While at the federal immigration courthouse in San Diego one day last week, I met several people who had just recently been released from ICE detention. Now they were back for a check-in while their cases are pending. 

“Toni” in her early 20’s had been detained for eight weeks, arrested while showing up for her scheduled hearing. She was then shackled at the wrists, the ankles, and even at the waist, even though she was not resisting and not crying. In fact, she tried to comfort two other ‘girls’ who were weeping. Apparently, the federal government intentionally called hearings for a number of women in the same situation for the same day and detained each one at their hearing. They were placed in a van for several hours and then driven to Otay Mesa Detention Center, where they were put into “The Cooler,”…an unheated room, where they all had to sleep on the concrete floor with only a blanket given to each.

The next day, they were driven back downtown to be processed and had their phones taken away, then driven again to Otay Mesa. Around midnight, they were told to shower in cold water, then given blue jumpsuits stamped “DETAINEE,” and put into rooms of eight, where she stayed for the next eight weeks. I was very honored that she would tell me her story, as I had simply walked up to her and her Marine Corps husband and introduced myself as a FAITH volunteer and explained I was there to “be with” or accompany people like her and pray for them, which they much appreciated. When she told me about her arrest, she apologized for still being traumatized, and she showed me a bruise on her wrist still visible two months later and said she had more bruises on her ankles, but she also now wears an ankle monitor since she was released, pending her court date in May. In detention, she signed up for cleaning duty, not to earn the $1 payment but to keep active, though she said some other ‘girls’ just laid in bed all day, depressed and crying. She also played basketball for exercise, and she prayed. 

She had come to this country as a child; her aunt had told her they were going on a camp-out but would have to hike to the place. The next she knew she was greeted by her parents who were already living in the USA. Due to some technicalities in her situation that I’ve now forgotten, she finds herself twenty-some years later—now a fully Americanized young woman—in removal hearings.

‘Marino’ was there with his sister ‘Maria’, who also appeared to be in her early 20’s. She had been detained for six weeks. She is a beautiful young woman with a gentle soul. She doesn’t speak much English (though she understands it fairly well), having traveled here legally in 2024 via the CPB1 app, before the government abruptly shut down the application process this year. She was finally released from detention because, though she had been given a two-year parole when the app was closed, she was detained anyway. Her attorney successfully argued this was an improper detention, so she was released and not required to wear a monitoring device on her body pending her court proceedings.

Her brother Marino confided to me, while Maria listened and stared off at the space between us, that the hardest part  of detention for her was that after meeting with any visitor, she was forced to submit to a strip search, including a cavity search. This was required even if the detainee was having her menstrual period. He said once in particular she had felt very degraded by the experience and by the (female) staff, though she recognized that there were other times some staff seemed to try to act kindly as they did their job. He said (and I’ve since heard from others) that many women in detention refuse to see any visitors, especially during their menses, due to this practice, which makes them feel even more isolated and alone.

As I prayed for each person, whether a man or woman, I prayed for their healing from the trauma they had each experienced and the indignities they suffered. I sometimes prayed for forgiveness for jailers who treated them as anything other than a child of God. I asked that God somehow use this chapter in their lives for good and to draw them closer, and that in the future, they would be treated with dignity and respect, and that every legal option would be explored for allowing them to continue the lives they’ve built in this country.

According to the government’s own statistics through mid-October published this week, only about a third of the nearly 5000 federal ICE arrestees in San Diego County during 2025 have any criminal record or pending criminal charges. Nor did either of the young women I talked to, and both had been here legally, according to policies then in place which have been overturned in the past months. Now each has been treated in ways we would barely tolerate for the most hardened prison inmates. 

In the world’s richest country, is this truly the best we can do? 

My dear Janet once discovered that some of her forebears had owned a handful of slaves, and this discovery burdened her greatly with familial shame. I shudder to think how our future progeny will judge our acquiescence or even complicity in these practices. Even more, how will God judge each of us for allowing these things to continue?  

Cory

January 2026