Note: Several interviews in this story were translated from Spanish to English through a translator. In 2023, Diana Albarran fled a dictatorship in Venezuela with her four-year-old daughter. Albarran remembers being kidnapped and “violated many times” on her journey to the States. When she arrived, she says she slept on the street with her young child during winter, but later found temporary shelter with the help of local nonprofit groups. Now, Albarran and her daughter.
Note: Several interviews in this story were translated from Spanish to English through a translator. In 2023, Diana Albarran fled a dictatorship in Venezuela with her four-year-old daughter. Albarran remembers being kidnapped and “violated many times” on her journey to the States. When she arrived, she says she slept on the street with her young child during winter, but later found temporary shelter with the help of local nonprofit groups. Now, Albarran and her daughter.
“Dying of Cold”: ICE Detainees Freezing in Southern Prisons
This article features Government Accountability Project and was originally published here.
IN LOUISIANA AND Texas, immigrants seeking asylum are facing dire conditions in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers hit by this week’s extreme cold. At the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, advocates say parents and children have been living with overflowing toilets, thirst, poor hygiene, and heat that fades in and out. Twenty miles away, at the South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, advocates say detainees who complained about the cold faced retaliation. At the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center in Louisiana, a detainee interviewed by The Intercept reports that the segregation unit, akin to solitary confinement, has no heat.