ICE Detention conditions described by Irish detainee

UPDATE: Tuesday, Jul 15, 2025 · 4:53:59 PM +00:00 · CathyM

UPDATE: This from Raw Story describes the pushback from Americans:

Fury at ICE sees Americans funnel millions of dollars to help detainees

https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/ice-detainees-anger/?utm_source=breaking

… Families and friends have increasingly turned to fundraising platforms such as GoFundMe, looking for help with legal fees, living expenses, travel costs and medical bills as loved ones — often primary breadwinners — are detained, deported or await immigration hearings, sometimes hundreds of miles from home.

“I've been working in the refugee immigrant space for the last 20 years [and have] been watching things escalate,” said Luma Mufleh, founder of Fugees Family, a nonprofit school network for refugees, who started her own fundraiser for an 18-year-old recent graduate detained by ICE, despite his Special Immigrant Juvenile Status.

… A spokesperson for GoFundMe said the company didn't have a specific fundraiser count or a calculation of money raised related to immigration raids. But hundreds of ICE-related fundraisers currently appear on the site.

A Raw Story review of 60 randomly selected GoFundMe fundraisers — just a fraction of the fundraisers on the website — showed more than $1.7 million donated to families across the U.S.

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I think this hasn’t been posted on DK yet, and it’s a detailed description about one detainee — an Irish tourist who’d overstayed his visa by 3 days due to medical issues — being held for 100 days in 3 different facilities, and the nightmare of not knowing WTF was going on. Absolutely worth reading the whole piece:

www.theguardian.com/…

Irish tourist jailed by Ice for months after overstaying US visit by three days: ‘Nobody is safe’

Exclusive: For roughly 100 days, Thomas says he faced harsh detention conditions, despite agreeing to deportation

Sam Levin

Tue 15 Jul 2025 06.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 15 Jul 2025 09.05 EDT

Thomas, a 35-year-old tech worker and father of three from Ireland, came to West Virginia to visit his girlfriend last fall. It was one of many trips he had taken to the US, and he was authorized to travel under a visa waiver program that allows tourists to stay in the country for 90 days.

He had planned to return to Ireland in December, but was briefly unable to fly due to a health issue, his medical records show. He was only three days overdue to leave the US when an encounter with police landed him in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) custody.

From there, what should have been a minor incident became a nightmarish ordeal: he was detained by Ice in three different facilities, ultimately spending roughly 100 days behind bars with little understanding of why he was being held – or when he’d get out.

...He and other detainees were placed in an area with dirty mattresses, cockroaches and mice, where some bunkbeds lacked ladders, forcing people to climb to the top bed, he said.

BoP didn’t seem to have enough clothes, said Thomas, who got a jumpsuit but no shirt. The facility also gave him a pair of used, ripped underwear with brown stains. Some jumpsuits appeared to have bloodstains and holes, he added.

Each detainee was given one toilet paper roll a week. He shared a cell with another detainee, and he said they were only able to flush the toilet three times an hour. He was often freezing and was given only a thin blanket. The food was “disgusting slop”, including some kind of mysterious meat that at times appeared to have chunks of bones and other inedible items mixed in, he said. He was frequently hungry.

Not only is this an incredibly damning description of the inhumanity detainees are suffering, but it’s stupidity on the part of ICE because why wouldn’t he speak out and tell the world what he went through? Hopefully this will give more evidence to Dems and groups who are fighting for the detainees.