According to ICE, these programs utilize technology, like biometric voice recognition, body-worn GPS devices, and applications installed on smartphones, to ensure participants comply with court appearances and release conditions. These programs can cost as little as $4.20 per day, ICE states on its website, “a stark contrast from the cost of detention, which is around $152 per day.” In 2024, the U.S. allocated over $3.4 billion of taxpayer dollars to detain a daily average of 41,500 people, according to a Department of Homeland Security 2024 report.
The future of detainees
Recently, some of Trump’s earliest moves in office include signing the Laken Riley Act into law, a move that expands mandatory detention policies, or mandatory detention for people regardless of whether they are dangerous or a flight risk.
Mandatory detention laws like the Laken Riley Act, Enqriuez explained, account for “over 60% of the people that are in immigration detention.” In January, Trump proposed plans to prepare a migrant detention facility at Guantánamo Bay capable of holding as many as 30,000 migrants—plans that have since ground to a halt. Although nearly 300 migrants have arrived at the former naval station and military prison since the beginning of February, all of them had been flown out as of March 12. On March 20, however, the Trump administration sent a new group of 20 people to the military base to await deportation.
Migrants were removed from the Cuba naval station because the tents currently fail to meet basic Homeland Security health and safety standards due to the appearance of mold and lack of air conditioning and security measures. The plan’s hefty projected price tag is also a factor: while Trump’s administration has released almost no information on the cost of holding migrants in Guantánamo, government budget experts expect the price of holding migrants to be roughly the same cost of detaining prisoners there. The price of holding prisoners has cost at least $15,200 a day per prisoner, paid by American taxpayer funds, according to 2016 Defense Department records, and is certainly higher since then.
As for A.B., they worry their case for asylum will be a discretionary decision that doesn’t consider the threats and violence they have faced. “I am seeking asylum to avoid persecution and arrest over my identity,” they said, “but that’s my situation now.”
As per the advice of their lawyer, their case for asylum will include several hearings. The first hearing took place on March 5 in Buffalo—a 4.5-hour hearing in which their lawyer asked questions about their childhood and experiences that undergird their case for asylum. The next hearing will take place in Buffalo on April 30, and A.B. anticipates remaining in Batavia at least until then.
They said they feel optimistic about the hearing and explained their experiences as an LGBTQ+ advocate for better conditions in homeless shelters, and now detention facilities, “has been prolonged for so long that I am ready to share and ready for whatever comes next, I’m ready for the judge to come to a decision.”
They also hope that lawyers and civil rights groups that are interested in leading a civil rights case for LGBTQ+ detainees consider reaching out to them.
“I am recognized as a LGBTQ+ leader fighting for legal rights and housing for people like myself,” they explained. “If there are lawyers interested in filing a civil suit regarding these issues at Batavia, I am available to cooperate.”
