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An immigrant woman said she faced inhumane conditions inside the Portland jail while being held there for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The woman’s allegations are part of a federal lawsuit that offers a firsthand account of her monthslong experience in immigrant detention that got progressively worse as ICE moved her across the country. That journey began at the Portland jail, where she said she was sexually harassed, mistreated by guards and denied medical care, according to court filings.
Her case adds to a mounting public record of complaints about the conditions inside immigrant detention centers in New England and across the country. It is the first to document concerns about a Maine facility, though it echoes complaints that others have reported to lawyers.
The jail no longer holds ICE detainees after the agency abruptly removed them during last month’s immigration enforcement surge into Maine following Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce’s criticism of its conduct in arresting a guard at the jail that he oversees. A top official at the jail defended it from criticism and noted its national accreditation.
The woman, whom the Bangor Daily News is not identifying because she is a survivor of sexual and domestic abuse, was first detained at the Cumberland County Jail in late September after her arrest on immigration law violations in Connecticut, where she lived with her three children, according to federal court filings. (She is still detained and her immigration case is still pending. Her lawyer declined to comment on her case.)
The Portland jail was uncomfortably cold, and staff did not give her or other women more blankets and sheets when they asked, the woman alleged in court filings. She was once given underwear that apparently hadn’t been washed. After tripping in jail-issued shoes that were too big for her, she hit her head and her arm bled and her leg turned purple. She was told a doctor would check on her but one never did, she said.
“This made me feel like I wasn’t worth anything,” she said. “I felt despised, like I did not matter at all.”
The woman lost about 10 pounds because the jail didn’t feed her enough, she said. At times, she only received bread and jelly for a meal, or uncooked oats. Guards at the jail were regularly verbally abusive toward her and the other immigrants being held there, she said.
In one of the more notable allegations, she described going to a room where inmates are designated to take calls with their lawyers and encountering a male inmate. With no guard present, the man lowered his pants, grabbed his genitals and signaled to her in an attempt to get her to raise her shirt, she said in the court filing.
This woman is not the first person to complain about conditions at the jail. The Maine chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has heard from clients that the conditions are poor, according to Max Brooks, a lawyer with the group.
Immigrants are only supposed to be held there to ensure their compliance with civil immigration proceedings and their confinement is not supposed to be punitive, he said. Stories like this show how the detention system is punitive by itself, he said.
“The only kind of explanation that really makes sense is that it is meant to deter people, and it is meant, in some ways, to punish people,” Brooks said.
Maj. Tim Kortes, the jail administrator for Joyce’s office, said the county adheres to national standards and is nationally accredited. Its food menu is approved by a licensed dietitian and provides inmates with a minimum of 2,200 calories a day, he said. Men and women are housed separately, and staff are assigned to ensure a “safe and secure environment,” he said.
The woman who complained in court was abruptly transferred from the jail on Jan. 22, along with about 60 others following Joyce’s criticism. From there, the conditions she faced in detention only worsened, she said. By that evening, she was inside an ICE office in Burlington, Massachusetts, that has drawn scrutiny for its conditions during President Donald Trump’s second term.
She was housed in a room similar to a cell with about 75 other women. It was small and there was not enough room to sit, even on the floor. It was extremely hot, she said, and she witnessed several women pass out. The room had one exposed toilet, and there was a camera near it. It eventually overflowed and could no longer be used.
During her brief stay in Burlington, she challenged her detention in federal court. While it was pending, ICE moved her to a facility in Louisiana, where she remains. A representative for ICE did not respond to an inquiry about the woman’s case.
Down south, the toilets have also stopped working and overflowed, she said. She and other immigrants are allowed up to three bottles of water a day, sometimes fewer, because the water that runs from the faucets is discolored, she said. On days that she runs out of bottled water, she has to choose between drinking the brown water or not drinking at all.
Bangor Daily News investigative reporter Sawyer Loftus can be reached at [email protected].
