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Speaker 1: I'm Maria Ino Hoosa. We bring you stories that are
Speaker 1: underreported but that mattered to you, overlooked by the rest
Speaker 1: of the media, and while the country is struggling.
Speaker 2: To deal with these, we listen to the stories of
Speaker 2: black and Latinos.
Speaker 1: Studio United Latino Front.
Speaker 2: A cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Inojosa. Nose Bayan.
Speaker 3: Futuro Investigates Investia.
Speaker 2: Dear let you know USA listener, just a quick warning,
Speaker 2: this is an investigation into sexual abuse at ICE detention centers.
Speaker 2: So we just wanted to let you know to prepare.
Speaker 2: Since the beginning of my career, immigration has been at
Speaker 2: the core of my work as a journalist, and one
Speaker 2: of the things I've focused on has been what happens
Speaker 2: in US immigration and Customs enforcement, what happens in these
Speaker 2: detention centers. Claims of sexual abuse are widespread throughout the US.
Speaker 2: Back in twenty eleven, I anchored a PBS Frontline documentary.
Speaker 2: It was a film called Lost in Detention, and we
Speaker 2: looked at the increasing numbers of people under detention in
Speaker 2: these centers and all of this happening under the Obama administration.
Speaker 3: We know that there are many more cases that don't
Speaker 3: get investigated, where people do not get held accountable for
Speaker 3: the abuse or the rape of immigrants.
Speaker 2: And one of the hardest things was hearing about the
Speaker 2: sexual abuse that was happening inside these government run facilities.
Speaker 2: And then what happened.
Speaker 4: He said, if you tell anyone, you wouldn't come out
Speaker 4: of your life to see your family, So then who
Speaker 4: are you going to?
Speaker 2: That work has stayed with me, but then a decade
Speaker 2: after it aired, in twenty twenty two, I get this
Speaker 2: message on Twitter from a young journalist named Zeba Warsei.
Speaker 2: She was working on an investigative story and she wanted
Speaker 2: to meet.
Speaker 5: Well.
Speaker 2: So here we are in the studio isabah Hi. So
Speaker 2: back in twenty twenty two, when you were a student
Speaker 2: at Columbia Journalism School and you come and meet me
Speaker 2: at my office at Barnard College where I'm a professor,
Speaker 2: and I remember you were like, look, I'm a journalist,
Speaker 2: I have a career in India. But the story that
Speaker 2: brings you here in part was this interest that you
Speaker 2: had in what was happening in these immigrant detention centers.
Speaker 6: That's right. I wanted to know how ICE operates. I
Speaker 6: thought this was a big law enforcement agency under the
Speaker 6: Department of Homeland Security, which hosts thousands of immigrants who
Speaker 6: don't have a legal status.
Speaker 2: In attention, right, these are people who are held by
Speaker 2: the US government, but they have no legal standing, They
Speaker 2: have no right to do process, they don't get a lawyer.
Speaker 2: It's a very different thing than being in the criminal system,
Speaker 2: where you actually have rights.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, this investigation began as my master's teas about abuses
Speaker 6: in ICE detention centers, and then I got more and
Speaker 6: more interested in focusing on the sexual abuse that was
Speaker 6: happening in these facilities. Your documentary, Maria, was in fact
Speaker 6: one of the first pieces of journalism I watched to
Speaker 6: help me understand how ICE works and how ICE was
Speaker 6: dealing with sexual abuse.
Speaker 2: The decade later, I get your message, Saber, and I
Speaker 2: was very moved by this young, very hungry reporter who
Speaker 2: more than a decade after my reporting, wanted to look
Speaker 2: into the issue of sexual abuse that was happening in
Speaker 2: ICE detention.
Speaker 6: Yes, and for me it was also a chance to
Speaker 6: learn from another woman journalist such as you, Maria, an
Speaker 6: immigrant herself, who has been investigating this type of abuse
Speaker 6: for many years, and who cares about this kind of
Speaker 6: reportage because no matter how much time passes, as journalists,
Speaker 6: we need to shine light on abuses if they continue
Speaker 6: to happen. And we found women who have recently complained
Speaker 6: about sexual abuse and ICE facilities, women like Viviana, Marlissa and.
Speaker 7: Mari Sinto tritesa Sinto Fortasion.
Speaker 8: So you run away from trauma to come here and
Speaker 8: view with trauma again.
Speaker 3: Joe v v Sufria Wilso selling as a lugar.
Speaker 2: You hope that when you do your reporting that things
Speaker 2: are going to get better, And I wanted to know,
Speaker 2: so has anything changed about how ICE handles cases of
Speaker 2: sexual abuse? Are survivors getting any justice? And so view
Speaker 2: Zeba and I, both of us immigrant women, two different generations,
Speaker 2: we decided to team up to find the answers from
Speaker 2: Futuro Media and PRX It's Latino USA. I'm Maria in
Speaker 2: Josa today they felt immensely invisible, but these immigrant women
Speaker 2: are fighting back. A story by Futuro Investigates in collaboration
Speaker 2: with Latino USA about sexual abuse in ice detention centers.
Speaker 2: We look at how women are sexually abused when they're
Speaker 2: at their most vulnerable in a medical setting, and how
Speaker 2: ICE has done very little to stop it. So remember
Speaker 2: I meet Zeba when she's a student at the Columbia
Speaker 2: Journalism School. Then she gets her job at the PBS
Speaker 2: News Hour, and starting in the fall of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: she and I and our team have been interviewing women
Speaker 2: around the country about their time in ice detention.
Speaker 1: Yes, Maria.
Speaker 6: Since I began investigating the story in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 6: almost two years now, I've spoken to dozens of women
Speaker 6: in detention centers. The first woman we interviewed together was
Speaker 6: Viviana we met in a suburb of Houston, Texas. Vivianna
Speaker 6: is not her real name, but we're using it to
Speaker 6: protect her identity.
Speaker 1: We're meeting her right now for the first time.
Speaker 8: Kay, nice to meet you in person.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I was struck by how gorgeous she was five feet two, long,
Speaker 2: straight dark hair, very young and vivacious. But also there
Speaker 2: was something really somber about her eyes. And I noticed
Speaker 2: how every time she would get emotional, she would start
Speaker 2: touching the gold rosary around her neck.
Speaker 6: Juno saki or amil.
Speaker 2: And she says that she didn't even know until the
Speaker 2: last minute if she was going to be able to
Speaker 2: retell what happened to her while she was in attention,
Speaker 2: And even though she was scared, frankly traumatized, she pushed
Speaker 2: through and decided to talk to us.
Speaker 6: Viviana left Venezuela in twenty fourteen. She was twenty one
Speaker 6: years old at the time and was studying law. Her
Speaker 6: family was part of a political party opposing the government.
Speaker 6: She told us that they began to receive death threats.
Speaker 6: This was a moment of political crisis in Venezuela. The
Speaker 6: longtime president, Hugosha Viz died a year before, and there
Speaker 6: were protests against the new president, Nicolas Maduro.
Speaker 7: Akia was Telir Singh Tabo signe signa Forlanz.
Speaker 2: So she and her mother and her two brothers fled
Speaker 2: to Panama, but as more and more Venezuelans arrived, Vivianna
Speaker 2: said her family became victims of xenophobia. After seven years
Speaker 2: of living in Panama, Vianna and her mother knew it
Speaker 2: was time to leave, so they made the arduous journey
Speaker 2: across the US Mexico border. In September of twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: It was a record year in the number of border
Speaker 2: patrol encounters, more than one point seven million. Viviana and
Speaker 2: her mother were detained in Texas in one of those encounters,
Speaker 2: and border patrol then handed them over to an ice
Speaker 2: processing center in Houston.
Speaker 7: Mei Lang and Guartos on the Tquito emails.
Speaker 1: So followed bor.
Speaker 2: Then Vivianna was separated from her mother. She was locked
Speaker 2: in a tiny cold room. She was told by the
Speaker 2: staff that she had tuberculosis. She didn't understand English at
Speaker 2: the time, so she panicked and she basically couldn't sleep.
Speaker 6: She said she was put in isolation for days, she
Speaker 6: couldn't tell if it was day or night. The only
Speaker 6: light she could see was from a TV that was
Speaker 6: always left on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just see tokyom. Then through the DC something broke
Speaker 1: inside of you. Ce Si Jo.
Speaker 7: Record, Gilma Maraami, MoMA, Lacentia, Tiquita.
Speaker 6: By then she was twenty eight years old, but she
Speaker 6: felt like a little girl again, crying and asking to
Speaker 6: speak with her mom. And then the vienna was transferred
Speaker 6: to Stuart Detention Center in Georgia.
Speaker 2: For most of the time that the Stuart Detention Facility
Speaker 2: has been open, it has housed mostly men. But something
Speaker 2: happened in Georgia and now women, immigrants and refugees were
Speaker 2: being transferred to Stuart.
Speaker 6: Yes, Maria, something that happened at another facility. You probably
Speaker 6: remember the horrific headlines.
Speaker 5: A group of Margaret women is coming forward with claims
Speaker 5: that they were the victims of unwanted and unnecessary medical
Speaker 5: procedures at a federal detention center in Georgia.
Speaker 2: It became a national story because the abuses that medical
Speaker 2: staff were accused of at Erwin included a gynecologist performing
Speaker 2: hysterectomies without the women knowing about it. Erwin was closed
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one because of this scandal, and some
Speaker 2: of the women who had been detained at Erwin were
Speaker 2: now transferred to Stuart, some one hundred miles west in
Speaker 2: the state of Georgia. The idea was that they would
Speaker 2: be safe from medical and sexual abuse if they were transferred,
Speaker 2: but in fact, Zeba, what did happen? Were the women
Speaker 2: who were transferred to Stuart to keep them safe? Were
Speaker 2: they actually safe? And that's the question we had, which
Speaker 2: is how we meet Vivianna, the woman from Venezuela.
Speaker 6: During her first weeks detailed at Stuart, Vivianna had a
Speaker 6: urinary tract infection. She was prescribed medication that gave her
Speaker 6: a severe allergic reaction.
Speaker 2: Your face is swollen, your lips are swollen. You were
Speaker 2: unable to breathe, and you were feeling incredibly scared. She
Speaker 2: tells us that in that moment of total vulnerability, that's
Speaker 2: when she met this male nurse, a short white man
Speaker 2: with a beard. And we should warn you. The following
Speaker 2: descriptions of her visits are explicit. They are hard to
Speaker 2: listen to, but we also believe that they're necessary to
Speaker 2: understand what Viviana and other women go.
Speaker 7: Through may see Aki.
Speaker 2: So he's using a stethoscope to put it on your
Speaker 2: lower body. So I'm just to describe what you're showing
Speaker 2: me is that he takes the stethoscope and he basically
Speaker 2: puts it right where a woman's ovary might be.
Speaker 7: You are as yeah Aria.
Speaker 2: Vivianna told us that while examining her with the stethoscope,
Speaker 2: the nurse asked her to open her mouth and then
Speaker 2: to open it wider. He then stepped away and typed
Speaker 2: a question into Google Translate, and this made her feel
Speaker 2: even more uncomfortable and.
Speaker 4: Seek.
Speaker 2: So at this point he writes a note to you
Speaker 2: that asks you, if you have a boyfriend, punish noovo see.
Speaker 6: And then it happened again. Vivianna had problems with her eyes,
Speaker 6: and eyes eventually sent her back to the same male nurse.
Speaker 6: As Viviana entered the room, she felt uneasy. It was nighttime,
Speaker 6: the room was dimly lit and smelt of bleach. All
Speaker 6: Vivianna could think of was that that nurse was staring
Speaker 6: at her and they were all alone, mad alone. The
Speaker 6: nurse told Viviana to lower her pants, then he placed
Speaker 6: the statoscope near her vagina.
Speaker 7: As yeah uta si yes, yes, c como he torrado
Speaker 7: como sosios sonrea.
Speaker 1: Amidawa.
Speaker 6: While touching her, Viviana says the nurse made lude faces.
Speaker 9: U U.
Speaker 6: Viviana froze. She kept quiet and stared off into space,
Speaker 6: praying and asking herself why was this nurse doing this
Speaker 6: to her?
Speaker 2: This all made me remember what I saw over a
Speaker 2: decade ago when I reported for the frontline docu Mentory.
Speaker 2: I saw complaint boxes in a nice detention facility, but
Speaker 2: the complaint box was nailed shut. You couldn't even put
Speaker 2: a complaint in the box. And now Vivianna is telling
Speaker 2: us that there were posters at Stuart with the phone
Speaker 2: number and the poster said if you suffer from abuse, call.
Speaker 1: That No matter.
Speaker 5: Why that.
Speaker 6: Now there are posters everywhere seeing ICE has zero tolerance.
Speaker 6: But Viviana said they were just protocol and didn't do
Speaker 6: much to stop the abuse. Women who are abused in
Speaker 6: detention are supposed to be protected by the Prison Rape
Speaker 6: Elimination Act or PRIYA. That law says that people who
Speaker 6: are detailed have a right to speak out freely and
Speaker 6: report abuse and harassment.
Speaker 2: PRIA was created in two thousand and three, it took
Speaker 2: more than a decade to be fully extended into ICE
Speaker 2: detention because it's completely in the and from the criminal
Speaker 2: justice system. Three years after the Frontline documentary aired, Priya
Speaker 2: was finally extended to ICE detention centers in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: But that's still several years before Viviana was detained at Stewart.
Speaker 2: We're hearing from Vienna that she was being abused. So
Speaker 2: the question is is that what's happened that now there
Speaker 2: are just posters that say there's zero tolerance for sexual abuse.
Speaker 6: Maria. I've been talking to officials at ICE for quite
Speaker 6: a bit, exchanged dozens of emails, and this is what
Speaker 6: I've learned that one of the few things that has
Speaker 6: changed is that they conduct unannounced inspections of their facilities,
Speaker 6: and the agency has increased audits and inspections since you've
Speaker 6: investigated this topic. But activists, detainees and women we've spoken
Speaker 6: to feared it's not enough.
Speaker 2: The Southern Poy Law Center reviewed medical records and they
Speaker 2: showed that the male nurse had been working at the
Speaker 2: Stuart detention facility since at least twenty eighteen, and as
Speaker 2: we mentioned before, in twenty twenty one women were now
Speaker 2: being transferred to Stuart following the medical abuse scandal in Irwin,
Speaker 2: the other detention facility in Georgia. So once women started
Speaker 2: to arrive at Stuart, this nurse started seeing female patients,
Speaker 2: and Vivianna said, he started abusing them.
Speaker 1: This nurse and his abuse, you believe was not a secret.
Speaker 2: To anybody who had spent any time inside Stuart, whether
Speaker 2: they were his colleagues or people who were detained duci
Speaker 2: in Disquito Mundo Sabia de Ste Fermero Claro.
Speaker 6: After that second incident with the nurse, Viviana returned to
Speaker 6: her cell and broke down in tears. She told other
Speaker 6: detainees what happened to her, Dye, what the anasla il?
Speaker 2: So you feel like you were one of the people
Speaker 2: who helped the other women start naming what was happening.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Yama Nicarawa.
Speaker 6: May say solo women from different countries told her that
Speaker 6: these suffered similar abuses from the same male nurse. We've
Speaker 6: reviewed documents obtained by The Intercept, who first reported on
Speaker 6: the Stewart complaints, that show that at least five women
Speaker 6: came forward and complained against the male nurse.
Speaker 2: Coming up on Latino USA, we're gonna hear from Marii,
Speaker 2: another woman who was abused by the same male nurse,
Speaker 2: and what her story reveals about the way ICE handles
Speaker 2: complaints of sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: Stay with us, not debyas.
Speaker 9: Hi, dear listener. My name is Lenaldo Leos Junior, and
Speaker 9: I'm a producer with Latino USA. As a producer, part
Speaker 9: of my job is to speak with people from across
Speaker 9: the country and in some occasions travel around the United States.
Speaker 9: And this is something that Latino USA has been doing
Speaker 9: for thirty years, is bringing the voices from people across
Speaker 9: the country to the airwaves and to our podcast. Thank
Speaker 9: you for supporting us these past three decades, and I
Speaker 9: hope you stay with us for many more years to come.
Speaker 2: Hey, we're back. Before the break, we heard from Bivianna.
Speaker 2: She was held at the ICE Stewart Detention Center in Georgia.
Speaker 2: She says she sexually abused by medical staff there. And
Speaker 2: we're going to continue our investigation now with Saba Warci.
Speaker 2: She's the journalist from the PBS News Hour that we
Speaker 2: teamed up with for this story. Hey, Zeba, Hey.
Speaker 6: Maria, while with Vienna, was detained at Stewart, she heard
Speaker 6: about other women who had been assaulted by the same
Speaker 6: male nurse. One of them was another woman from Venezuela.
Speaker 6: We're calling her Mari.
Speaker 1: Oh La jeanyand Lois.
Speaker 6: Okay, okay, we're coming. We met Marie in November of
Speaker 6: twenty twenty two in a suburb of Chicago. She had
Speaker 6: her hair nicely tied up high up in a pony.
Speaker 6: She was wearing an all black outfit, and she had
Speaker 6: these big gold hoops and a necklace with honey popping
Speaker 6: on it.
Speaker 2: She pulls out these pictures on her phone that showed
Speaker 2: us her life before she came to the United States.
Speaker 5: She was a.
Speaker 1: Bodybuilder, made up. Come on, yeah, the Holy.
Speaker 2: Mati tells us that when she lived in Venezuela, she
Speaker 2: trained every day, but once she got detained at Stewart,
Speaker 2: she said that she was just too depressed to exercise
Speaker 2: and she started to gain weight.
Speaker 10: Look at that.
Speaker 2: Madi told us that like Bi Vienna, she also had
Speaker 2: grown up in a politically involved family in Venezuela, and
Speaker 2: that she decided to leave her country with her boyfriend
Speaker 2: in December of twenty twenty one to come to the
Speaker 2: United States.
Speaker 1: And finery.
Speaker 2: Because of what she had seen in Venezuela. The injustices
Speaker 2: she talks about. When she arrived in the United States,
Speaker 2: she thought that the pain would be over. Addi and
Speaker 2: her boyfriend crossed the border. They were both then held
Speaker 2: in Houston, and then they were separated and Marie was
Speaker 2: sent to Stuart in Georgia. She was only twenty two
Speaker 2: years old at the time. Shortly after Marie arrived on
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve of twenty twenty one, she had a
Speaker 2: routine checkup at Stuart.
Speaker 6: Mari was sent to a hallway filled with other women,
Speaker 6: detainees and nurses. She waited for two hours, and then
Speaker 6: she noticed that there was only one man in the area.
Speaker 6: She thought he was a doctor. She later found out
Speaker 6: that he was a nurse.
Speaker 2: It was that male nurse who had already spotted Mary.
Speaker 2: He then directed her to follow him to a small
Speaker 2: room for her checkup. He closed the door behind him,
Speaker 2: and Marie sat down on a chair.
Speaker 6: Ai Yas saying to this to you in Spanish.
Speaker 2: Hamas spoke to her in Spanish. He asked her some
Speaker 2: routine questions, and then he told her that she was
Speaker 2: very pretty. This put Mary on edge, and the nurse
Speaker 2: asked if she had ever had any surgeries. Maty told
Speaker 2: him yes, that she had had breast surgery. Mary says
Speaker 2: that when she responded, the nurse then got excited and
Speaker 2: stared at her chest. As a moment, the nurse asked
Speaker 2: her some other medical questions, and then he told her
Speaker 2: to lay down on the examination table. Now what happens
Speaker 2: next is disturbing to hear. It is, but it's also
Speaker 2: really important in order to understand the consequences that these
Speaker 2: actions had on MARII. So while it's hard, please don't
Speaker 2: turn away.
Speaker 6: The nurse told Mary to pull up her shirt. When
Speaker 6: she did, he hovered over her.
Speaker 7: Your pience, okay, okayo consume him.
Speaker 2: So he's pushing his penis up against your hand that
Speaker 2: is next to your body because you're on a you're
Speaker 2: on a stretcher.
Speaker 7: Basically, yell comsa amavarse commno.
Speaker 6: He then came closer to her and trapped her hand,
Speaker 6: pushed himself very close to her, and used her hand
Speaker 6: to masturbate him over his clothes.
Speaker 5: She was shattered.
Speaker 3: Yment Vetrosa.
Speaker 2: I was suddenly taken back to twenty eleven when I
Speaker 2: was reporting for the PBS documentary and it was these
Speaker 2: very similar stories and so it's so hard to see
Speaker 2: that this is still happening more than a decade later. Now,
Speaker 2: both Marii and Bibiana, among other women, decided that they
Speaker 2: were going to report what had happened to them, so
Speaker 2: they took agency. They filed complaints against ICE and against
Speaker 2: cor Civic. Corcivic is the private company that manages the
Speaker 2: Stewart Detention Center where Muddy and Bibiana were held. Now.
Speaker 1: Cor Civic is not new.
Speaker 2: It used to be known as Corrections Corporation of America
Speaker 2: and they've been around for a while ZEBA.
Speaker 6: Yes, and Courcivic is the largest prison corporation in the
Speaker 6: United States. It manages eleven detention centers, including Stuart. In
Speaker 6: twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, the company made
Speaker 6: nearly a billion dollars in public money, with more than
Speaker 6: half of that coming from ice detention centers. And get this,
Speaker 6: When President Joe Biden took office in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 6: he signed an executive order phasing out privately managed federal prisons,
Speaker 6: but companies like Courcivic can still manage ICE facilities.
Speaker 2: It's that double standard that allows immigrants to be more vulnerable.
Speaker 1: They don't have the same.
Speaker 6: Rights, and according to advocates, accountability is an even bigger
Speaker 6: challenge in detention centers run by these private companies. This
Speaker 6: is Leila Rasavi, who heads Freedom for Immigrants, a national
Speaker 6: advocacy group.
Speaker 11: It's already a challenge to get ICE to do anything
Speaker 11: and investigate its own employees, and so I think when
Speaker 11: it comes to exercising that type of accountability over a
Speaker 11: private entity, it's that much harder to really get transparency
Speaker 11: for what's happening or any type of reformer change.
Speaker 6: In ICE's own reports and public records. We found that
Speaker 6: between twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two, there were
Speaker 6: at least five allegations of sexual abuse at Stewart. That
Speaker 6: is in addition to Viviana Mari and other women who've
Speaker 6: alleged sexual assault by the male nurse.
Speaker 2: At this point in our investigation, we want to stop
Speaker 2: and take a look at the big picture when it
Speaker 2: comes to accountability for sexual abuse in ICE detention. So Zeba,
Speaker 2: you requested data from the Department of Homeland Security, right.
Speaker 5: Yes, Maria.
Speaker 6: I wanted to understand how frequently immigrants are filing complaints
Speaker 6: about sexual abuse in ICE detention. Remember Priya, the lord
Speaker 6: that protects detainees, says that there is zero tolerance for
Speaker 6: sexual abuse and detention. I wanted to know what was
Speaker 6: ICE doing about these complaints, So after waiting for six months,
Speaker 6: I received data from the Department of Homeland Security or DHS,
Speaker 6: which supervisors ICE.
Speaker 1: So tell me what you found.
Speaker 6: I got the latest federal data that's available, three hundred
Speaker 6: and eight complaints of sexual assault and abuse. They were
Speaker 6: filed between twenty five teen and twenty twenty one by
Speaker 6: immigrants who were held in ICE detention centers.
Speaker 2: When you think about it, that's actually a high number
Speaker 2: because we know that most people don't report rape or
Speaker 2: sexual assault or abuse. So think about immigrants who are
Speaker 2: in a detention facility and their feelings of vulnerability. So
Speaker 2: more than three hundred documented complaints is substantial.
Speaker 6: And in my reporting, I found that more than half
Speaker 6: of these complaints are against staff in detention centers, so
Speaker 6: they filed against ICE employees, contractual gods, and people who
Speaker 6: are supposed to protect detainees.
Speaker 2: That gives you a sense of the big picture in
Speaker 2: the data. But let's get back to Madi's story. What
Speaker 2: happened with Mady is that a female guard saw her
Speaker 2: and was worried about the abuse that made said was
Speaker 2: happening at Stewart. Mate said that that guard gave her
Speaker 2: a sheet in order to record her complaint.
Speaker 1: I am e la keras it's just a box. Marie
Speaker 1: didn't do it.
Speaker 2: Though she felt like writing down a complaint on a
Speaker 2: piece of paper and putting it into a complaint box,
Speaker 2: it just wasn't enough. This wasn't a complaint about a
Speaker 2: bad meal that she had in a restaurant. This was
Speaker 2: an assault.
Speaker 6: In early twenty twenty two, Mari reported the abuse to
Speaker 6: ICE and Corcivic. After the complaint was filed, Ice and
Speaker 6: Corcivic launched an internal investigation. Am Mari says that gods
Speaker 6: would constantly ask her if she was sure about the abuse,
Speaker 6: and threatened her with up to seven years in prison
Speaker 6: if she was lying. We've talked to other detainees and
Speaker 6: they've also told us that they've been scared to complain
Speaker 6: because they feared retaliation, but some still decide to speak
Speaker 6: up despite the potential consequences. One of those women was
Speaker 6: deteamed in Florida, so we went there with our team
Speaker 6: to see where she was held in detention.
Speaker 2: In November of twenty twenty two, Zeba and I flew
Speaker 2: to Miami. This time we got in a car and
Speaker 2: we drove to the Glades County Detention Center. We can
Speaker 2: see an ice, big ice sign for one particular entrance,
Speaker 2: all in big red letters.
Speaker 6: I think another thing with Clades is just how remote
Speaker 6: it is. It's not next to any major city in Florida.
Speaker 6: It is rural in Florida.
Speaker 2: To get there, we drove through a vast landscape of
Speaker 2: sugar cane fields, which took us more than two and
Speaker 2: a half hours away from downtown Miami. Now this makes
Speaker 2: it really hard for family members and lawyers to visit detainees.
Speaker 6: One of the women who was detained at Leeds County
Speaker 6: Detention Center was mart Lissa Joseph. For the last year
Speaker 6: and a half, while she was still in attention, I
Speaker 6: have been in touch with Merdlissa.
Speaker 12: Hi, Melissa, and it's so good to hear from you.
Speaker 6: How are you doing today?
Speaker 8: I'm fining yourself.
Speaker 6: We chatted frequently on the phone, so her voice might
Speaker 6: be a little harder to understand sometimes, hide is still okay.
Speaker 6: Merdlissa is from the Bahamas. She arrived in the US
Speaker 6: in twenty thirteen, when she was just fifteen years old.
Speaker 6: She came with her mother, grandmother, and her younger sister
Speaker 6: escaping from an abusive relative.
Speaker 2: While Merlissa was in the United States, she was an
Speaker 2: excellent student. She got straight a's. If you look at
Speaker 2: her graduation picture, you see this beautiful black teenager with gleaming,
Speaker 2: big eyes and a very big, proud smile. After high school,
Speaker 2: she enrolled at a university in Florida. She had plans
Speaker 2: to become a lawyer.
Speaker 6: In college, she met a guy ten years older than her.
Speaker 6: She started skipping classes to be with him, and when
Speaker 6: he got caught in a robbery, Merlissa was with him.
Speaker 6: According to her lawyer, at nineteen years old, she was arrested.
Speaker 5: I was still a kid.
Speaker 8: Thanks to America, advertised as the land of second Chances,
Speaker 8: the land of forgiveness. I don't feel forgiven.
Speaker 5: I don't see a second chance.
Speaker 6: Martlissa spent almost two years in prison after serving her sentence.
Speaker 6: Instead of being released, she was transferred to Ice detention
Speaker 6: in twenty twenty one. This is a common practice for
Speaker 6: people who are immigrants. Marlissa was transferred to Glades County
Speaker 6: detention center, and she found that her experience in Iiced
Speaker 6: detention was even worse than prison.
Speaker 8: The college. You never had the world but wireism on
Speaker 8: none of that. You never had to worry about Sharon
Speaker 8: o'showow and like none of that.
Speaker 5: And then I came to Glade and I was like
Speaker 5: what She says that the bathrooms were open and that
Speaker 5: she had heard from other women that the guards had
Speaker 5: a direct view of what was going on in the bathroom.
Speaker 12: Do you also to see the shock of shadow went?
Speaker 5: I was like, hey, you see it was a male
Speaker 5: and how often did this happen?
Speaker 12: Like?
Speaker 2: Okday issue.
Speaker 6: PRIA.
Speaker 2: The law we talked about earlier that is supposed to
Speaker 2: protect detainees from sexual abuse, prohibits cross gender viewing. Half
Speaker 2: a dozen women we spoke to confirmed that this was
Speaker 2: a norm at Glades. Marlisa tells us that when she
Speaker 2: was moved to Glades, her depression from her traumatic childhood
Speaker 2: got worse. So one morning she went to see the psychiatrist.
Speaker 6: She told us that when she entered the room, the doctor,
Speaker 6: a white, middle aged man, was staring at her. She
Speaker 6: recalled that his eyes trailed the nape of her neck,
Speaker 6: going all the way down.
Speaker 8: To her thighs. He made no more comments about the uniformer. Oh,
Speaker 8: next time we tidy uniform.
Speaker 6: She was all alone with him in a small room.
Speaker 6: It smelt very strongly of antiseptic and bleach. Wr Lissa
Speaker 6: could feel the room shrinking.
Speaker 1: I felt uncomfortable.
Speaker 8: I felt really uncomfortable.
Speaker 6: And the inappropriate behavior continued on her next visit.
Speaker 5: And one time you told me that, oh, you very
Speaker 5: beautifuls remind me of my wife.
Speaker 8: Oh, by the way, I love foreigner, my wife and
Speaker 8: a foreigner herself comment towards you.
Speaker 6: Merlissa felt triggered. The doctor's comments took her back to
Speaker 6: the abuse she experienced in the Bahamas as a young teen.
Speaker 8: Our bead abuse than the past.
Speaker 1: That's what really pushed my mom to even bring.
Speaker 8: Us through the that is saith.
Speaker 2: But even though Merlissa was feeling vulnerable and triggered, she
Speaker 2: actually makes a decision to complain.
Speaker 6: Yes, Maria. Marlissa joined six other women and filed a
Speaker 6: civil rights complaint with the Department of Homeland Security against
Speaker 6: the psychiatrist of Glades, accusing him of sexual harassment. They
Speaker 6: also complained about sexual voyeurism. Remember the open showers and
Speaker 6: medical neglect at that center.
Speaker 2: So let's zoom out for a second, because we have
Speaker 2: another woman now and another immigrant detention facility who's also
Speaker 2: filing a complaint. So Zeba tell us what happens when
Speaker 2: a person does file a complaint. I mean, what else
Speaker 2: did you find in those more than three hundred complaints
Speaker 2: that you showed me earlier?
Speaker 6: Here they are, Maria, as you can see, oh wow,
Speaker 6: we need a magnifying glass. But as you can see,
Speaker 6: this is.
Speaker 5: Heavily Wait wait, is this.
Speaker 1: How they sent it to you? Yep.
Speaker 2: So it's pages after pages of the complaints. The way
Speaker 2: they send it to you. It's like really teeny tiny
Speaker 2: font and then there's a lot of redaction, Like in
Speaker 2: this one, half of the complaint is redacted. In this one,
Speaker 2: a third of the complaint is redacted. So what else
Speaker 2: were you able to find from this paperwork that you've
Speaker 2: just showed me?
Speaker 6: I requested certain data about sexual assault and sexual abuse
Speaker 6: complaints that were filed by immigrants in detention centers, and
Speaker 6: this is what I get in response.
Speaker 2: I mean, what's incredible is that you just have like
Speaker 2: so many in this one column. It's like Priya, Priya, Priya, Priya,
Speaker 2: so that definitely stands out for me.
Speaker 6: They have made it difficult for us to really read
Speaker 6: this data in many cases, Maria. As you can see
Speaker 6: the columns which are supposed to tell us whether a
Speaker 6: case was investigated, whether it was opened, whether it was closed,
Speaker 6: that column is left blank. The Office of Civil Rights
Speaker 6: and Civil Liberties or CrCL as they are known, is
Speaker 6: the body within the Department of Homeland Security that investigates
Speaker 6: these complaints. In fact, that is the body that released
Speaker 6: this data to us, Maria. But when this office submits
Speaker 6: its findings after an investigation, they submit it to ICE,
Speaker 6: and ICE can object what details can be made public
Speaker 6: and what needs to be redacted, and that is why
Speaker 6: most of what we see here is redacted.
Speaker 2: So it means that ICE is kind of investigating itself
Speaker 2: and also making decisions about what shouldar shouldn't be public,
Speaker 2: when essentially it should be public.
Speaker 6: Well that is how we would imagine it to be.
Speaker 6: But ICE sight's privacy and security concerns, and that argument
Speaker 6: holds when it comes to four YUR norms. But the
Speaker 6: parts that we can read in these documents, Maria, they're
Speaker 6: very graphic and disturbing descriptions of sexual abuse cases stories
Speaker 6: similar to the ones we've heard from Viviana, from Mari
Speaker 6: and now from mar Lissa so Zeba.
Speaker 2: Were you able to find out anything about what happened
Speaker 2: to these sexual abuse complaints and whether or not they
Speaker 2: were actually investigated.
Speaker 6: Not clearly from these documents, because, like I said, many
Speaker 6: columns pertaining two investigations are left blank. But asper IS's
Speaker 6: own latest audit by CrCL, the office that performs these investigations,
Speaker 6: only one in four complaints actually get investigated.
Speaker 1: Wow, one in four, okay.
Speaker 6: And there's another way that cases of abuse stay unresolved
Speaker 6: and there are no consequences against perpetrators. Detainees are transferred
Speaker 6: from one detention center to another.
Speaker 2: So we saw this right because after the medical abuse
Speaker 2: scandal at Irwin in Georgia, that facility is closed and
Speaker 2: the women are transferred to another detention center in Georgia.
Speaker 2: This time it's Stuart and in fact that's where Vivianna
Speaker 2: and Marie were held. So it's using these transfers in
Speaker 2: order to not deal with the issue, essentially shuffling it off.
Speaker 6: And these women were not only transferred, they were also
Speaker 6: potentially exposed to abuse. Again, as we've seen with the
Speaker 6: complaints against the male nurse.
Speaker 1: So this stands out in this story.
Speaker 2: Zeba the notion that transfers are being used in a
Speaker 2: kind of pattern. Instead of dealing with the problem, you
Speaker 2: make a transfer.
Speaker 6: And Maria, it's not just a pattern that has emerged
Speaker 6: in our reporting. Advocates like Leila Rasavi from Freedom for Immigrants,
Speaker 6: who we heard from earlier, says that ICE also uses
Speaker 6: transfers to punish people who complain. A report from her
Speaker 6: organization found that since twenty seventeen, ICE has closed thirty
Speaker 6: six detention centers across the country, and many immigrants who
Speaker 6: were in those centers were not released. Instead, they were
Speaker 6: transferred to other detention facilities.
Speaker 11: This often happened, in particular in places where people were organizing,
Speaker 11: where they were challenging their detention, and so an easy
Speaker 11: way for us to punish the person and retaliate against
Speaker 11: them is to get rid of them, to move them.
Speaker 6: The fear of punishment. The fear of retaliation didn't stop Merlissa,
Speaker 6: the woman from the Bahamas we heard from earlier, from
Speaker 6: speaking up about the abuse she faced, But even after
Speaker 6: she filed a civil rights complaint against Glades, she said
Speaker 6: that nothing changed.
Speaker 2: Merlisa told us that for nearly two months after she
Speaker 2: filed the complaint, the accused psychiatrist kept on working at Glades.
Speaker 12: Nobody wanted to make.
Speaker 5: Talk with them again, and very nice that I didn't even.
Speaker 7: I made that quite.
Speaker 6: Glades was finally closed in April twenty twenty two, but
Speaker 6: it wasn't because of the sexual harassment plans. It was
Speaker 6: because of a carbon monoxide leak that almost killed three people.
Speaker 2: When Glades was closed, ICE transferred women to the Baker
Speaker 2: County Detention Center, five hours north of Glades, and Merlissa
Speaker 2: was one of those people transferred.
Speaker 6: When we spoke to Merlissa months after she was transferred
Speaker 6: to Baker, the new facility, she regretted, complaining about Glades.
Speaker 8: Oh my gosh, I say, it's one hundred times like
Speaker 8: the articles are more. Did you successful? Look like we
Speaker 8: went from badworth.
Speaker 2: So we're seeing that one ICE detention center closes, that
Speaker 2: women are just transferred and then sexually abused and harassed again.
Speaker 2: And this is according to their testimonies. We saw this
Speaker 2: first in Georgia, and now with Marlissa's story, we're seeing
Speaker 2: it happen in Florida.
Speaker 6: It's clear that moving detainees around is not keeping them safe,
Speaker 6: but as of now, ICE continues to operate around one
Speaker 6: hundred detention facilities across the country. Despite the fear of punishment.
Speaker 6: Mardlissa and four other women wrote open letters about conditions
Speaker 6: at Baker County Detention Center. That's the second facility where
Speaker 6: Merlissa was transferred to after Glades in Florida. The women
Speaker 6: detailed sexual abuse, voyeurism, medical neglect, racial slurs, and poor
Speaker 6: sanitary conditions at Baker.
Speaker 2: In fact, up to her very last days in detention,
Speaker 2: Merlissa kept on criticizing ICE just.
Speaker 8: Because they are then they look at it as you
Speaker 8: haven't all right, So I feel like that's why they
Speaker 8: don't care. But if ICE will stop all the transfers
Speaker 8: in put a stop for all of this. But instead
Speaker 8: of like, ICE is so aramant about keeping you away
Speaker 8: from your family and.
Speaker 7: It's sad.
Speaker 6: In February of twenty twenty three, a Baker guard came
Speaker 6: up to mart Lissa to take her to the office.
Speaker 6: Marlissa's lawyer told us that she thought that she was
Speaker 6: finally going to be released. Instead, that same day, Martlissa
Speaker 6: was devoted back to the Bahamas, a country that she
Speaker 6: barely remembers and she has no family. In her dream
Speaker 6: remains to come back to the United States.
Speaker 2: Coming up on Latino USA, we follow up with Viviana
Speaker 2: and Marie, the women from Venezuela who say they were
Speaker 2: abused at the Stuart Detention Center in Georgia. We follow
Speaker 2: them as they continue their fight to hold ICE accountable,
Speaker 2: and we try to get answers from ICE and cour
Speaker 2: Civic as to why complaints about alleged abuses continue to
Speaker 2: happen under their care.
Speaker 1: Stay with us, not the Bayas.
Speaker 12: Hello. My name is Shirley Gonzalez. I'm from San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 12: I remember listening to Latino USA in the mid nineties.
Speaker 12: I had just graduated from college and my brother and
Speaker 12: I worked together and at twelve o'clock on our local
Speaker 12: station on Friday afternoons, Latino USA would come on, and
Speaker 12: that was when I would close the door and said
Speaker 12: I had a very important meeting, and I would sit
Speaker 12: in silence just listening to Latino USA and listening to Maria.
Speaker 12: I know HOOFA and it was such an important part
Speaker 12: of my upbringing in those early years after college. Thank
Speaker 12: you so much to Latino USA. I feel like we've
Speaker 12: grown up together.
Speaker 2: Hey, we're back. Before the break, we learned how Merlissa
Speaker 2: Joseph and other women held at a detention center in
Speaker 2: Florida filed a complaint against a psychiatrist who they say
Speaker 2: abused them. After Glades closed, women like Marlissa were transferred
Speaker 2: to another detention facility in the state, where she says
Speaker 2: she was also sexually harassed, a pattern that we've already
Speaker 2: seen play out in Georgia as well. So Zeba, can
Speaker 2: you give us an update on Bivienna and Marie, the
Speaker 2: Venezuelan women we met at the beginning of our story
Speaker 2: and who were detained at Stuart in Georgia.
Speaker 6: Two days before her birthday. In December of twenty twenty one,
Speaker 6: Viviana was finally released from Stuart.
Speaker 7: Condo Yomlo Graya mikas Ali.
Speaker 6: After being in detention for nearly three months. The feeling
Speaker 6: of being out of Stuart was sadrial. Viviana moved to
Speaker 6: Texas to be with her family. Her mom organized a
Speaker 6: little party with other family members, but Viviana wasn't in
Speaker 6: the mood to celebrate.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we wanted to hus see Kaya.
Speaker 2: She says that as her family gathered for the occasion,
Speaker 2: she kept to herself and remained quiet. Her mental health
Speaker 2: was deeply affected by her time and attention. She says
Speaker 2: she suffered from anxiety and depression and had frequent nightmares.
Speaker 5: Alio Looka.
Speaker 6: Vivianna said that her family told her that she was
Speaker 6: acting like she was out of her mind. For almost
Speaker 6: two years, she says that she has been under psychiatric treatment.
Speaker 2: Now let's talk about Marie, the other Venezuelan woman who
Speaker 2: we heard from earlier.
Speaker 6: Mari was also released. Her legal team told us that
Speaker 6: the release documents cite severe obesis and.
Speaker 1: When we just met you, you are the furthest thing
Speaker 1: from obese.
Speaker 2: MARII suspects that I in fact released her in order
Speaker 2: to silence her, because she says there were women at
Speaker 2: Stuart who were being abused by the same person every
Speaker 2: single day. The day that Mary finally left Stuart, she
Speaker 2: remembers hearing the sounds of birds. She says she never
Speaker 2: valued her freedom more than she did on that day,
Speaker 2: and yet the pain of being detained and abused has
Speaker 2: also taken a toll on her mental health. After the abuse,
Speaker 2: she didn't recognize herself when she looked in the mirror, Yeah, you.
Speaker 10: Know, Parisindia Dani Minsimini Visili.
Speaker 2: Marie says she started to believe that she didn't have
Speaker 2: a right to wear nice clothes, to put on makeup,
Speaker 2: to even be fit again. She says she often felt
Speaker 2: like she didn't matter anymore, that she was just immensely invisible.
Speaker 6: This month, it's been about a year since Viviana and
Speaker 6: Marie filed their public sexual abuse complaints, but there's still
Speaker 6: no resolution. I have been requesting an interview with ICE
Speaker 6: for nearly two years to ask about what they've been
Speaker 6: doing to address sexual abuse allegations, and also about Marie
Speaker 6: and Viviana's complaints and what's happened Maria. I only got
Speaker 6: a written response, and this is part of what it says.
Speaker 2: So it says ICE holds its personnel, including contractors, to
Speaker 2: the highest standards of professional and ethical behavior. The agency
Speaker 2: takes all allegations of misconduct seriously. I would say that's
Speaker 2: a pretty standard statement. They're not really saying anything deep
Speaker 2: here exactly.
Speaker 6: And besides ICE, I've also tried interviewing Courcivic, the private
Speaker 6: prison company that manages Steward Detention Center. In an email
Speaker 6: a public affairs manager of cour Civic route, if a
Speaker 6: detainee is found to be at substantial risk of imminent
Speaker 6: sexual abuse, immediate action is taken to protect the individual.
Speaker 6: Any potentially criminal allegation of sexual abuse is immediately referred
Speaker 6: to law enforcement and shared with our government partner.
Speaker 2: So what did happen to the male nurse that Marii
Speaker 2: and Vinsa sexually abused them?
Speaker 1: After all?
Speaker 6: Well, the accused nurse doesn't work at Stewart anymore. Courcivic
Speaker 6: confirmed that he put on administrative leave in August of
Speaker 6: twenty twenty two, eight months after Viviana and mari say
Speaker 6: they were abused, But so far his license has not
Speaker 6: been revoked. In fact, I have tried calling him several times,
Speaker 6: We've sent him our questions, but we've received no response.
Speaker 6: We also asked ICE and Courcivic if the nurse is
Speaker 6: still receiving any benefits or if he remains employed at
Speaker 6: another facility, but they did not respond. For now, Stewart
Speaker 6: Detention Center is still in operation and is still detaining immigrants,
Speaker 6: so ze about.
Speaker 2: One of the things that also hasn't changed in my
Speaker 2: decades of reporting on this issue is that the institutions,
Speaker 2: and the government will simply say we can't respond. It's
Speaker 2: a way in which they continue to not deal with
Speaker 2: the fact that we're uncovering these kinds of abuses.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, Maria, and I can imagine your frustration having reported
Speaker 6: on this issue for so many years, because I have
Speaker 6: felt it over the last two years, so many emails
Speaker 6: that I've written to Ice, so many emails that I've
Speaker 6: written to cour Civic asking them what they have to
Speaker 6: say about specific allegations that these women are raising. But
Speaker 6: it's been so tough to get through to them.
Speaker 2: It's a way in which it becomes an institutional problem
Speaker 2: and we get brushed off, and yet you know, the
Speaker 2: story continues. So we decided to catch up with Mary
Speaker 2: to see how she feels about the fact that for her,
Speaker 2: there's still no resolution to her complaint. Marie told us
Speaker 2: that she has found solace in becoming an activist. She
Speaker 2: traveled back to Georgia last year to attend a shutdown Stewart.
Speaker 1: Protest he Toyaki with your Yo, Mira me.
Speaker 2: Marie says that her biggest motivation is to tell us
Speaker 2: I'm here, you did this to me, Look at me,
Speaker 2: you didn't kill me, I'm here.
Speaker 6: And Viviana also demands the closure of Stuart Detention Center.
Speaker 7: What does justice look like for youa?
Speaker 9: The in.
Speaker 2: Viviana wants the nurse to be brought to criminal court
Speaker 2: and that he shouldn't be allowed to work in any
Speaker 2: detention center again.
Speaker 6: The Jojo Buro of Investigation or gb I, took Viviana
Speaker 6: and Mari's case last year. Gb I told us that
Speaker 6: it has completed its investigator and submitted its finding to
Speaker 6: the District Attorney's office. The DA's office did not respond
Speaker 6: to our questions. Neither Mari nor Viviana or other complainants
Speaker 6: have been given an update yet. Meanwhile, Mari fears that
Speaker 6: the nurse is out there and free. Soyo sola me
Speaker 6: so mocha. Viviana and Mari have become each other's support system.
Speaker 3: Ozziamramat record that.
Speaker 2: Mari says they try to keep in touch, but tells
Speaker 2: us sometimes the trauma just gets in the way of
Speaker 2: them becoming closer. They don't want to relive their time
Speaker 2: at Stewart, but at the same time, they both understand
Speaker 2: what each other went through. When we last spoke to
Speaker 2: Mari in May, she was suffering from facial paralysis, she says.
Speaker 2: Her doctor says it's caused by cumulative stress, including her
Speaker 2: time at Stewart.
Speaker 6: But while she recovers, she hopes to start working out
Speaker 6: again man it is a form of therapy for her.
Speaker 6: Mary jokes about getting into bodybuilding again and even competing.
Speaker 6: Some of her friends are cheering her own.
Speaker 2: As for Viviana, she has a big reason to keep
Speaker 2: getting stronger to heal, and that's because she recently had
Speaker 2: her first baby's.
Speaker 1: Ni barakal.
Speaker 4: Me.
Speaker 2: She felt that her baby arrived just at the right time.
Speaker 2: Her depression and anxiety have eased a little, but she
Speaker 2: still wants to go back to therapy.
Speaker 6: Viviana has sent us photos of the baby via text,
Speaker 6: and they're absolutely adorable. In the photo of the baby's
Speaker 6: eyes are closed while sucking on an aquamarine pacifier. She's
Speaker 6: draped in a tiny pink knitted hat. Mari is also
Speaker 6: so happy for.
Speaker 3: Her friend danaciosuvawemoza simpretra simpretra sola.
Speaker 2: She says Vivianna's baby girl is just beautiful, and she
Speaker 2: says she tries to watch out for Viviana so that
Speaker 2: she doesn't feel so alone. While both women are in
Speaker 2: a very public battle over their cases. Many sexual abuse
Speaker 2: complaints are still waiting to be instigated. Will there be
Speaker 2: criminal charges for the staff who was accused of committing abuses?
Speaker 2: How will the Department of Homeland Security step in to investigate?
Speaker 2: And above all, what measures will ICE take to prevent
Speaker 2: this from continuing to happen. I've been reporting on these
Speaker 2: types of abuses for over a decade, and Zeba is
Speaker 2: doing it now and more reporters we hope will continue
Speaker 2: to do this kind of reporting in the next generation. Meanwhile, Viviana,
Speaker 2: Marii and Marlissa, along with other women, continue their personal
Speaker 2: journeys to.
Speaker 1: Speak out and to heal immensely.
Speaker 2: Invisible is an original production by Foot Duo Investigates in
Speaker 2: collaboration with Latino USA. This episode was reported by Zaba
Speaker 2: Warsi and myself. Our senior producer was Roxanne Scott, Froxada
Speaker 2: Guire and Sophia Sanchez where our associate producers. This episode
Speaker 2: was edited by Marta Martinez, fact checking by Amy Tardif,
Speaker 2: Scoring and sound designed by Jacob Rosati, mixeding by Stephanie
Speaker 2: Lebo and Gabriel Abias. Penny Lei Ramirez is the executive
Speaker 2: producer of Uturo Investigates along with myself. Nancy Trujillo and
Speaker 2: Raoul Peesino Josa are our project managers. Dorri mar Marquez
Speaker 2: is our production assistant. Our production assistant intern is Luisa Sugar.
Speaker 2: The Latino USA team also includes Andrea Lopez Grussado, Mike Sargent,
Speaker 2: Desi Contreras, Victoria Estrada, Renaldo Leanos Junior, Patrisa Sulbaran, and
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Loenthal Torres. Our editorial director is Fernando Santos. Our
Speaker 2: senior engineer is Julia Caruso. Our associate engineer is jj Carubin.
Speaker 2: Our marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme music was
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Speaker 2: Invisible and to read our articles, please visit our website.
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