Immigrant detainees allege sexual assault by guard who obtained promoted

WASHINGTON — For greater than a 12 months, detainees at a California immigrant detention middle stated, they had been summoned from their dorms to a lieutenant’s workplace late at evening. Hours incessantly handed, they stated, earlier than they had been despatched again to their dorms.

What they allege occurred within the workplace grew to become the topic of federal complaints, which accuse Lt. Quin, then an administrative supervisor, of harassing, threatening and coercing immigrants into sexual acts on the Golden State Annex in McFarland. An individual with that nameworked in a higher-ranking publish, as chief of safety, on the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana till August — the identical month The Occasions despatched inquiries to the corporate that operates the amenities.

The Division of Homeland Safety stated it couldn’t substantiate the allegations. In line with an lawyer for one of many detainees, the California Lawyer Common’s workplace opened an investigation into the matter.

Immigrant advocates level to the case as one in every of many allegations of abuse in U.S. immigration amenities, inside a system which they are saying fails to correctly examine.

In three complaints reviewed by The Occasions that had been filed beneath the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), to a watchdog company and with DHS, detainees accused Quin of sexual assault, harassment and different misconduct. The complainants initially knew the lieutenant solely as “Lt. Quinn,” and he’s known as such within the federal complaints, although the right spelling is “Quin.”

The complaints additionally allege different facility workers knew about and facilitated abuse, perpetuating a tradition of impunity.

The California and Louisiana amenities are each operated by the Florida-based personal jail big, the GEO Group.

A Dec. 10, 2024, publish on Instagram Threads seems to allude to points Quin confronted in California. The publish photos him standing in entrance of a GEO Group flag and states: “Allow me to reintroduce myself … You’ll respect my authority. They tried to hinder me, however God intervened.”

Requested concerning the accusations, Tricia McLaughlin, the assistant Homeland Safety public affairs secretary, stated in an announcement that allegations of misconduct by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement workers or contractors are handled significantly and investigated totally.

“These complaints had been filed in 2024 — properly earlier than present DHS management and the mandatory reforms they applied,” McLaughlin wrote. “The investigation into this matter has concluded, and ICE — by way of its personal investigation reviewed by [the DHS office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties] — couldn’t substantiate any grievance of sexual assault or rape.”

The GEO Group didn’t reply to requests for remark.

Advocates for the detainees say they’re undeterred and can proceed to hunt justice for individuals they are saying have been wronged.

Advocates additionally say the potential for abuse at detention amenities will develop because the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown brings such amenities to file inhabitants ranges. The inhabitants of detained immigrants surpassed a excessive of 61,000 in August, based on TRAC, a nonpartisan analysis group.

The allegations towards Quin by a 28-year-old detainee are detailed in his FTCA grievance, a precursor to a lawsuit, filed in January with DHS. The grievance seeks $10 million for bodily and emotional damages.

The Occasions usually doesn’t determine alleged victims of sexual abuse and is referring to him by his center preliminary, E.

McLaughlin’s response didn’t handle the FTCA grievance that particulars E’s sexual assault allegations.

Reached by cellphone, Quin instructed The Occasions, “I don’t converse with the media,” and referred a reporter to the Golden State Annex. After being learn the allegations towards him and requested to reply, he hung up.

E alleged abuse in interviews with The Occasions, and in a recorded interview with an lawyer, which shaped the idea for the FTCA grievance.

Within the grievance, he stated that starting in Could 2023, Quin would name him right into a room, the place no cameras or workers had been current, to say he had been given a quotation or that guards had complained about him.

In the future, the grievance alleges, Quin rubbed his personal genitals over his pants and commenced making sexual feedback. E instructed Quin he felt uncomfortable and needed to return to his dorm. However Quin smirked, dragged his chair nearer and grabbed E within the crotch, the grievance says.

After E pushed Quin away and threatened to defend himself bodily, the grievance alleges, Quin made his personal menace: to name a “code black” — an emergency — that may summon guards and depart E dealing with prices of assaulting a federal officer.

As a substitute, E stated, Quin referred to as for an escort to take him again to his dorm.

After that, the late-night summons — typically at midnight or 2 a.m. — elevated, E stated in his grievance. Every time, Quin continued to rub his genitals over his garments, based on the grievance.

The grievance alleges Quin repeatedly provided to assist with E’s immigration case in change for sexual favors. Then Quin came upon E is bisexual and E alleged Quin threatened to inform his household throughout a go to. Afraid of his household discovering out about his sexuality, E stated within the grievance, he lastly acquiesced to letting Quin contact his genitals and carry out oral intercourse on him.

“I simply, I ended up doing it,” E stated in a recorded interview together with his lawyer.

Afterward, the grievance says, Quin instructed E that he would ensure that to assist him, and that nobody would discover out.

The grievance alleges that Quin introduced E contraband presents, together with a cellphone, and, round Christmas, a water bottle stuffed with alcohol.

“I really feel soiled,” E stated within the recorded interview. “I really feel ashamed of myself, you realize? I really feel like my dignity was simply nowhere.”

E stated in his grievance {that a} workers member instructed him in December 2023 {that a} guard had reported Quin to the warden after noticing E had been out of his dorm for a very long time; the guard had reviewed safety cameras displaying Quin giving E the bottle of alcohol.

E stated the staffer instructed him that Quin was quickly suspended from interacting with detainees, and the late-night summons stopped for some time.

A second, earlier grievance alleging mistreatment on the McFarland facility was filed on E’s behalf in August 2024 by the Asian Regulation Caucus with the DHS Workplace of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL).

That grievance alleges that different GEO Group workers focused him with sexually harassing and degrading feedback. It doesn’t handle E’s sexual assault allegations, as a result of E stated he was initially too afraid to speak about them.

As soon as, when E was mendacity on his abdomen in his cell, a guard commented loudly to different workers that he was ready for a go to from Quin; the guard made a movement of placing her finger by way of a gap, insinuating that E sought to have interaction in sexual activity, the grievance states.

The broader challenge isn’t one individual, “however slightly a system of impunity and abuse,” stated Lee Ann Felder-Heim, a workers lawyer on the Asian Regulation Caucus. “The studies make it clear that different workers had been conscious of what was occurring and really had been aiding in making it occur.”

Along with detailing E’s personal experiences, the grievance additionally particulars abuse and harassment of 5 different detainees. One detainee is transgender, a reality that may play a task in how federal officers investigated the grievance.

In February and March, CRCL despatched Felder-Heim letters saying it had closed the investigations into all however one case of alleged sexual abuse and harassment — together with these concerning Quin — citing, as justification, Trump’s First-Day govt order regarding “gender ideology extremism.” The order prohibits utilizing federal funds to “promote gender ideology,” so Felder-Heim stated it seems the investigations had been shut down as a result of one of many complainants is transgender. The opposite case was closed earlier on the deserves.

She referred to as the investigation course of flawed and “wholly insufficient.”

E filed a 3rd grievance with one other oversight physique, the Workplace of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman. To his information, no investigation was initiated.

In March, the Trump administration shut down three inside oversight our bodies: CRCL, OIDO and the Citizenship and Immigration Providers (CIS) Ombudsman. Civil rights teams sued the next month, prompting the company to resurrect the workplaces.

However staffing on the workplaces was decimated, based on sworn courtroom declarations by DHS officers. CRCL has gone from having 147 positions to 22; OIDO from about 118 to about 10; and the CIS Ombudsman from 46 to about 10.

“All legally required capabilities of CRCL proceed to be carried out, however in an environment friendly and cost-effective method and with out hindering the Division’s mission of securing the homeland,” stated McLaughlin, the DHS spokeswoman.

Michelle Brané, who was the immigrant detention ombudsman beneath the Biden administration, stated the civil rights workplace usually had first dibs on complaints about sexual assault. She recalled the grievance about Quin however stated her workplace didn’t examine it as a result of the civil rights workplace already was.

Brané stated the lower in oversight amid elevated detention will inevitably exacerbate points equivalent to allegations of sexual assault. Worse circumstances additionally make it more durable to rent high quality workers, she stated.

Across the similar time that E was held at Golden State Annex, a homosexual couple from Colombia reported in April 2024 to the OIDO that Quin had sexually harassed them.

D.T., 26, and C.B., 25, had been separated upon arrival at Golden State Annex. D.T. started to expertise extreme nervousness assaults, they stated within the Asian Regulation Caucus grievance and in an interview with The Occasions. The couple requested to be positioned in the identical dormitory.

Earlier than granting their request, Quin requested what they’d give him in return, the couple recounted within the grievance. Afterward, the grievance alleges, he incessantly invited them to his workplace, saying they owed him.

“We by no means accepted going to his workplace, as a result of we knew what it was for,” C.B. instructed the Occasions.

Of their grievance, they allege that Quin requested D.T. if he needed to have intercourse and instructed C.B., “You belong to me.”

The couple grew to become conscious that Quin had additionally harassed different detainees and gave preferential remedy to those that they believed accepted his requests for sexual favors, based on the grievance; one detainee instructed them that he had grabbed Quin’s hand and positioned it on his penis to keep away from being taken to solitary confinement for beginning a struggle.

D.T. stated in an interview with The Occasions that he believes “beneath him are many individuals who by no means stated something.”

In a Dec. 2, 2024, inside facility grievance from Golden State Annex reviewed by The Occasions, one other detainee alleges that Quin retaliated towards him for talking out towards misconduct.

Within the grievance and in an interview with The Occasions, the detainee stated he spoke up after, on a number of events, watching one other man stroll to Quin’s workplace late at evening and are available again to the dorm hours later. He additionally stated within the grievance that Quin introduced in marijuana, cellphones and different contraband.

One other witness, Gustavo Flores, 33, stated Quin acknowledged him as a former Golden State Annex detainee when he was briefly transferred to the Alexandria facility, simply earlier than his deportation to El Salvador in Could.

Quin pulled Flores apart and provided to uncuff him and get him lunch in change for cleansing the foyer; after he completed, Quin introduced him into his workplace, the place he peppered Flores with questions on Golden State Annex, Flores stated.

Flores stated he requested about sure staffers and detainees. He instructed Flores individuals needed to sue him, calling them “crybabies.”

“He’s telling me the whole lot, like, ‘Oh yeah, I do know what goes on over there,’” Flores stated.

When E tried to finish the sexual encounters, his grievance says, Quin threatened to have him despatched to a detention facility in Texas or have his deportation expedited.

In October 2024, E was transferred to the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Heart in Bakersfield.

Heliodoro Moreno, E’s lawyer, stated the California Lawyer Common’s Workplace confirmed to him in February that it was investigating. An investigator interviewed E in April and once more in Could, he stated, and the investigation stays open.

California Division of Justice spokesperson Nina Sheridan declined to touch upon a possible investigation. However in an announcement she stated the workplace stays vigilant of “ongoing, troubling circumstances” at detention amenities all through California.

“We’re particularly involved that circumstances at these amenities are solely set to worsen because the Trump Administration continues to ramp up its inhumane marketing campaign of mass deportation,” she wrote.

E, who had a pending declare for a particular standing generally known as withholding of elimination, dropped his case within the ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals. Moreno stated his shopper wished to not be detained.

“It’s very unlucky that he’s in these circumstances,” Moreno stated. His shopper was compelled to forgo his appellate rights and depart “with out actually getting a conclusion to receiving justice for what occurred to him.”

He was deported late final month.