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A transgender Mexican national held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Louisiana has told Newsweek that he endured months of physical and emotional abuse in federal custody, beginning long before President Donald Trump was sworn in. Monica Renteria-Gonzalez is one of four detainees, three of whom are transgender, alleging systemic abuse at the hands of a former ICE assistant warden, who they say created a work program which was used to penalize and demean them at a center designed to hold women. “It got to the point where he would harass me everywhere that I went,” Renteria-Gonzalez, who identifies as a male, told Newsweek in an interview from the South Louisiana Detention Center in Basile. “If I was in the recreation yard, he would come and he would follow me. If I was eating at the dining hall, he would come and just sit there next to me, making me feel uncomfortable. He would follow me into the dorm.” The South Louisiana ICE Processing Center is seen in this aerial photo in Basile, La., Tuesday, April 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert) According to complaints filed by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the ACLU and the National Immigration Project, the abuse took place between 2023 and 2025, across two administrations. Detention center and ICE employees allegedly subjected the four detainees to sexual assault, forcible touching, groping, physical abuse and denial of medical attention. Renteria-Gonzalez and two other transgender detainees — Kenia Campos-Flores and Mario Garcia-Valenzuela — were allegedly targeted by a warden with an ad hoc work program that picked them out to do manual labor for little, if any, compensation. “We never had the proper PPE and stuff like that. We never got paid. If we did, it would be like a dollar, no more than five at a time,” Renteria-Gonzalez said. “Or we would work for like a bag of chips or a snack bag from the kitchen, or a soda, just small things like that.” The assistant warden accused of the abuse is identified in the complaint as Manuel Reyes, an officer no longer at the detention center. Sarah Decker, staff attorney at RFK Human Rights, told Newsweek that Reyes was explicitly targeting transgender men and masculine presenting LGBTQ+ people. “The program had actually a much more sinister purpose and that from my perspective was designed to punish and physically torture people who identify as LGBTQ or transgender,” Decker said. One example of such labor was pushing heavy cinder blocks or metal cabinets across a dorm, taking around 30 minutes, before the detainee was instructed to push the items back where they came from. “If this person complained about the abusive conditions or even when people asked for personal protective gear or equipment when working with dangerous chemicals, the response was always, ‘If you wanna be a man, I’ll treat you like a man’, or ‘aren’t you strong enough? Aren’t you a man’,” Decker said. “So clearly there was something more diabolical going on.” File image dated May 7, 2025 in Newark, New Jersey, shows a badge hanging over the uniform of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images) The alleged abuse came to light through RFK Human Rights’ ongoing visits to Louisiana detention centers. The organization believes ICE was aware of issues, but did not act on them, and that oversight has likely only gotten worse under the Trump administration. “It was hard, it made me feel scared, it made me feel frustrated, it made me feel angry, because we don’t have a voice in here,” Renteria-Gonzalez said. “And when I did speak up about it, when I finally did record it, they only do the ‘protocol’, just to make it seem like they’re doing something.” The complaints were filed under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), which allows the organizations to sue the federal government for damages caused by the negligent or wrongful acts of federal employees. They have also filed administrative complaints, with the government having six months to respond. If they do not, court action could move forward. When asked for comment on the allegations, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Newsweek that the allegations were “another hoax about ICE facilities” and that ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility had looked into the claims and found them to be untrue. “Nobody was forced into coerced labor. The Assistant Warden did not perpetrate or enable any sexual harassment or assault. Nobody was physically abused. And nobody was denied proper medical care,” McLaughlin said. “These types of smears are directly contributing to our officers facing a 1000% increase in assaults against them.” McLaughlin also reiterated DHS’ message that ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons, stating detainees are provided proper meals, medical treatment and have opportunities to communic...
