On Feb, 22, The Minnesota Star Tribune published an article describing a hearing in which several men facing possible deportation — who were being held in southern Minnesota Freeborn County Jail — appeared in court before Immigration Judge Sarah Mazzie. In the courtroom, one of these men, Miguel Rodriguez-Escobar, agreed to forgo legal representation and was subsequently sworn in.
According to the Star Tribune article, “Mazzie did not note a criminal record for Miguel Rodriguez-Escobar.” He only showed up in the Minnesota court system for a St. Paul citation for driving without a license in 2023, where he showed the police officer his El Salvador identification card. In the hearing, Rodriguez-Escobar told Mazzie that “he feared harm if he returned to his native country,” and “agreed to file an application to withhold deportation and come back in two weeks for another hearing.”
No further information about Rodriguez-Escobar has received any coverage, but for the past several weeks, the Carletonian has been attempting to follow his story. Rodriguez-Escobar is just one of many migrants currently detained by ICE who move through a chaotic and often abusive system invisibly.
All available information on Rodriguez-Escobar after this point was obtained by the Carletonian from the online ICE Detainee Locator System. Rodriguez-Escobar’s appeal was evidently unsuccessful, if it was filed at all. Using Rodriguez-Escobar’s name and listing El Salvador as country of origin in the ICE detainee locator system, the Carletonian tracked Rodriguez-Escobar’s location across the last several weeks.
On May 8th, the detainee locator system showed that Rodriguez-Escobar was still being held in Minnesota at Freeborn County Jail in Albert Lea, MN. His location on May 16, however, was the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana. The Alexandria Staging Facility is a 72-hour holding facility and the only ICE holding facility directly attached to an airport. It is typically detainees’ last stop before deportation. At this point, the Carletonian made several attempts to contact the staging facility and the New Orleans ICE field office, but were unable to communicate with Rodriguez-Escobar or obtain any further information about his case. According to the ICE Detainee Locator System, Rodriguez-Escobar was not deported. His location as of May 22 is listed as the Pine Prairie Correctional Facility in Louisiana.
Both facilities have histories of poor treatment. A 2021 RFK Human Rights report focused on the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center — a complex within the Pine Prarie Correctional Facility — detailed abuse and torture to detainees. According to RFK Human Rights, the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center was fully depopulated by the end of 2023. At some point in the past two years, the facility was clearly put back in use as an ICE facility although it is now sometimes referred to by a slightly different name — the Pine Prairie Correctional Facility.
An Aug 2024 ACLU report exposed “rampant abuse” in Louisiana ICE detention facilities in general. In light of the executive branch’s increased focus on deportations, the New Orleans ICE field office has drawn increased criticism as high-profile detainees, such as Mahmoud Khalil and Alireza Doroudi, were moved to Louisiana.
If deported, Rodriguez-Escobar would likely be sent to the Terrorism Confinement Centre (CECOT) in El Salvador, a 40,000 capacity mega-prison designed to hold alleged gang members. The prison has been a major tool in El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s aggressive anti-crime strategy. In 2022, Bukele declared a “state of exception” as a response to the gang violence in the country, suspending due process rights in order to quickly imprison tens of thousands of people. In March, the United States deported 238 migrants to Cecot, most of whom did not have apparent criminal records. This was part of an agreement in which the Trump administration paid $6 million to Bukele’s government for the one-year use of El Salvadorian facilities.
Conditions in Cecot are notoriously harsh. According to a declaration from the Human Rights Watch, prisoners are denied the opportunity to receive visitors or speak with lawyers and are subject to malnourishment, overcrowded conditions and physical abuse. After they enter the prison, it is very difficult to obtain information about inmates, which include migrants deported from the United States.