"Efrain Rodriguez showed up at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan on July 17 for his court-scheduled immigration check-in on his asylum application. It was supposed to be a routine hearing but then masked ICE agents pulled him away. Though he didn't expect to be detained that July afternoon, Rodriguez found himself in familiar territory. He had been detained once before in February 2020, during the start of a global pandemic and the last year of the first Trump administration."
"There is psychological abuse, physical abuse, verbal abuse, and emotional abuse. If you don't agree with what the institution entails, they isolate you in a cell within another cell where you have no access to television, no access to calls, no access to lawyers, no access to three regular meals, no access to medication, no access to anything, Rodriguez told amNewYork."
Efrain Rodriguez was detained at 26 Federal Plaza on July 17, 2025, during a court check-in for his asylum application after masked ICE agents removed him. He had previously been detained in February 2020 at the start of the pandemic, experiencing more than a year in custody across two administrations. The July 2025 detention lasted 39 days. Rodriguez reported rotten food, staff retaliation, isolation, and repeated solitary confinement that worsened his mental health. He described lack of access to television, calls, lawyers, regular meals, and medication. In May 2020 he and 25 other detainees staged a hunger strike to demand better conditions.
Read at www.amny.com
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