Detained immigrant claims female guard abused her

Complaint alleges pattern of sex abuse in detention centers

HOUSTON — While she waits at a detention center in Texas to find out if she can stay in the United States, Laura Monterrosa fears that she put herself in danger by coming forward about sexual abuse.

Months after accusing a female guard at the facility of groping her and suggesting they have sex, Monterrosa says she still sees the guard in the dining hall and other parts of the facility. She recalled in a recent interview what the guard had said to her.

“I told her that I was going to tell the supervisor what was happening,” Monterrosa said in a recent phone interview from the facility. “She sarcastically said, ‘Do you think they’ll believe you or me?’”

As the national discussion of sexual misconduct grows, advocates for immigrants say they hope the conversation will include immigrant detention facilities. They point to the FBI announcing in December that it had opened a civil rights investigation into Monterrosa’s case as a positive sign.

“Our immigrant prison system thrives on secrecy,” said Christina Fialho, coexecutive director of Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement, or CIVIC. “If more people knew what was truly happening behind locked doors, I think there would be an outcry against the immigrant detention system.”

Fialho’s organization sent a complaint to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in April that listed 27 allegations of sexual abuse in immigration detention over the last three years. The complaint also says that another 1,016 people reported sexual abuse in detention to the Department of Homeland Security between May 2014 and July 2016.

Based on CIVIC’s analysis of federal data released through a Freedom of Information Act request, DHS investigated less than 3 percent of the sexual abuse complaints it received during that same time period.

Like many of the roughly 35,000 adults in immigration detention, Monterrosa, 23, has requested asylum. She arrived at the southern U.S. border in May after fleeing El Salvador, where she says she was forced into prostitution by her family and that an uncle raped her. The uncle was a policeman, she said.

If her asylum claim is denied, she could be deported. She is currently appealing a denial of her claim in October.

The advocacy group Grassroots Leadership, which publicized Monterrosa’s case, says two other women in the same facility have since written letters describing sexual harassment.