Why ICE Detainees in Texas Try to Kill Themselves

At his inauguration last year, President Donald Trump vowed to conduct the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history. His agents would find and remove “the worst of the worst,” he said, targeting supposed droves of immigrants with violent criminal histories. In reality, the Trump administration has enacted a nationwide campaign of terror, placing more than half a million people into ICE custody, most of them with no criminal conviction. According to federal data published in early August, only 31% of those detainees have a criminal record.

Five Texas immigrants — born in Mexico, China, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela — shared their stories with The Texas Tribune. They all face deportation and have been confined to detention centers across the state. Some arrived under Temporary Protected Status, only to see the rules change when Trump took office. Some stayed in the US, even though their visas expired, to escape danger in their native countries. And others entered legally and were in the process of obtaining their green cards. None are convicted criminals.

They tell of filthy, bug-infested facilities where guards treat people worse than stray dogs, sick people are left to languish and edible food is scarcely available. People in need of medical care receive it too late.

“The food and the water were so bad they made you sick,” said Venezuelan Yeferson Francisco Sequera Ruiz, who was arrested on November 6 and detained at T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Taylor. “The air conditioners blew out dust. If you wake up with a cold, you’d hold back from going to the doctor because they would confine you for five days.”

In such harsh conditions, detainees began to lose their minds, attempting suicide as though all was lost, he said, “because, in there, everything is lost.”