As Trump’s immigration dragnet grows, so do complaints of detention center conditions

WASHINGTON — When the overhead lights turn off at the Farmville Detention Center in Virginia, it not only means that night has arrived for Aliaksei Scharbachenia, but that panic attacks will soon follow.

The attacks, which started after his detention began last August, he said, have only grown worse, stemming from the fear that he will be returned to his country of Belarus and face persecution due to his opposition to the authoritarian government.

“With the panic attacks, I was able to take care of myself before,” he said in Russian. “But now it’s kind of getting worse, so I really need some medication, which will help me.”

States Newsroom interviewed Scharbachenia by video with the help of an interpreter.

As the Trump administration increases the scale of its immigrant detention program, now up to 68,000 immigrants in custody, reports have surfaced of inhumane conditions and inadequate medical care at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities like the one housing Scharbachenia. Congress recently boosted funding for immigration enforcement by $70 billion over three years, through the end of President Donald Trump’s term.

ICE acknowledged receiving, but did not respond to, a detailed list of questions from States Newsroom regarding Scharbachenia’s treatment at Farmville.

Ailments ignored

The nightly panic attacks, and the lack of medication to treat them, are not the only health issues that 37-year-old Scharbachenia said he has brought to medical staff at the Virginia facility.

He’s lost feeling in his right pinky and ring fingers, which he attributes to an-egg sized mass that developed on the back of his biceps during his 11-month detention. The few items that he purchased at the center – earplugs and a small blanket – were confiscated after he spent two weeks in solitary confinement after sharing know-your-rights information to newly arrived immigrants, he said. 

“I totally understand that’s another way of punishment to beat me, you know, so I will be quiet,” Scharbachenia said of his two weeks in solitary confinement.

Scharbachenia told States Newsroom that on May 20,  ICE agents tried to deport him to Belarus, despite his active legal petition challenging his detention. He said he was eventually placed on a deportation flight back to the United States from Turkey, his hands and feet bound for the nine-hour journey, and returned to the Farmville detention.  

States Newsroom could not independently verify the May 20 deportation attempt, and ICE did not respond to questions about it.

Poor conditions at multiple facilities 

Scharbachenia’s complaints fit a pattern of reports from independent government inspectors that have found unsafe conditions and inadequate medical care provided to immigrants detained in facilities in Texas and Louisiana.  

A recent report from the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog found a detention center in Louisiana failed to ensure sanitary conditions, properly store perishable food, report use-of-force incidents and maintain medical records of detainees. 

Congress this month passed the three-year, $70 billion immigration enforcement package that contains no restraints on ICE activities. The tens of billions in funding is on top of roughly $170 billion provided to DHS last year for detention and deportations. 

Democratic lawmakers conducting oversight visits at some facilities have raised concerns about poor conditions and lack of medical care provided. 

U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, said during a recent press conference that the additional $70 billion in funding will only continue a “detention and deportation industry that profits from human suffering.” 

New Jersey facility

Civil rights groups have filed two major lawsuits charging poor and inadequate conditions at detention centers in Texas and New Jersey run by ICE and private contractors.

In New Jersey, Sen. Andy Kim called for the Delaney Hall facility to be shut down after detained immigrants went on a hunger strike to protest their conditions. While Kim and dozens of advocates demonstrated at the facility, he was hit with pepper smoke deployed by immigration officers. 

“At Delaney Hall, we learned of unsanitary living conditions, lack of adequate medical care and unhealthy food,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said after conducting oversight at the facility. “The situation is unacceptable. Delaney Hall must be shut down immediately.”

In response to the criticism of poor conditions at Delaney Hall, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin argued before lawmakers that the detention centers have higher standards than jails and prisons. He described the complaints about food as detainees wanting “ethnic food.”

With House Democrats in the minority, the authority to make unannounced oversight visits at any federal facility that houses immigrants is one of the few tools they have. The power is codified in a 2019 appropriations law, but the Trump administration has not adhered to that policy. 

Democrats have sued to regain access in a case now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Outbreaks at Farmville

Prior to Trump’s current deportation push, lawmakers had raised concerns about issues at the detention center where Scharbachenia is held. In 2019, a mumps outbreak started at the facility, and in 2020, 93% of the detained population contracted the coronavirus.

Roughly now three-quarters of the immigrants detained at Farmville, nearly 500, have no criminal record, according to the most recent government data. On the campaign trail, the president vowed to focus enforcement on immigrants with criminal records, but those in detention are there on a civil charge of violating U.S. immigration law. 

Virginia Democrats have continued to conduct oversight of the facility. 

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner went last August to visit Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was transferred to Farmville after the Trump administration brought him back to the U.S. after erroneously deporting him to a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador.

Warner also raised concerns about the facility during the coronavirus outbreak in 2020. 

During his August visit, Warner’s office said he “secured a commitment from the facility’s private operator to work with legislators to address concerns regarding food quality and access to health care.”

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine also visited the facility in March and his office said he “continues to track conditions there closely.”

Scharbachenia, who is still detained at Farmville, has a pending habeas corpus petition, which is challenging his detention. 

He has a final order of removal from an immigration judge, but said if he is removed back to Belarus, the country’s special police force will be waiting for him, “along with electric shock torture and death.”