Seeking asylum, he only found more pain
Protests, suicide attempts, solitary confinement at ICE facilities concern officials
ESTANCIA — There are scars on many parts of Iosnaiqui Acosta-Columbie’s body.
There’s the gash above his right eyebrow, a remnant from the baton that he says Cuban police used to bash his head. There are the scars on his chest and back, memories of an operation to remove fluid from his lungs after Cuban security forces handcuffed and beat him.
But then there’s the sharp diagonal scar across his left wrist. That one he got in New Mexico, and it was selfinflicted.
That wound is a reminder of the 32-year-old Cuban asylum-seeker’s suicide attempt as he protested what he calls unjust treatment under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody while awaiting his asylum hearing at Otero County Processing Center in Southern New Mexico.
His action came amid a series of protests at the facility by some 20 Cuban detainees who say they were unfairly punished with lengthy bouts of solitary confinement.
“I almost died, and it was the prison guards’ fault,” Acosta-Columbie told
The New Mexican in a recent interview inside the Torrance County Detention Facility, where he was moved after the protests at Otero.
The demonstrations, suicide attempts and the use of solitary confinement have triggered sharp criticism from New Mexico’s governor and U.S. senators. Now, the state attorney general says he’ll be reviewing with local counties whether they should terminate contracts with private prison operators that run ICE facilities in the state.
“The Office of the Attorney General will work with local bodies to review where cancellation is appropriate, as we continue to litigate for asylum-seekers’ rights across the country,” said Matt Baca, a spokesman for Attorney General Hector Balderas.
Additionally, the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico says it is “seriously considering” pursuing litigation against some or all of the parties involved, which includes ICE, Otero County and Management and Training Corporation, the facility’s private operator.
“We’re extremely concerned about the use of retaliation against detainees for constitutionally protected speech,” said Maria Sanchez, senior staff attorney at ACLU of New Mexico. “That speech was a peaceful protest where no violence was committed, where no one was threatened and no operations at the facility were obstructed.”
Attorneys at El Paso-based Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, a nonprofit representing Acosta-Columbie in his asylum case, said a number of their clients have been placed in solitary confinement at ICE facilities in New Mexico.
Asked about these allegations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa denied the agency uses solitary confinement as retaliation and said ICE “fully respects the rights of all people to voice their opinion without interference.”
“ICE does not retaliate in any way against detainees and provides multiple avenues for detainees to report allegations of misconduct,” Zamarripa said.
A long history of persecution
In an hourlong conversation, AcostaColumbie — sitting in an office inside the Estancia detention center with his head shaved and wearing brown prison garb — recounted the persecution he and his family endured for voicing political opposition to the leadership in Cuba. Those actions, he said, led him to seek asylum in the U.S.
When he was 12, Acosta-Columbie said his father and uncle were beaten by Cuban security forces. Eventually, he said, his uncle was “disappeared” — a term used to describe when someone is arrested or abducted by government authorities, who then usually refuse to acknowledge the abduction or give information about the person’s whereabouts.
When Acosta-Columbie reached college age, he began to follow in the steps of his uncle, voicing opposition to the government in a country where dissent is not tolerated. When he refused to participate in pro-government political marches, he said authorities blacklisted him in retaliation, effectively blocking him from getting a job anywhere on the island.
Faced with this discrimination, he staged a protest of his own in front of a government agency and later was caught trying to escape by boat to Florida. Cuban police put AcostaColumbie in a cell with no bed for eight days, where officers regularly urinated on him. Even after they let him out, the threats continued.
“They said they would disappear me just like my uncle,” Acosta-Columbie said, “and that my family would never be able to find me again.”
The Washington, D.C.-based Center for a Free Cuba reported in 2017 that there were 147 documented cases of people who were “disappeared” with the involvement of the Castro government. Additionally, the country was holding 120 political prisoners as of May 2018, with more than 2,000 instances of arbitrary arrests of activists, journalists and others in the first eight months of last year, according to a 2019 Human Rights Watch report.
The dangers of Mexico
After he was released from detention, Acosta-Columbie couldn’t get hired. He staged another protest and was severely beaten on multiple occasions by police, he said. He knew he had to leave the country, and to his surprise he was able to get a tourist visa and round-trip ticket to Nicaragua. He never took the return flight.
Making his way through Central America and Mexico, he finally made it to the U.S.-Mexico border in Ciudad Juárez, where he took a number and waited to cross and claim asylum under a system of “metering” set up by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
But this was a dangerous place to wait. Acosta-Columbie was assaulted twice by gangs in Juárez.
The first time, he was beaten to the ground and kicked repeatedly by three men while walking to a store. Soon after, he crossed into the U.S. and pleaded with American authorities not to send him back to Mexico.
They did anyway. Soon after, he said, he was kidnapped — not an uncommon occurrence faced by political asylumseekers there. His captors tried to extort him by demanding he call a relative in the U.S. When he did, they demanded hundreds of dollars per month. He somehow escaped and crossed the border again.
“I had to go to the U.S. because I couldn’t take it anymore in Juárez,” he said.
Customs and Border Protection let him stay the second time, and he thought things would finally get better.
But then he was transferred to the Otero facility, located in the small town of Chaparral, south of Las Cruces. Acosta-Columbie calls the facility “hell.”
Conditions at Otero
At Otero, Acosta-Columbie said, detainees had to drink water out of the bathroom sink, which was attached to the toilet and was regularly sprayed by fecal matter. He said the prison underwear he was issued had been used and infected his genitals with parasites. He alleged guards made discriminatory remarks about him and other Cubans.
“In Otero, they treat you like you’re disgusting,” Acosta-Columbie said.
In response, ICE said it ensures “safe, secure and humane environments” for detainees.
The agency “is firmly committed to the safety and welfare of all those in its custody,” Zamarripa said. “ICE has a strict zero tolerance policy for any kind of abusive or inappropriate behavior in its facilities and takes any allegation seriously.”
After years of persecution and abuse in Cuba, violent assault in Mexico and now this detention center, AcostaColumbie said he couldn’t take it anymore.
As he complained about the conditions in the Otero facility, he said a guard there threatened to place him in a solitary cell. He didn’t think he could take that because it reminded him of the torture he’d faced in Cuba.
In the spur of the moment, he chewed off part of his identification card and used the jagged edge to slit his wrist. He said guards brought him to medical staff, who kept him under observation for a day. After seeing a psychologist, he was released back into the prison population.
Time in solitary
At one point, deep in despair, AcostaColumbie said, his situation prompted him to cry. Moments later, a guard came into his cell and accused him of encouraging other Cubans to cut their wrists. He said he was then placed in a solitary cell for four days.
By that point, many of the Cuban detainees had become organized, Acosta-Columbie said. Once, they remained in the detention facility’s yard to stage a sit-in with their arms locked together, refusing to go back inside even after their recreation time was over.
“We wanted to demand our human rights,” Acosta-Columbie said.
Instead, he said, the guards put them in what is called a Special Housing Unit.
“One by one, they removed us from the yard and sent us to solitary confinement,” he said. “They didn’t need to put us in the cell just for protesting.”
Acosta-Columbie said he was given 29 days in the place referred to by detainees as “the hole.” After eight days, he was taken out and transferred without explanation to the Estancia facility, about 225 miles north.
Participants in the sit-in have been transferred since then. Some were sent to Cibola County Correctional Center near Grants and were also placed in solitary confinement there, two of those detainees said in interviews earlier this month.
Others remain in solitary in Otero, immigration attorneys said.
ICE said detainees can be placed in “administrative segregation,” which it said was not punitive, when their actions have been “disruptive.” The measure, it added, ensures the safety of detainees and a secure environment. Detainees also may be placed in “disciplinary segregation” if they are found to have broken the rules.
“In order to provide detainees in the general population a safe and orderly living environment, facility authorities may discipline anyone whose behavior does not comply with facility rules and regulations,” said Zamarripa, who did not directly address Acosta-Columbie’s accounts.
Acosta-Columbie acknowledged conditions are better at Torrance County, which was reopened as an ICE facility earlier this year. But he noted he’s still being detained though he hasn’t been convicted of a crime in the U.S.
Acosta-Columbie’s court date for his asylum case is scheduled for December. He’s afraid if he’s denied, he’ll be deported to Cuba. It’s a prospect he said he can’t even think about.
“I’m afraid they’d put me in prison for years,” he said of his homeland, “or disappear me.”