Immensely Invisible

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Futuro Investigates Investia.

Dear let you know USA listener, just a quick warning, this is an investigation into sexual abuse at ICE detention centers. So we just wanted to let you know to prepare. Since the beginning of my career, immigration has been at the core of my work as a journalist, and one of the things I've focused on has been what happens in US immigration and Customs enforcement, what happens in these detention centers. Claims of sexual abuse are widespread throughout the US.

We know that there are many more cases that don't get investigated, where people do not get held accountable for the abuse or the rape of immigrants.

And one of the hardest things was hearing about the sexual abuse that was happening inside these government run facilities. And then what happened.

He said, if you tell anyone, you wouldn't come out of your life to see your family, So then who are you going to?

That work has stayed with me, but then a decade after it aired, in twenty twenty two, I get this message on Twitter from a young journalist named Zeba Warsei. She was working on an investigative story and she wanted to meet.

Well.

So here we are in the studio isabah Hi. So back in twenty twenty two, when you were a student at Columbia Journalism School and you come and meet me at my office at Barnard College where I'm a professor, and I remember you were like, look, I'm a journalist, I have a career in India. But the story that brings you here in part was this interest that you had in what was happening in these immigrant detention centers.

That's right. I wanted to know how ICE operates. I thought this was a big law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security, which hosts thousands of immigrants who don't have a legal status.

In attention, right, these are people who are held by the US government, but they have no legal standing, They have no right to do process, they don't get a lawyer. It's a very different thing than being in the criminal system, where you actually have rights.

Absolutely, this investigation began as my master's teas about abuses in ICE detention centers, and then I got more and more interested in focusing on the sexual abuse that was happening in these facilities. Your documentary, Maria, was in fact one of the first pieces of journalism I watched to help me understand how ICE works and how ICE was dealing with sexual abuse.

The decade later, I get your message, Saber, and I was very moved by this young, very hungry reporter who more than a decade after my reporting, wanted to look into the issue of sexual abuse that was happening in ICE detention.

Yes, and for me it was also a chance to learn from another woman journalist such as you, Maria, an immigrant herself, who has been investigating this type of abuse for many years, and who cares about this kind of reportage because no matter how much time passes, as journalists, we need to shine light on abuses if they continue to happen. And we found women who have recently complained about sexual abuse and ICE facilities, women like Viviana, Marlissa and.

Mari Sinto tritesa Sinto Fortasion.

So you run away from trauma to come here and view with trauma again.

Joe v v Sufria Wilso selling as a lugar.

You hope that when you do your reporting that things are going to get better, And I wanted to know, so has anything changed about how ICE handles cases of sexual abuse? Are survivors getting any justice? And so view Zeba and I, both of us immigrant women, two different generations, we decided to team up to find the answers from Futuro Media and PRX It's Latino USA. I'm Maria in Josa today they felt immensely invisible, but these immigrant women

Yes, Maria.

Since I began investigating the story in twenty twenty one, almost two years now, I've spoken to dozens of women in detention centers. The first woman we interviewed together was Viviana we met in a suburb of Houston, Texas. Vivianna is not her real name, but we're using it to protect her identity.

We're meeting her right now for the first time.

Kay, nice to meet you in person.

Thank you.

I was struck by how gorgeous she was five feet two, long, straight dark hair, very young and vivacious. But also there was something really somber about her eyes. And I noticed how every time she would get emotional, she would start touching the gold rosary around her neck.

Juno saki or amil.

And she says that she didn't even know until the last minute if she was going to be able to retell what happened to her while she was in attention, And even though she was scared, frankly traumatized, she pushed through and decided to talk to us.

Viviana left Venezuela in twenty fourteen. She was twenty one years old at the time and was studying law. Her family was part of a political party opposing the government. She told us that they began to receive death threats. This was a moment of political crisis in Venezuela. The longtime president, Hugosha Viz died a year before, and there were protests against the new president, Nicolas Maduro.

Akia was Telir Singh Tabo signe signa Forlanz.

So she and her mother and her two brothers fled to Panama, but as more and more Venezuelans arrived, Vivianna said her family became victims of xenophobia. After seven years of living in Panama, Vianna and her mother knew it was time to leave, so they made the arduous journey across the US Mexico border. In September of twenty twenty one. It was a record year in the number of border

Mei Lang and Guartos on the Tquito emails.

So followed bor.

Then Vivianna was separated from her mother. She was locked in a tiny cold room. She was told by the staff that she had tuberculosis. She didn't understand English at the time, so she panicked and she basically couldn't sleep.

She said she was put in isolation for days, she couldn't tell if it was day or night. The only light she could see was from a TV that was always left on.

Yeah, just see tokyom. Then through the DC something broke inside of you. Ce Si Jo.

Record, Gilma Maraami, MoMA, Lacentia, Tiquita.

By then she was twenty eight years old, but she felt like a little girl again, crying and asking to speak with her mom. And then the vienna was transferred to Stuart Detention Center in Georgia.

For most of the time that the Stuart Detention Facility has been open, it has housed mostly men. But something happened in Georgia and now women, immigrants and refugees were being transferred to Stuart.

Yes, Maria, something that happened at another facility. You probably remember the horrific headlines.

A group of Margaret women is coming forward with claims that they were the victims of unwanted and unnecessary medical procedures at a federal detention center in Georgia.

It became a national story because the abuses that medical staff were accused of at Erwin included a gynecologist performing hysterectomies without the women knowing about it. Erwin was closed in twenty twenty one because of this scandal, and some of the women who had been detained at Erwin were now transferred to Stuart, some one hundred miles west in the state of Georgia. The idea was that they would be safe from medical and sexual abuse if they were transferred,

During her first weeks detailed at Stuart, Vivianna had a urinary tract infection. She was prescribed medication that gave her a severe allergic reaction.

Your face is swollen, your lips are swollen. You were unable to breathe, and you were feeling incredibly scared. She tells us that in that moment of total vulnerability, that's when she met this male nurse, a short white man with a beard. And we should warn you. The following descriptions of her visits are explicit. They are hard to listen to, but we also believe that they're necessary to understand what Viviana and other women go.

Through may see Aki.

So he's using a stethoscope to put it on your lower body. So I'm just to describe what you're showing me is that he takes the stethoscope and he basically puts it right where a woman's ovary might be.

You are as yeah Aria.

Vivianna told us that while examining her with the stethoscope, the nurse asked her to open her mouth and then to open it wider. He then stepped away and typed a question into Google Translate, and this made her feel even more uncomfortable and.

Seek.

So at this point he writes a note to you that asks you, if you have a boyfriend, punish noovo see.

And then it happened again. Vivianna had problems with her eyes, and eyes eventually sent her back to the same male nurse. As Viviana entered the room, she felt uneasy. It was nighttime, the room was dimly lit and smelt of bleach. All Vivianna could think of was that that nurse was staring at her and they were all alone, mad alone. The nurse told Viviana to lower her pants, then he placed the statoscope near her vagina.

As yeah uta si yes, yes, c como he torrado como sosios sonrea.

Amidawa.

While touching her, Viviana says the nurse made lude faces.

U U.

Viviana froze. She kept quiet and stared off into space, praying and asking herself why was this nurse doing this to her?

This all made me remember what I saw over a decade ago when I reported for the frontline docu Mentory. I saw complaint boxes in a nice detention facility, but the complaint box was nailed shut. You couldn't even put a complaint in the box. And now Vivianna is telling us that there were posters at Stuart with the phone number and the poster said if you suffer from abuse, call.

That No matter.

Why that.

Now there are posters everywhere seeing ICE has zero tolerance. But Viviana said they were just protocol and didn't do much to stop the abuse. Women who are abused in detention are supposed to be protected by the Prison Rape Elimination Act or PRIYA. That law says that people who are detailed have a right to speak out freely and report abuse and harassment.

PRIA was created in two thousand and three, it took more than a decade to be fully extended into ICE detention because it's completely in the and from the criminal justice system. Three years after the Frontline documentary aired, Priya was finally extended to ICE detention centers in twenty fourteen. But that's still several years before Viviana was detained at Stewart.

Maria. I've been talking to officials at ICE for quite a bit, exchanged dozens of emails, and this is what I've learned that one of the few things that has changed is that they conduct unannounced inspections of their facilities, and the agency has increased audits and inspections since you've investigated this topic. But activists, detainees and women we've spoken to feared it's not enough.

The Southern Poy Law Center reviewed medical records and they showed that the male nurse had been working at the Stuart detention facility since at least twenty eighteen, and as we mentioned before, in twenty twenty one women were now being transferred to Stuart following the medical abuse scandal in Irwin, the other detention facility in Georgia. So once women started to arrive at Stuart, this nurse started seeing female patients, and Vivianna said, he started abusing them.

This nurse and his abuse, you believe was not a secret.

To anybody who had spent any time inside Stuart, whether they were his colleagues or people who were detained duci in Disquito Mundo Sabia de Ste Fermero Claro.

After that second incident with the nurse, Viviana returned to her cell and broke down in tears. She told other detainees what happened to her, Dye, what the anasla il?

So you feel like you were one of the people who helped the other women start naming what was happening.

Yeah, Yama Nicarawa.

May say solo women from different countries told her that these suffered similar abuses from the same male nurse. We've reviewed documents obtained by The Intercept, who first reported on the Stewart complaints, that show that at least five women came forward and complained against the male nurse.

Coming up on Latino USA, we're gonna hear from Marii, another woman who was abused by the same male nurse, and what her story reveals about the way ICE handles complaints of sexual abuse.

Stay with us, not debyas.

Hi, dear listener. My name is Lenaldo Leos Junior, and I'm a producer with Latino USA. As a producer, part of my job is to speak with people from across the country and in some occasions travel around the United States. And this is something that Latino USA has been doing for thirty years, is bringing the voices from people across the country to the airwaves and to our podcast. Thank you for supporting us these past three decades, and I hope you stay with us for many more years to come.

Hey, we're back. Before the break, we heard from Bivianna. She was held at the ICE Stewart Detention Center in Georgia. She says she sexually abused by medical staff there. And we're going to continue our investigation now with Saba Warci. She's the journalist from the PBS News Hour that we teamed up with for this story. Hey, Zeba, Hey.

Maria, while with Vienna, was detained at Stewart, she heard about other women who had been assaulted by the same male nurse. One of them was another woman from Venezuela. We're calling her Mari.

Oh La jeanyand Lois.

Okay, okay, we're coming. We met Marie in November of twenty twenty two in a suburb of Chicago. She had her hair nicely tied up high up in a pony. She was wearing an all black outfit, and she had these big gold hoops and a necklace with honey popping on it.

She pulls out these pictures on her phone that showed us her life before she came to the United States.

She was a.

Bodybuilder, made up. Come on, yeah, the Holy.

Mati tells us that when she lived in Venezuela, she trained every day, but once she got detained at Stewart, she said that she was just too depressed to exercise and she started to gain weight.

Look at that.

Madi told us that like Bi Vienna, she also had grown up in a politically involved family in Venezuela, and that she decided to leave her country with her boyfriend in December of twenty twenty one to come to the United States.

And finery.

Because of what she had seen in Venezuela. The injustices she talks about. When she arrived in the United States, she thought that the pain would be over. Addi and her boyfriend crossed the border. They were both then held in Houston, and then they were separated and Marie was sent to Stuart in Georgia. She was only twenty two years old at the time. Shortly after Marie arrived on New Year's Eve of twenty twenty one, she had a routine checkup at Stuart.

Mari was sent to a hallway filled with other women, detainees and nurses. She waited for two hours, and then she noticed that there was only one man in the area. She thought he was a doctor. She later found out that he was a nurse.

It was that male nurse who had already spotted Mary. He then directed her to follow him to a small room for her checkup. He closed the door behind him, and Marie sat down on a chair.

Ai Yas saying to this to you in Spanish.

Hamas spoke to her in Spanish. He asked her some routine questions, and then he told her that she was very pretty. This put Mary on edge, and the nurse asked if she had ever had any surgeries. Maty told him yes, that she had had breast surgery. Mary says that when she responded, the nurse then got excited and stared at her chest. As a moment, the nurse asked her some other medical questions, and then he told her to lay down on the examination table. Now what happens

The nurse told Mary to pull up her shirt. When she did, he hovered over her.

Your pience, okay, okayo consume him.

So he's pushing his penis up against your hand that is next to your body because you're on a you're on a stretcher.

Basically, yell comsa amavarse commno.

He then came closer to her and trapped her hand, pushed himself very close to her, and used her hand to masturbate him over his clothes.

She was shattered.

Yment Vetrosa.

I was suddenly taken back to twenty eleven when I was reporting for the PBS documentary and it was these very similar stories and so it's so hard to see that this is still happening more than a decade later. Now, both Marii and Bibiana, among other women, decided that they were going to report what had happened to them, so they took agency. They filed complaints against ICE and against cor Civic. Corcivic is the private company that manages the

Cor Civic is not new.

It used to be known as Corrections Corporation of America and they've been around for a while ZEBA.

Yes, and Courcivic is the largest prison corporation in the United States. It manages eleven detention centers, including Stuart. In twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, the company made nearly a billion dollars in public money, with more than

It's that double standard that allows immigrants to be more vulnerable.

They don't have the same.

Rights, and according to advocates, accountability is an even bigger challenge in detention centers run by these private companies. This is Leila Rasavi, who heads Freedom for Immigrants, a national advocacy group.

It's already a challenge to get ICE to do anything and investigate its own employees, and so I think when it comes to exercising that type of accountability over a private entity, it's that much harder to really get transparency for what's happening or any type of reformer change.

In ICE's own reports and public records. We found that between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, there were at least five allegations of sexual abuse at Stewart. That is in addition to Viviana Mari and other women who've alleged sexual assault by the male nurse.

At this point in our investigation, we want to stop and take a look at the big picture when it comes to accountability for sexual abuse in ICE detention. So Zeba, you requested data from the Department of Homeland Security, right.

Yes, Maria.

I wanted to understand how frequently immigrants are filing complaints about sexual abuse in ICE detention. Remember Priya, the lord that protects detainees, says that there is zero tolerance for sexual abuse and detention. I wanted to know what was ICE doing about these complaints, So after waiting for six months, I received data from the Department of Homeland Security or DHS, which supervisors ICE.

So tell me what you found.

I got the latest federal data that's available, three hundred and eight complaints of sexual assault and abuse. They were filed between twenty five teen and twenty twenty one by immigrants who were held in ICE detention centers.

When you think about it, that's actually a high number because we know that most people don't report rape or sexual assault or abuse. So think about immigrants who are in a detention facility and their feelings of vulnerability. So more than three hundred documented complaints is substantial.

And in my reporting, I found that more than half of these complaints are against staff in detention centers, so they filed against ICE employees, contractual gods, and people who are supposed to protect detainees.

That gives you a sense of the big picture in the data. But let's get back to Madi's story. What happened with Mady is that a female guard saw her and was worried about the abuse that made said was happening at Stewart. Mate said that that guard gave her a sheet in order to record her complaint.

I am e la keras it's just a box. Marie didn't do it.

Though she felt like writing down a complaint on a piece of paper and putting it into a complaint box, it just wasn't enough. This wasn't a complaint about a bad meal that she had in a restaurant. This was an assault.

In early twenty twenty two, Mari reported the abuse to ICE and Corcivic. After the complaint was filed, Ice and Corcivic launched an internal investigation. Am Mari says that gods would constantly ask her if she was sure about the abuse, and threatened her with up to seven years in prison if she was lying. We've talked to other detainees and they've also told us that they've been scared to complain because they feared retaliation, but some still decide to speak

In November of twenty twenty two, Zeba and I flew to Miami. This time we got in a car and we drove to the Glades County Detention Center. We can see an ice, big ice sign for one particular entrance, all in big red letters.

I think another thing with Clades is just how remote it is. It's not next to any major city in Florida. It is rural in Florida.

To get there, we drove through a vast landscape of sugar cane fields, which took us more than two and a half hours away from downtown Miami. Now this makes it really hard for family members and lawyers to visit detainees.

One of the women who was detained at Leeds County Detention Center was mart Lissa Joseph. For the last year and a half, while she was still in attention, I have been in touch with Merdlissa.

Hi, Melissa, and it's so good to hear from you.

How are you doing today?

I'm fining yourself.

We chatted frequently on the phone, so her voice might be a little harder to understand sometimes, hide is still okay. Merdlissa is from the Bahamas. She arrived in the US in twenty thirteen, when she was just fifteen years old. She came with her mother, grandmother, and her younger sister escaping from an abusive relative.

While Merlissa was in the United States, she was an excellent student. She got straight a's. If you look at her graduation picture, you see this beautiful black teenager with gleaming, big eyes and a very big, proud smile. After high school, she enrolled at a university in Florida. She had plans to become a lawyer.

In college, she met a guy ten years older than her. She started skipping classes to be with him, and when he got caught in a robbery, Merlissa was with him. According to her lawyer, at nineteen years old, she was arrested.

I was still a kid.

Thanks to America, advertised as the land of second Chances, the land of forgiveness. I don't feel forgiven.

I don't see a second chance.

Martlissa spent almost two years in prison after serving her sentence. Instead of being released, she was transferred to Ice detention in twenty twenty one. This is a common practice for people who are immigrants. Marlissa was transferred to Glades County detention center, and she found that her experience in Iiced detention was even worse than prison.

The college. You never had the world but wireism on none of that. You never had to worry about Sharon o'showow and like none of that.

And then I came to Glade and I was like what She says that the bathrooms were open and that she had heard from other women that the guards had a direct view of what was going on in the bathroom.

Do you also to see the shock of shadow went?

I was like, hey, you see it was a male and how often did this happen?

Like?

Okday issue.

PRIA.

The law we talked about earlier that is supposed to protect detainees from sexual abuse, prohibits cross gender viewing. Half a dozen women we spoke to confirmed that this was a norm at Glades. Marlisa tells us that when she was moved to Glades, her depression from her traumatic childhood got worse. So one morning she went to see the psychiatrist.

She told us that when she entered the room, the doctor, a white, middle aged man, was staring at her. She recalled that his eyes trailed the nape of her neck, going all the way down.

To her thighs. He made no more comments about the uniformer. Oh, next time we tidy uniform.

She was all alone with him in a small room. It smelt very strongly of antiseptic and bleach. Wr Lissa could feel the room shrinking.

I felt uncomfortable.

I felt really uncomfortable.

And the inappropriate behavior continued on her next visit.

And one time you told me that, oh, you very beautifuls remind me of my wife.

Oh, by the way, I love foreigner, my wife and a foreigner herself comment towards you.

Merlissa felt triggered. The doctor's comments took her back to the abuse she experienced in the Bahamas as a young teen.

Our bead abuse than the past.

That's what really pushed my mom to even bring.

Us through the that is saith.

But even though Merlissa was feeling vulnerable and triggered, she actually makes a decision to complain.

Yes, Maria. Marlissa joined six other women and filed a civil rights complaint with the Department of Homeland Security against the psychiatrist of Glades, accusing him of sexual harassment. They also complained about sexual voyeurism. Remember the open showers and medical neglect at that center.

So let's zoom out for a second, because we have another woman now and another immigrant detention facility who's also filing a complaint. So Zeba tell us what happens when a person does file a complaint. I mean, what else did you find in those more than three hundred complaints that you showed me earlier?

Here they are, Maria, as you can see, oh wow, we need a magnifying glass. But as you can see, this is.

Heavily Wait wait, is this.

How they sent it to you? Yep.

So it's pages after pages of the complaints. The way they send it to you. It's like really teeny tiny font and then there's a lot of redaction, Like in this one, half of the complaint is redacted. In this one, a third of the complaint is redacted. So what else were you able to find from this paperwork that you've just showed me?

I requested certain data about sexual assault and sexual abuse complaints that were filed by immigrants in detention centers, and this is what I get in response.

I mean, what's incredible is that you just have like so many in this one column. It's like Priya, Priya, Priya, Priya, so that definitely stands out for me.

They have made it difficult for us to really read this data in many cases, Maria. As you can see the columns which are supposed to tell us whether a case was investigated, whether it was opened, whether it was closed, that column is left blank. The Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties or CrCL as they are known, is the body within the Department of Homeland Security that investigates these complaints. In fact, that is the body that released

So it means that ICE is kind of investigating itself and also making decisions about what shouldar shouldn't be public, when essentially it should be public.

Well that is how we would imagine it to be. But ICE sight's privacy and security concerns, and that argument holds when it comes to four YUR norms. But the parts that we can read in these documents, Maria, they're very graphic and disturbing descriptions of sexual abuse cases stories similar to the ones we've heard from Viviana, from Mari and now from mar Lissa so Zeba.

Were you able to find out anything about what happened to these sexual abuse complaints and whether or not they were actually investigated.

Not clearly from these documents, because, like I said, many columns pertaining two investigations are left blank. But asper IS's own latest audit by CrCL, the office that performs these investigations, only one in four complaints actually get investigated.

Wow, one in four, okay.

And there's another way that cases of abuse stay unresolved and there are no consequences against perpetrators. Detainees are transferred from one detention center to another.

So we saw this right because after the medical abuse scandal at Irwin in Georgia, that facility is closed and the women are transferred to another detention center in Georgia. This time it's Stuart and in fact that's where Vivianna and Marie were held. So it's using these transfers in order to not deal with the issue, essentially shuffling it off.

And these women were not only transferred, they were also potentially exposed to abuse. Again, as we've seen with the complaints against the male nurse.

So this stands out in this story.

Zeba the notion that transfers are being used in a kind of pattern. Instead of dealing with the problem, you make a transfer.

And Maria, it's not just a pattern that has emerged in our reporting. Advocates like Leila Rasavi from Freedom for Immigrants, who we heard from earlier, says that ICE also uses transfers to punish people who complain. A report from her organization found that since twenty seventeen, ICE has closed thirty six detention centers across the country, and many immigrants who were in those centers were not released. Instead, they were transferred to other detention facilities.

This often happened, in particular in places where people were organizing, where they were challenging their detention, and so an easy way for us to punish the person and retaliate against them is to get rid of them, to move them.

The fear of punishment. The fear of retaliation didn't stop Merlissa, the woman from the Bahamas we heard from earlier, from speaking up about the abuse she faced, But even after she filed a civil rights complaint against Glades, she said that nothing changed.

Merlisa told us that for nearly two months after she filed the complaint, the accused psychiatrist kept on working at Glades.

Nobody wanted to make.

Talk with them again, and very nice that I didn't even.

I made that quite.

Glades was finally closed in April twenty twenty two, but it wasn't because of the sexual harassment plans. It was because of a carbon monoxide leak that almost killed three people.

When Glades was closed, ICE transferred women to the Baker County Detention Center, five hours north of Glades, and Merlissa was one of those people transferred.

When we spoke to Merlissa months after she was transferred to Baker, the new facility, she regretted, complaining about Glades.

Oh my gosh, I say, it's one hundred times like the articles are more. Did you successful? Look like we went from badworth.

So we're seeing that one ICE detention center closes, that women are just transferred and then sexually abused and harassed again. And this is according to their testimonies. We saw this first in Georgia, and now with Marlissa's story, we're seeing it happen in Florida.

It's clear that moving detainees around is not keeping them safe, but as of now, ICE continues to operate around one hundred detention facilities across the country. Despite the fear of punishment. Mardlissa and four other women wrote open letters about conditions at Baker County Detention Center. That's the second facility where Merlissa was transferred to after Glades in Florida. The women detailed sexual abuse, voyeurism, medical neglect, racial slurs, and poor sanitary conditions at Baker.

In fact, up to her very last days in detention, Merlissa kept on criticizing ICE just.

Because they are then they look at it as you haven't all right, So I feel like that's why they don't care. But if ICE will stop all the transfers in put a stop for all of this. But instead of like, ICE is so aramant about keeping you away from your family and.

It's sad.

In February of twenty twenty three, a Baker guard came up to mart Lissa to take her to the office. Marlissa's lawyer told us that she thought that she was finally going to be released. Instead, that same day, Martlissa was devoted back to the Bahamas, a country that she barely remembers and she has no family. In her dream remains to come back to the United States.

Coming up on Latino USA, we follow up with Viviana and Marie, the women from Venezuela who say they were abused at the Stuart Detention Center in Georgia. We follow them as they continue their fight to hold ICE accountable, and we try to get answers from ICE and cour Civic as to why complaints about alleged abuses continue to happen under their care.

Stay with us, not the Bayas.

Hello. My name is Shirley Gonzalez. I'm from San Antonio, Texas. I remember listening to Latino USA in the mid nineties. I had just graduated from college and my brother and I worked together and at twelve o'clock on our local station on Friday afternoons, Latino USA would come on, and that was when I would close the door and said I had a very important meeting, and I would sit in silence just listening to Latino USA and listening to Maria. I know HOOFA and it was such an important part

Hey, we're back. Before the break, we learned how Merlissa Joseph and other women held at a detention center in Florida filed a complaint against a psychiatrist who they say abused them. After Glades closed, women like Marlissa were transferred to another detention facility in the state, where she says she was also sexually harassed, a pattern that we've already

Two days before her birthday. In December of twenty twenty one, Viviana was finally released from Stuart.

Condo Yomlo Graya mikas Ali.

After being in detention for nearly three months. The feeling of being out of Stuart was sadrial. Viviana moved to Texas to be with her family. Her mom organized a little party with other family members, but Viviana wasn't in the mood to celebrate.

Yeah, we wanted to hus see Kaya.

She says that as her family gathered for the occasion, she kept to herself and remained quiet. Her mental health was deeply affected by her time and attention. She says she suffered from anxiety and depression and had frequent nightmares.

Alio Looka.

Vivianna said that her family told her that she was acting like she was out of her mind. For almost two years, she says that she has been under psychiatric treatment.

Now let's talk about Marie, the other Venezuelan woman who we heard from earlier.

Mari was also released. Her legal team told us that the release documents cite severe obesis and.

When we just met you, you are the furthest thing from obese.

MARII suspects that I in fact released her in order to silence her, because she says there were women at Stuart who were being abused by the same person every single day. The day that Mary finally left Stuart, she remembers hearing the sounds of birds. She says she never valued her freedom more than she did on that day, and yet the pain of being detained and abused has also taken a toll on her mental health. After the abuse, she didn't recognize herself when she looked in the mirror, Yeah, you.

Know, Parisindia Dani Minsimini Visili.

Marie says she started to believe that she didn't have a right to wear nice clothes, to put on makeup, to even be fit again. She says she often felt like she didn't matter anymore, that she was just immensely invisible.

This month, it's been about a year since Viviana and Marie filed their public sexual abuse complaints, but there's still no resolution. I have been requesting an interview with ICE for nearly two years to ask about what they've been doing to address sexual abuse allegations, and also about Marie and Viviana's complaints and what's happened Maria. I only got a written response, and this is part of what it says.

So it says ICE holds its personnel, including contractors, to the highest standards of professional and ethical behavior. The agency takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. I would say that's a pretty standard statement. They're not really saying anything deep here exactly.

And besides ICE, I've also tried interviewing Courcivic, the private prison company that manages Steward Detention Center. In an email a public affairs manager of cour Civic route, if a detainee is found to be at substantial risk of imminent sexual abuse, immediate action is taken to protect the individual. Any potentially criminal allegation of sexual abuse is immediately referred to law enforcement and shared with our government partner.

So what did happen to the male nurse that Marii and Vinsa sexually abused them?

After all?

Well, the accused nurse doesn't work at Stewart anymore. Courcivic confirmed that he put on administrative leave in August of twenty twenty two, eight months after Viviana and mari say they were abused, But so far his license has not been revoked. In fact, I have tried calling him several times, We've sent him our questions, but we've received no response. We also asked ICE and Courcivic if the nurse is still receiving any benefits or if he remains employed at

One of the things that also hasn't changed in my decades of reporting on this issue is that the institutions, and the government will simply say we can't respond. It's a way in which they continue to not deal with the fact that we're uncovering these kinds of abuses.

Absolutely, Maria, and I can imagine your frustration having reported on this issue for so many years, because I have felt it over the last two years, so many emails that I've written to Ice, so many emails that I've written to cour Civic asking them what they have to say about specific allegations that these women are raising. But it's been so tough to get through to them.

It's a way in which it becomes an institutional problem and we get brushed off, and yet you know, the story continues. So we decided to catch up with Mary to see how she feels about the fact that for her, there's still no resolution to her complaint. Marie told us that she has found solace in becoming an activist. She traveled back to Georgia last year to attend a shutdown Stewart.

Protest he Toyaki with your Yo, Mira me.

Marie says that her biggest motivation is to tell us I'm here, you did this to me, Look at me, you didn't kill me, I'm here.

And Viviana also demands the closure of Stuart Detention Center.

What does justice look like for youa?

The in.

Viviana wants the nurse to be brought to criminal court and that he shouldn't be allowed to work in any detention center again.

The Jojo Buro of Investigation or gb I, took Viviana and Mari's case last year. Gb I told us that it has completed its investigator and submitted its finding to the District Attorney's office. The DA's office did not respond to our questions. Neither Mari nor Viviana or other complainants have been given an update yet. Meanwhile, Mari fears that the nurse is out there and free. Soyo sola me so mocha. Viviana and Mari have become each other's support system.

Ozziamramat record that.

Mari says they try to keep in touch, but tells us sometimes the trauma just gets in the way of them becoming closer. They don't want to relive their time at Stewart, but at the same time, they both understand what each other went through. When we last spoke to Mari in May, she was suffering from facial paralysis, she says. Her doctor says it's caused by cumulative stress, including her time at Stewart.

But while she recovers, she hopes to start working out again man it is a form of therapy for her. Mary jokes about getting into bodybuilding again and even competing. Some of her friends are cheering her own.

As for Viviana, she has a big reason to keep getting stronger to heal, and that's because she recently had her first baby's.

Ni barakal.

Me.

She felt that her baby arrived just at the right time. Her depression and anxiety have eased a little, but she still wants to go back to therapy.

Viviana has sent us photos of the baby via text, and they're absolutely adorable. In the photo of the baby's eyes are closed while sucking on an aquamarine pacifier. She's draped in a tiny pink knitted hat. Mari is also so happy for.

Her friend danaciosuvawemoza simpretra simpretra sola.

She says Vivianna's baby girl is just beautiful, and she says she tries to watch out for Viviana so that she doesn't feel so alone. While both women are in a very public battle over their cases. Many sexual abuse complaints are still waiting to be instigated. Will there be criminal charges for the staff who was accused of committing abuses? How will the Department of Homeland Security step in to investigate? And above all, what measures will ICE take to prevent

Speak out and to heal immensely.

Invisible is an original production by Foot Duo Investigates in collaboration with Latino USA. This episode was reported by Zaba Warsi and myself. Our senior producer was Roxanne Scott, Froxada Guire and Sophia Sanchez where our associate producers. This episode was edited by Marta Martinez, fact checking by Amy Tardif, Scoring and sound designed by Jacob Rosati, mixeding by Stephanie Lebo and Gabriel Abias. Penny Lei Ramirez is the executive

Latino Usa is made possible in part by Public Welfare Foundation Catalyzing transformative approaches to justice that are community led, restorative, and racially just. W. K.

Kellogg Foundation, a partner with Communities where Children Come First, and the TAU Foundation