People at the detention center have spent months dealing with raw sewage backed up in their living spaces, moldy showers and dangerously low staffing levels. 

“I just don’t see how this place is still open, the way that it is,” a person held at the Torrance County Detention Facility (TCDF), who asked his name not be published for fear of retaliation, said in reflecting on what he’d endured there. 

Conditions are so bad that a government watchdog issued a rare management alert in mid-March calling on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to immediately remove all people detained in TCDF. Despite that urgent alert – echoed by New Mexico’s senators and Torrance County’s congresswoman – ICE recently quietly transferred 111 new people into the facility, according to the news organization SourceNM. 

In response to the new transfers and ongoing efforts by ICE and CoreCivic to cover up what’s happening at TCDF, advocacy organizations last week submitted public records requests seeking records related to the conditions, operation and inspections of the facility. The requests were filed on behalf of Innovation Law Lab by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Mexico under the federal Freedom of Information Act and New Mexico’s Inspection of Public Records Act.

The Torrance detention center in Estancia, about an hour southeast of Albuquerque, is owned and operated by the private, for-profit prison company CoreCivic. It detains people on behalf of Torrance County, the U.S. Marshals Service and ICE.

Innovation Law Lab Co-Director of Anticarceral Legal Organizing Ian Philabaum called the information requested “a matter of life or death.”

"The horrors described in TCDF by the government’s own internal oversight agency pale in comparison to what the people held there describe to us. In fact, we know from experience and from careful analysis that the entire DHS oversight system is fundamentally performative and exists only to create the illusion of accountability,” Philabaum said. “The only way to find out what is really going on in Torrance is to demand full transparency, which is what these records requests are about." 

The management alert issued by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) on March 16 was only the latest sign of worsening conditions and abuse at TCDF. That includes a 2020 chemical attack against detained people engaged in a peaceful hunger strike over the facility’s inadequate COVID-19 protocols. 

In November 2021, immigrant rights advocates and organizations, including the ACLU of New Mexico, delivered a letter to ICE demanding the agency provide access to legal services to an estimated 45 Haitian migrants that were being detained at TCDF. It turned out there were 73 Haitian migrants detained at Torrance, but with the assistance of advocates, they were all freed over the course of the next few months.  

In July 2021, the facility failed a notoriously lax internal ICE inspection from The Nakamoto Group. Inspectors cited severe understaffing, unsanitary food and inadequate visitation rules among the deficiencies. They noted TCDF only had half the authorized security staff and employees were working mandatory overtime to try to make up the shortfall.

Then, on March 31, ICE published the results of a new Nakamoto Group inspection, which found the facility met standards despite stating that ongoing staff vacancies remain a serious issue.

“The most recent Nakamoto Group inspection is a blatant effort to whitewash conditions at the facility, but we know from ongoing conversations with people inside that problems like broken plumbing, lack of access to safe drinking water and critical understaffing remain,” said ACLU of New Mexico Senior Staff Attorney Rebecca Sheff. “That is why we’ve had to turn to public records requests to urgently shed light on this dangerous situation.”

Many people in ICE custody at Torrance fear speaking out about conditions due to the risk of retaliation – a reasonable fear given CoreCivic’s chemical attacks in response to prior calls for safer conditions. Innovation Law Lab and other legal service providers continue, however, to document serious health and safety issues at the facility. Even in medical emergencies, people are told to submit a request for “sick call” and routinely must wait 24 hours or more to see a medical provider. 

The lack of safe drinking water has caused health issues for numerous people there. Many others have reported stomach aches and digestive problems from the food, which is often undercooked and sometimes even expired. People in ICE custody view the facility’s degrading conditions as a form of punishment for their decision to seek asylum in the U.S.

Jorge Zubiate-Rascon has been detained at Torrance by the Marshals Service since July 2021. The facility, he said, has been horrible the whole time he’s been there. The toilet in his cell doesn’t work, he said, and every time the person held in the cell above his flushes the toilet, the excrement flows down into Zubiate-Rascon’s own toilet. The whole cell stinks.

“There are a lot of things here that are wrong,” he said. “I wish someone would come here to see the conditions.”

According to Zubiate-Rascon, the floor was damaged in part of the facility’s kitchen – which is run by people detained at Torrance in both ICE and Marshals custody. Staff painted over the damaged section but seemingly did not use the appropriate paint and he has seen multiple people slip and fall as a result, he added.

“If I, who isn’t an inspector, can see that these things are bad,” Zubiate-Rascon said, “how can they say that it’s fine?”

Update: On June 24, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a shameful ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. Learn more about how the ACLU continues to fight for abortion access and what steps you can take here.

There are some things we don’t know about the leaked Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which indicated the court is ready to overturn Roe v. Wade, the case that recognized a federal constitutional right to abortion. We’re still waiting on the final decision to be released, which should come by the end of June, and with that wait comes uncertainty and fear.

But even without that final decision, there is a lot we do know.

We know that, as of today, abortion is still legal throughout the country. If someone has an appointment, they should keep it. If someone needs to find an abortion provider, they can go to ineedana.com or abortionfinder.org. If someone needs resources to get an abortion, they should go to abortionfunds.org/need-abortion.

We know that approximately half the states are poised to ban abortion if the Supreme Court lets them. Thirteen states have “trigger bans,” which are designed to go into effect as soon as the court grants states the authority to ban abortion. While some of those laws might face delays in implementation, others will go into effect immediately.

Nine states have pre-Roe bans that were never repealed and could be revived if Roe is overturned, which is why they are sometimes called “zombie bans” because of their potential to come back from the dead. There are also nine states that have passed abortion bans since Roe that were temporarily blocked in court but could be re-litigated and allowed to go into effect if federal precedent changes.

Lastly, there are a handful of states that currently have “firewall” protections – a legislative chamber that will kill hostile bills, a governor who will veto bans, or a state supreme court that will strike down restrictions – but are just one election away from a political environment in which abortion could be banned.

We know that abortion opponents won’t stop with overturning Roe. Already, states like Missouri have signaled an intent to apply their abortion laws outside their own state borders. Indeed, we know anti-abortion activists and politicians won’t rest until they have secured a nationwide ban. And the same politicians coming for abortion will also attack our right to get birth control and marry who we love. Our fundamental rights are under attack.

We know what happens when abortion is banned. Texas has already given us a preview with SB 8, a six-week ban that has now been in effect for more than nine months because of a private enforcement mechanism that made it difficult to block in court. The effects have been devastating, cutting the number of abortions in Texas by half and multiplying the number of patients seeking abortion in bordering states.

We know that the people harmed the most by abortion bans are those who already face the most barriers to health care overall, including people of color, low-income people, immigrants, youth, people with disabilities, LGBTQ+ folks, and those who live in rural communities.

We know that those who are able to travel out of state are the lucky ones and that as more states – primarily across the South and Midwest – ban abortion, traveling to another state to obtain care will be an option for fewer and fewer people. That’s not how fundamental rights work anyway. No one should have to leave their home state to obtain essential, time-sensitive health care. Our rights shouldn’t depend on our zip code.

We know that those who can’t marshal the resources to travel to get an abortion elsewhere will be forced to continue a pregnancy against their will – a potentially deadly prospect for Black women in particular, who face a maternal mortality rate that is more than three times the rate for white women in this country.

We know that some states aren’t waiting for the Supreme Court to act. For instance, although Oklahoma already has multiple abortion bans on the books, it recently enacted a Texas copycat law that has cut off abortion care after six weeks of pregnancy and may still pass a total ban on abortion that will be hard to block in court.

Several states, including Tennessee, have advanced restrictions on medication abortion this year, in an attempt to cut off access to abortion pills despite their stellar safety record. And Louisiana is considering a bill that would classify abortion as murder and allow criminal charges to be brought against providers and patients.

But we also know that we are not powerless. We will keep fighting in the courts, in the statehouses, and in the streets. And we will vote like our rights depend on it, because they do.

Several state legislatures are working hard to protect and expand access to abortion care. In the past month or so, Maryland authorized qualified clinicians like nurse practitioners to provide abortion care, established a fund to train and diversify the abortion workforce, and plugged gaps in public and private insurance coverage for abortion care. Connecticut also ensured clinicians can provide abortion care and instituted several measures that seek to protect providers, patients, and helpers from the overreach of states that are hostile to abortion. And Colorado codified the right to abortion and other reproductive health care in state law.

Moreover, in four states this year, abortion will literally be on the ballot – folks in Kansas and Kentucky are working to defeat measures that would take the right to abortion our of their state constitutions, while those in Michigan and Vermont will be fighting to enshrine the right to abortion and other reproductive freedoms in theirs.

In the meantime, abortion funds continue to scale up the existing infrastructure that has worked for decades to connect patients to care and fill the gap between rights and access. And mass mobilizations are being planned around the country. The path forward won’t be quick or easy, but we know we won’t give up our rights without a fight.

Many commentators in the LGBTQ space are talking about how the draft U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization might affect various constitutional rights that the LGBTQ community has secured over decades of advocacy and struggle. A common theme is that “they’re coming for us next,” after abortion. But make no mistake, the war against LGBTQ people in America is already raging. While the Dobbs draft opinion may preview a new front in that war (and I fear it does), attacks against LGBTQ people — especially youth — have been growing in intensity for several years and have already reached a fever pitch. The fight is upon us and we need to mobilize now.

First, even before the leak of the Dobbs draft, we were in the midst of the most aggressive attack on LGBTQ people — and especially trans youth — that our country has ever seen. Over 300 anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ bills have been proposed in state legislatures just in 2022, and over 20 new anti-trans bills have become law over the past three years. Those new laws restrict access to health care, bar trans people from restrooms, prevent any discussion of the existence of LGB or trans people in schools, bar trans youth from participating in sports, or prevent updating government-issued ID documents to reflect our actual identities.

We have even returned to a place where the primary narrative from our opponents is that LGBTQ people are child molesters, or “groomers” in today’s parlance. That was the central theme of Anita Bryant’s successful 1977 “Save Our Children” campaign to repeal Miami-Dade County’s sexual orientation non-discrimination ordinance. Many of us thought that America had moved beyond thinking of LGBTQ people as child molesters, but Texas’ governor has declared that parents who follow doctor’s advice to provide necessary health care for their trans kids are child abusers, and Florida has restricted discussion of the existence of gay or trans people in schools to prevent the supposed recruitment of kids to be LGBTQ. We are going backwards on LGBTQ acceptance and understanding, not forwards. This didn’t start with the Dobbs draft.

Second, the Dobbs draft does represent a new front in the ongoing anti-LGBTQ war, and its impact (if this draft becomes the decision of the court) would be immediate. That’s because the restrictions on abortion that the Dobbs draft would authorize are a direct attack on LGBTQ people, who need access to abortion health care just like many cisgender and heterosexual people do. In the wake of a Dobbs decision that follows the draft, many states will ban abortion outright or start enforcing bans that are already on the books, and that will cause intense suffering for many people, including many LGBTQ people. The Dobbs draft is terrible news for everyone in America who can get pregnant, and for everyone who loves them and values their independence and autonomy. This is our fight now.

But what’s scary about the Dobbs draft is not just what it does directly, but also what it previews as the next steps the court may take in the future. To be sure, the draft opinion says specifically that its holding is limited to what it calls the unique context of abortion, and it declares that the ruling does not undermine other fundamental rights cases, including both Lawrence (the right to form intimate relationships) and Obergefell (the freedom to marry for same-sex couples). But it’s hard to take much comfort in that statement.

If and when the legal challenges to Obergefell and Lawrence come, we will cite those lines in Dobbs and our side will win in the lower federal courts. But when and if the issues get to this Supreme Court, I fear that the calming statements in the Dobbs draft will make little difference.

If the Supreme Court approaches the Obergefell question or the Lawrence question the same way it approaches the abortion question in the Dobbs draft, both of those rights are in danger. In the Dobbs draft, SCOTUS focused on whether there was a history of protecting the right to abortion in America, and refused to frame the right more broadly, as a right of personal autonomy and of control over one’s own body. That narrow framing led to the overruling of Roe.

If the court asks the same crabbed question in the context of marriage equality or the right to form intimate relationships — is there a long history and tradition of protecting specifically the right of same-sex couples to marry or of the right of same-sex couples to be intimate — the extreme conservative majority on this court could easily answer that question “no.” Never mind that the Supreme Court itself said in Lawrence and in Obergefell that that framing of the right was too narrow; choosing to narrow the scope of a long-established right is precisely what the Dobbs draft does. It’s why I’m very concerned about what this draft opinion could mean for the freedom to marry and the right to form intimate relationships.

So let’s put the Dobbs draft in perspective — it represents a new and profoundly disturbing front in the current attack on LGBTQ people in America, but it’s just one aspect of a war that is already well underway. That’s not an effort to downplay the significance of this draft opinion for LGBTQ people, it just means we all need to wake up to the fact that we are already deep in the fight for our lives.