Asylumseekers cutting selves in jail
Otero County protests include suicide attempts
The ICE detention center in Otero County is at the center of controversy again after several asylum-seekers from Cuba tried to commit suicide and others staged sit-ins chanting
“libertad,” or liberty, according to immigrant advocates and lawyers.
“The fact that I’m taking such dramatic measures like cutting myself is concerning to me. This is not like me. I just need to get out of this prison and be in a situation where I can be treated more humanely,” Iosnaiqui AcostaColumbie, a 32 year-old man from Cuba, told the Journal through his attorney.
Immigrant advocates and lawyers in touch with detainees held in the privately run facility in Chaparral say three Cubans have tried to commit suicide this month. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed two
incidents the weekend of Oct. 12-13 involving Cuban men in their late 20s who “attempted to harm themselves by scratching their wrists with their detention identification cards,” according to a statement released by ICE. In response, “medical staff acted immediately to end both displays where no dermal injury occurred,” meaning the men did not break the skin on their wrists, according to ICE.
Acosta-Columbie told the attorney who visited him at the detention center Wednesday that he cut himself as he was being taken to solitary confinement, which detainees refer to as el
hoyo, or the hole.
“That’s when he took out his ID card and started cutting himself. He said a lot of blood started coming out and they sent him to medical,” said Linda Corchado, director of legal services for Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, based in El Paso.
Las Americas is now representing Acosta-Columbie in his claim for asylum as a political dissident from Cuba, where, he said, he endured beatings by police and escaped the “dictatorship” to seek asylum in the U.S.
In July, after making an asylum claim in El Paso, he was returned to the Mexican border city of Juárez under the Migrant Protection Protocol to await a decision from a U.S. immigration court.
Acosta-Columbie said he was attacked twice during that month.
First, he said, he was beaten in a robbery attempt while walking from the migrant shelter to a convenience store. A few weeks later, he said, he was followed and forced into a car by several men. At knifepoint, they ordered him to call relatives in the U.S. in an extortion attempt.
The only person he knew was the husband of a cousin. That man was called and told, “We need $400 a week to keep him safe,” Acosta-Columbie said.
At the end of August he fled Ciudad Juárez and crossed the Rio Grande and turned himself in to Border Patrol agents and told authorities about the attacks. He was sent to the Otero County Processing Center to wait for a decision on his asylum claim.
“I think that all the trauma that I experienced in Cuba then in Juárez and finally here is contributing to this heightened level of stress in my life,” Acosta-Columbine told the lawyer who visited him Wednesday.
His hearing before an immigration judge is scheduled for December, and, unless he’s granted asylum, he could be deported.
“Las Americas continues to see high denial rates of Cuban asylum cases by immigration judges who believe relocation within Cuba is safe for political dissidents. This is a complete and utter disregard of the administrative record and conditions in Cuba,” Corchado said.
Cuban asylum-seekers in Otero detailed their complaints in a letter released by Advocate Visitors with Immigrations in Detention of the Chihuahuan Desert, or AVID.
“We find ourselves deprived of our liberty between 6 and 9 months,” they said in the letter, dated Oct. 18.
Along with a request to be released while they await their court dates, they wrote, “We will not be a public charge nor do we represent a risk for the community. The majority of us are professionals with a high level of study and we want with our knowledge to serve the community and contribute to the country.”
The private contractor that runs Otero County Processing Center, Management Training Corp., or MTC, has a contract with ICE for four detention centers and manages 23 correctional facilities, according to information on the company website. The Otero County
site has more than 1,000 inmates.
This year, the New Mexico facility has been the site of multiple hunger strikes by asylum-seekers from India. Last month, after 75 days on hunger strike that began at the Otero detention center and weeks of force-feeding by ICE, two men from India were released to await a decision on their asylum cases.
“At this point, we’d like to see the state of New Mexico take some action. The problems have just been chronic. They’ve been ongoing for many, many years. They seem to be getting worse,” said Margaret Brown Vega of AVID in the Chihuahuan Desert, a Las Crucesbased nonprofit.
The use of solitary confinement in the Otero County Processing Center has attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico.
“We have heard numerous complaints from various parties about this particular facility,” said Maria Martinez Sanchez, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of New Mexico.
“What’s standing out to us in this latest round of complaints that people are getting about Otero is this punitive use of solitary,” Sanchez Martinez said.
“If it’s being used against people simply for protesting and exercising their First Amendment rights, which they do have, even if they’re immigrants and even if they’re in custody, that’s particularly concerning to us,” she said.
Acosta-Columbie was released into the general population Wednesday after spending four more days in isolation. A form obtained by Las Americas lists the reason as “engaging in or inciting a group demonstration.”
In a message delivered through the attorney who visited him in Otero on Wednesday, Acosta-Columbie said, “Investigate this prison. Interview all of us so the world can see what we’re suffering.”