Austin City Councilman Greg Casar says T. Don Hutto Residential Center and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials blocked him from visiting Laura Monterrosa, the detained asylum seeker who was allegedly thrown in solitary confinement—this is torture—for 60 hours unless she recanted her allegations that she’s been harassed and sexually abused by a guard for months.
Casar sought to meet with Monterrosa, who has been suicidal in recent weeks, but says that a prison official told him their meeting would not happen because “he was a public official who might talk to the media before or after the visit.” Undeterred, Councilman Casar and advocates are calling for her release.
“In Austin, we strive to welcome refugees and asylum seekers, and our nonprofit community has offered to take care of Ms. Monterrosa as part of our family,” he said. Monterrosa has been detained since last summer, when she fled physical and sexual abuse in El Salvador, only to be again the victim of it in the U.S. at the hands of ICE and CoreCivic, the private prison company that runs Hutto.
Monterrosa has been speaking out for months, but says harassment tactics took a turn when the FBI took over her case after ICE and the sheriff’s office tried to close it. It was then that she was thrown into solitary. “The ICE official went as far as telling her that he expected her to recant her claim to the media,” said Grassroots Leadership, “or else she would be locked up again in solitary confinement indefinitely.”
Jonasu Wagstaff, a candidate running for Justice of the Peace Precinct 2 in Williamson County, called on city commissioners during a meeting to shut down the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, which has been the site of rampant sexual abuse and harassment for years. According to Women’s Refugee Commission, “in the spring of 2007, another guard at Hutto was terminated for having sex with a female detainee in her cell”:
[Wagstaff] said she knew the county had a “vested” interest in the center because a county representative is paid $8,000 per month to serve as a liaison to the center.
Commissioners did not comment during the meeting because the issue was not on their agenda.
CoreCivic, which owns and operates the facility, pays the county approximately $8,000 per month for the costs and expenses associated with employing a county representative to serve as a liaison between Williamson County, ICE and CoreCivic, said Williamson County spokeswoman Connie Watson.
The county can’t close the facility but it can cancel the contract with CoreCivic and ICE, she said.
In 2016—mired in accusations “of violence, abuse, and neglect"—CoreCivic rebranded itself from its former name, Corrections Corporation of America, but clearly the private prison company’s marketing team couldn’t focus group away abusive attitudes and practices that have now resulted in a woman who is pleading for asylum from persecution in her native El Salvador getting thrown into solitary like an animal unless she recant her claims against the prison and ICE.
"This should not be happening in America," said Grassroots Leadership’s Claudia Muñoz. "Here you have a woman who came forward to report rampant sexual abuse inside of a federal facility. Instead of protecting her, and ensuring the abuse stops, ICE is now putting Laura in solitary confinement with the expressed intent of tearing her down so she will do as they say."
“No one should be incarcerated in a private prison,” Councilman Casar continued. “Even worse, Ms. Monterrosa is being detained in this for-profit prison that is being investigated by the FBI because of accusations that guards have sexually abused her and other incarcerated women." Grassroots Leadership and other advocates are continuing to fight for Monterrosa’s release from prison.
