In their own words: Clients share stories from NM’s detention centers.
STORIES FROM THE INSIDE:
The following stories were shared by detainees currently or previously held in New Mexico’s three detention centers represented by NMILC’s Deportation Defense Team.
Raymond and his wife on their wedding day.
His wife supports him from afar while he is in detention.
Raymond
When the violence of the Anglophone crisis reached his community in Cameroon, Raymond’s life changed forever. Accused by the government of being a separatist fighter, he made the heartbreaking decision to flee for his life. His path to safety was anything but simple—first to Nigeria, where Cameroonian refugees were regularly sent back, then to Brazil, where seeking asylum wasn’t an option. Finally, on February 15, 2025, Raymond reached the United States.
In the US he passed his Credible Fear Interview, but instead of being released to pursue asylum, Raymond was told he needed to find another country willing to take him. One by one, Canada and many others said no. And so, he was detained and placed in ICE detention in Cibola County, where he has now spent nearly a year.
Inside detention, Raymond describes daily conditions that feel like “surviving, not living.” Medical care is often delayed or denied. When he became ill in May, his request for medication went unanswered. The same happened to many in his unit—one man waited nearly three months to be seen. In August, a rash spread rapidly through their pod of 40 men. Only after it became an epidemic were they quarantined for weeks, stripped of most clothing and left without blankets in cold temperatures.
Food is scarce, and without money for commissary, hunger is unavoidable. Raymond works as a hallway porter, but much of what he earns goes toward phone time so he can stay connected with the people he loves, including his wife, who continues to support him from afar.
Even the most basic parts of living—clean showers, functioning drains—are a daily struggle. Yet Raymond’s resilience remains unshaken. Through it all, he holds onto hope: hope for freedom, for safety, and for a life where he can build a future with his wife without fear.
His journey is a reminder of the courage it takes to seek safety and of the humanity and dignity every person deserves.
Raymond is currently detained at the Cibola County Correctional Center.
Christian*
For nearly three years, Christian*, a Venezuelan father has tried to rebuild a peaceful life in the United States—a place he once imagined as a refuge. He fled Venezuela after refusing to support the policies of a government he describes as a dictatorship. “Because I did not agree with the policies of my government, not only my life but my family’s lives were at risk,” he explains. Staying, he believed, would mean imprisonment, torture, or worse.
In the U.S., he and his children finally felt safe, but they still understood they were at risk. That sense of safety shattered when his wife was detained for five months and later deported. Only after her release did he learn what she endured. “She suffered a lot. It is unimaginable… she told me everything,” he recounts, including an injury inflicted by a guard. “It was very painful", to learn of her conditions, he said, “because I thought that she was okay the whole time she was there but when they deported her to Venezuela, she was able to describe what happened and she told me that she wasn’t able to talk about it while she was detained because they would take away her phone privileges…and suspend her ability to talk to her family to her loved ones.”
““My family needs me, my children, my mother, my wife, they all need me. But I can’t return to my country.””
The emotional toll has been heaviest on their children, especially their son with diabetes. “The school psychologist had to call to tell me that my son couldn’t stop crying,” he says. With his wife gone, he now manages work, parenting, and his son’s medical needs alone.
“My family needs me, my children, my mother, my wife, they all need me.”
Despite everything, he wants the public—and immigration authorities—to understand one thing: immigrants like his family did not choose hardship. “We had the necessity to be here… we aren’t guilty for the policies of our own government,” he says. “We are talking about the future of the world—the children.” His plea is simple: to be seen, to be understood, and to live without fear of losing his liberty or his life.
“Ever since I was a child, I’ve had a really lovely image of this country. And I still do, but what happened to my family and what is happening to others is really cruel. We are talking about the future of the world, that is the children, they are the future of the world. It would be nice if they could consider every person, we are not all criminals.”
*Christian is a pseudonym to protect this client’s identity.
Dennis*
Dennis* came to the United States in early 2025 seeking safety due to years of ongoing crisis in his home country of Cameroon. He took a risky, three-week journey from his home to the United States, hoping it would offer him safety and opportunity.
He finally arrived at the U.S. border near Nogales, Arizona late at night. When he arrived, Red Cross volunteers offered him and others a tent to sleep in and used a satellite phone to call Border Patrol the next morning.
Border Patrol took the group for medical checkups and issued A numbers before they put them on a bus, sending them to a camp in Arizona, then on to California. In California, people were getting deported to Panama or Costa Rica. After some time, Dennis was transported again to another California facility, and then finally in the middle of the night – “they always come when you’re asleep”- he was taken to Cibola County Correctional Facility in Grants, New Mexico.
Dennis described immigrant detention as “psychological torture and frustration.” Medical care was nearly nonexistent: referrals took more than a month, doctors rarely appeared, and when they did, “they would have nothing to say to you anyway.” Days often passed with no time outdoors.
Eventually, Dennis was transferred to TCDFTorrance County Detention Facility, another facility in New Mexico. His conditions deteriorated further. Staff were hostile, lockdowns were frequent, and access to recreation and the law library was inconsistent. Sewage overflowed into cells for at least six months, and nearly every medical issue — “no matter how severe” — was met with nothing more than ibuprofen or ineffective video consultations. Mail often went undelivered, cutting people off from their lawyers.
“It was all so traumatizing and demoralizing,” Dennis shared. “The people in detention have families and some of them are just so isolated, and many have a lot of health complaints. There are many suicide attempts.”
When Dennis and others tried to report the conditions they were living in, the Assistant Warden dismissed them, saying, “You’re just trying to tarnish my reputation.”
Now released, Dennis describes the experience as haunting. It feels strange, he said, “to see people living and going about their business normally,” while his own memories remain vivid. He is speaking out in hopes conditions change for those still inside.
*Dennis is a pseudonym to protect this client’s identity.
My name is Sojo Moreno Aaron. I have been detained [for] 35 days after turning myself in. I am a Venezuelan migrant. I have my pregnant wife who turned herself in with me and they separated us. I spent a time without knowing anything about her because they brought me here deceived, without any legal information. I already had my credible fear that which the judge gave me positive and I have [been waiting] more than three weeks for my asylum documentation in order to leave and reunify with her. It is very sad all that we go through every migrant here in the central or federal jail called Torrance. We receive bad treatment from the officers. We have no rights. The food is unhealthy, and with this letter I would like them to do justice so that migrants do not go through what we are going through every one of the people that are here inside. It is very difficult to express it with words.
— Signed, Aaron Sojo
Good day my name is Lopez Salmeron Braylis de Jesus. I dedicate this to you all with the end of making this letter public.
I am a Venezuelan migrant, father of 2 children, and provider of [the] family. I find myself in a federal jail called CoreCivic. Where I turned myself in voluntarily to the appropriate authorities like any migrant. Without giving us any type of information and with lies they brought us to this center where we undergo a process of 3 days of quarantine. And without any type of legal information they put us through a credible fear in inadequate spaces. After the credible fear was when they did not give us any type of information. I have not had any type of response about my case. Where we came more than 30 people compatriot migrants, where 26 have been negative and 4 awaiting response. When we arrived [on] the 11 of November of 2023 and until the date we have not had any response about our cases. And why the detention in a federal jail where they told us that it was a detention center. Where there are criminals with sentences of over 30 years. And we have been verbally and psychologically mistreated. The rules of the center are such that they are already sentenced because of the mistreatment in how the officers control access to light or day or the patio. When we see the light of day or we go out in the patio just one hour and when they decide.
Where they give us unhealthy food and very little for a human to survive [on]. Where we have eaten only a sandwich “morning” “afternoon” and “night.” Where many of us more than a month, we have lost many kilos, without the right to ask anyone and without the right to speak to anyone. Where many companions have attorneys and they cannot get into this at this present. On many occasions we have requested human rights and we only receive punishment of not being taken out [of our cells] to watch television and they enclose us more than the normal. According to them they are 2 hours inside the cell and only one hour and 45 minutes to see the television and talk with companions.
This is a public letter for any organization that can help us. We find ourselves in the detention center of Torrance Estancia, New Mexico.
—Signed, Braylis
I want to tell you all my story. My name is Hoswald Gamaliel, a Venezuelan youth who has fled from his country in order to have a better future, a better life. [I am] a just person who protested his disagreement with the government of Venezuela many times. I have a beautiful daughter and a special partner. I committed a crime, the attempt to enter into the United States illegally. My crime was to seek a better future for my little daughter. My crime was to want to work in a country of possibilities. I passed through 7 countries, and a dangerous jungle. I experienced hunger, cold nights and danger. I do not blame anyone for what happened [on the way here], because I was aware of the risks. Upon arriving at the border of the United States I thought that my suffering would end, and I was wrong. It was only the beginning. The day of today I write this letter, it has been 56 days in detained. For me this is the worst that has happened to me.
To be handcuffed, incarcerated, and dressed like an inmate is something absurd to me, for someone who has never been a bad person, for someone who only sought a better future. I never thought that this would be the situation. I never thought that I would be deprived of liberty for searching for something good for my family. I am tired of this imprisonment. They have taken away the most important thing in my life which is my freedom, my time with my daughter and my wife. They switched it for bad treatment from the officers. They switched it for three insipid meals a day. They switched it for a 4x2 meter cell. They switched it for a prison uniform!
I am someone honest, hardworking, and dedicated to their family, that which is waiting to be reunited with me. My daughter needs me. My wife needs me. My dog needs me. And I need them and miss them more than anything. Like me there are hundreds more immigrants, each with a different story, each with the wish of freedom, each with something to fight for. I hope this can help make a difference, I hope that people read this and understand the things that happen to us immigrants. And all that we want is a better future, but we are paid with an imprisonment in a federal jail.
—Thank you. 12-15-2023
My name is: Nelson Rosales. I am a Venezuelan immigrant. I was separated from my wife. She is pregnant and even then we were separated. They do not want to expel me to Mexico. That was the country to which she was expelled. When they brought me to this federal jail Torrance we were deceived. They make $400 daily for every one of us. They never give us a legal orientation for credible fear. They deny us the opportunity of legal rights. The translator never says the whole truth and the whole story. I ask for justice. A Brazilian killed himself here because of so much mistreatment. The food is terrible and very little. We have no privacy. At bedtime they are psychologically mistreating us. Just now in December it is a very sad time for me. They just deprived me of the right to be with my wife, especially now that we are waiting for a baby. And I had to leave my country because they killed 4 members of my family. And we were threatened with death and later with my wife [sought] the opportunity to take my mom out of Venezuela. They did this injustice of separating me from my wife. In Venezuela the dictatorship is giving us 5 years in jail for betraying the country. I imagined my hopes of meeting my son and being able to be with my wife. Especially in these moments that they need me so much. What a huge sadness when I cannot be with my family and without knowing if I will meet my son. Please we need help. They are killing us. I only want to be with my wife and son. Every day we are losing weight. They denied every type of opportunity to my wife and my son. They are the most important that I have. Now there are even fewer opportunities for us. Without my family, without my son and my wife, life does not matter to me. They already ended my life. I am dead inside. Please help.