Transgender and LGBTQ+ detainees at the women’s ICE Processing Center in Basile, Louisiana, allege systemic physical and emotional abuse between 2023 and 2025, a period spanning two presidential administrations, reported Dan Gooding in Newsweek Sept. 27.

Complaints filed by the ACLU, the National Immigration Project, and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, say the abuse included sexual and physical assaults and denial of medical attention.

Monica Renteria-Gonzalez, a transgender who identifies as a male, told Newsweek of harassment by Manuel Reyes, a former ICE assistant warden. Reyes harassed him everywhere he went, said Renteria-Gonzalez, following him around the recreation yard, sitting by him in the dining hall to make him uncomfortable, and following him into the dorm.

Renteria-Gonzalez also told Newsweek that Reyes created an ad hoc work program, sometimes consisting of purposeless work, without proper PPE and with little or no pay, which targeted transgender detainees.

“One example of such labor was pushing heavy cinder blocks or metal cabinets across a dorm, taking around 30 minutes, before the detainee was instructed to push the items back where they came from,” wrote Gooding.

Officials summarily dismissed complaints about mistreatment, according to Sarah Decker, staff attorney at RFK Human Rights. “If this person complained about the abusive conditions … the response was always, ‘If you wanna be a man, I’ll treat you like a man,’” Decker said. She told Newsweek that Reyes designed the program to target, through punishment and physical torture, transgender men and masculine presenting LGBTQ+ persons.

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin dismissed the allegations as smears that are contributing to a 1000% increase in threats against ICE officers. ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility investigated the claims and found them to be false, said McLaughlin. “Nobody was forced into coerced labor…Nobody was physically abused. And nobody was denied proper medical care.”

GEO Group runs the detention center as an ICE contractor. A spokesperson said, “GEO strongly disagrees with these baseless allegations,” arguing that the allegations are politically motivated, and part of a radical war to abolish ICE and to end federal immigration detention by making baseless accusations against ICE contractors.

Renteria-Gonzalez rejects official denials of the abuses. “It’s not true. It’s a total lie,” he said, adding that victims of abuse in the centers don’t speak up out of fear of retribution by ICE officials through deportation. “Because they know that, at the end of the day, we are in ICE’s hands to do with us whatever they want.”

Decker said that organizations advocating for immigrants believe the sort of abuse alleged by Renteria-Gonzalez is pervasive in ICE detention facilities, especially in the women’s facilities. “There’s a really intense and disturbing paper trail of ICE’s knowledge of what was happening in this facility,” she said. “This is part of a system of neglect and abuse.”