Migrants Languish in Detention Centers 02/09 06:12

   

   MIAMI (AP) -- Felipe Hernandez Espinosa spent 45 days at " Alligator 
Alcatraz," an immigration holding center in Florida where detainees have 
reported worms in their food, toilets that don't flush and overflowing sewage. 
Mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.

   For the past five months, the 34-year-old asylum-seeker has been at an 
immigration detention camp at the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso, Texas, where 
two migrants died in January and which has many of the same conditions, 
according to human rights groups. Hernandez said he asked to be returned to 
Nicaragua but was told he has to see a judge. After nearly seven months in 
detention, his hearing was scheduled for Feb. 26.

   Prolonged detention has become more common in President Donald Trump's 
second term, at least partly because a new policy generally prohibits 
immigration judges from releasing detainees while their deportation cases wind 
through backlogged courts. Many, like Hernandez, are prepared to give up any 
efforts to stay in the United States.

   "I came to this country thinking they would help me, and I've been detained 
for six months without having committed a crime," he said in a phone interview 
from Fort Bliss. "It is been too long. I am desperate."

   The Supreme Court ruled in 2001 that Immigration and Customs Enforcement 
cannot hold immigrants indefinitely, finding that six months was a reasonable 
cap.

   With the number of people in ICE detention topping 70,000 for the first 
time, 7,252 people had been in custody at least six months in mid-January, 
including 79 held for more than two years, according to agency data. That's 
more than double the 2,849 who were in ICE custody at least six months in 
December 2024, the last full month of Joe Biden's presidency.

   The Trump administration is offering plane fare and $2,600 for people who 
leave the country voluntarily. Yet Hernandez and others are told they can't 
leave detention until seeing a judge.

   Legal advisers warn that these are not isolated cases

   The first three detainees that attorney Ana Alicia Huerta met on her monthly 
trip to an ICE detention center in McFarland, California, to offer free legal 
advice in January said they signed a form agreeing to leave the United States 
but were still waiting.

   "All are telling me: 'I don't understand why I'm here. I'm ready to be 
deported,'" said Huerta, a senior attorney at the California Collaborative for 
Immigrant Justice. "That's an experience that I've never had before."

   A Chinese man has been held for more than a year without seeing an 
immigration judge, even though he told authorities he was ready to be deported. 
In the past, Huerta said, she encountered cases like this once every three or 
four months.

   The Department of Homeland Security did not address questions from The 
Associated Press about why more people are being held longer than six months.

   "The conditions are so poor and so bad that people say, 'I'm going to give 
up'," said Sui Cheng, executive director at Americans for Immigrant Justice.

   The waiting time may depend on the country. Deportations to Mexico are 
routine but countries including Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela have at 
times resisted accepting deportees.

   Among those detained for months are people who have won protection under the 
United Nations Convention Against Torture, who cannot be deported to their home 
country but may be sent elsewhere.

   In the past, those migrants were released and could get a work permit. Not 
anymore, said Sarah Houston, managing attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law 
Center, who has at least three clients with protection under the U.N. torture 
convention who have been in custody for more than six months. One is from El 
Salvador, detained for three years. He won his case in October 2025 but is 
still in custody in California.

   "They're just holding these people indefinitely," said Houston, noting that 
every 90 days, attorneys request the release of these migrants and ICE denies 
those requests. "We're seeing people who actually win their immigration cases 
just languishing in jail."

   The Nicaraguan who wants to be deported

   Hernandez, who doesn't have a lawyer, said he signed documents requesting to 
be returned to his country or Mexico at least five times. An Oct. 9 hearing was 
abruptly canceled without explanation. He waited months with no news, until 
early February, when he learned his new hearing date.

   Hernandez, who has allergies and needs a gluten-free diet that he says he 
hasn't been getting since November, was arrested in July on a lunch break from 
his job installing power generators in South Florida. His wife was detained 
with him but a judge allowed her to return to Nicaragua without a formal 
deportation order on Aug. 28.

   Both crossed the Mexican border in 2022 and requested asylum. He said he 
received death threats after participating in marches against co-presidents and 
spouses Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

   If he returns, they plan to go to Panama or Spain because they fear for 
their lives in Nicaragua, he said. His files say only that his case is pending.

   The Dominican who became a father while in detention

   Yashael Almonte Mejia has been detained eight months since the government 
sought dismissal of his asylum case in May 2025, said his aunt, Judith Mejia 
Lanfranco.

   Since then, he has been transferred from a detention center in Florida to 
Texas to New Mexico.

   In November, Almonte married his pregnant American girlfriend via a video 
call and became the father of a daughter he hasn't seen in person. He was 
unable to attend the funeral of his sister who died in November.

   "He has gone through depression. He has been very bad," his aunt said. "He 
is desperate and he doesn't even know what's going to happen."

   Almonte, 29, came to the U.S. in 2024 and told authorities he cannot return 
to the Dominican Republic because he fears for his life. In January, he passed 
his initial asylum screening interview.

   A Mexican man detained for a year

   Some detainees are finding relief in federal court.

   A Mexican man detained in October 2024 in Florida was held for a year even 
though he won a protection under the U.N. torture convention in March 2025.

   "Time was passing and I was desperate, afraid that they would send me to 
another country," said the 38-year-old, who spoke on condition of anonymity for 
fear of being detained again.

   "I didn't know what was going to happen to me," he said, noting that 
immigration officials weren't giving him any answers.

   The man said he had lived illegally in the United States from age 10 until 
he was deported. In Mexico, he ran his own business, but in 2023 decided to 
return and illegally crossed the border into the United States. He said he was 
looking for safety after being threatened by drug cartels who demanded monthly 
payments.

   He was taking antidepressants when he found an attorney who filed a petition 
in federal court alleging he was being held illegally. He was freed in October 
2025, seven months after a judge ordered his release.

   But for Hernandez, the Nicaraguan asylum-seeker, desperation led him to 
request to be returned to the country he had fled.

   "I've experienced a lot of trauma. It's very difficult," Hernandez said from 
Fort Bliss. "I'm always thinking about when I'm going to get out."