Claims of Sexual Assault at Immigration Facility (WOAI - TX)

Claims of Sexual Assault at Immigration Facility

Reported by: Brian Collister
Email: BrianCollister@woai.com
Last Update: 5/06/08 - 10:33 am

Startling allegations of sexual assault are coming out about a facility that holds illegal immigrants. It's said to be happening in Pearsall, just about an hour outside of San Antonio. News 4 Trouble Shooter Brian Collister is uncovering how some guards may be victimizing the women they are supposed to be protecting.

Many of the immigrants held here are women. Some have fled abuse in their home country, only to be reportedly abused again behind these bars.

A former detainee, who asked us not to identify her told us, "It was going on a lot. It was going on almost all the time, the sexual abuse."

She claims sexual abuse came from the guards. She said while she was there she rejected advances by one of the guards, but said other girls were too scared to put up a fight.

"Some of the guards actually tried to force themselves on the girls and that they've told them that if they ever said anything about it, that they have the power with ICE to deport them," explained this former detainee.

The guards work for a private company called GEO, hired by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to run the prison. Sexual contact with detainees is not allowed. In fact, it's a crime.

The former detainee said, "Some of the girls ended up pregnant by some of the officers there."
She added one of those who got pregnant was a girl from Guatemala, named Marley.

Marley's case is mentioned in an incident report obtained by the News 4 Trouble Shooters.
It details how last may a guard reported being told by another guard that he'd had sex with a Marley, who has already been deported back home.

That guard accused of having sex with Marley was Joseph Canales. The Trouble Shooters tracked him down, but he told us he didn't get anyone pregnant, then added: "Whatever happened, happened a long time ago."

After the incident report, Canales was fired, but ICE will not tell us if they referred the case for prosecution. The US Attorneys Office told us it has no case against Canales. Still, there are other sexual assaults we've uncovered.

We obtained an email sent by an ICE officer to his supervisors notifying them that a detainee had told him about a GEO sergeant who was having sex with one of the female detainees.

The ICE officer who wrote that e-mail sat down with us, but asked us not to identify him. He said some of the GEO guards prey on the female detainees by lying to them and promising they can help them stay in the United States.

"If they had the opportunity," he explained, "some of the guards were just touching, groping, but if they had the opportunity they had sex with them. The female detainees, a lot of them, were willing because they thought it was...somehow their chances of staying were going to increase. That's not the case whatsoever. If ICE can keep it under wraps, they will keep it under wraps."

To keep it under wraps, he said he was fired for reporting what was going on. And he is not alone. We've also talked to a former GEO guard who said she, too, was fired after reporting sexual abuse.

While ICE would not provide a spokesperson to speak with us on camera, the man in charge did recently speak to News 4 for another story on how they deport illegals and said this about how detainees are treated.

Marc J. Moore, ICE Field Office Director said recently, "I think ICE has a clear commitment to not only safe detention but also humane detention."

A spokesman for GEO told us they didn't know of any sexual assault cases, but when Trouble Shooter Collister asked about the incident in this report, we got no response.

The people who run this prison may not want to talk about it, but we're not done digging. We'll follow up with more in the coming days and weeks.