Dispatches from Detention shares stories of people encountered by RFK Human Rights attorneys in legal outreach trips to the country’s most isolated immigration detention centers. Names have been changed to protect privacy. 

Buffalo Federal Detention Facility, Batavia, New York 

“When will this end?”

– Marcus, a lawful permanent resident

Marcus, a Black man in his 30s, is a lawful permanent resident, father of four U.S. citizens and has lived in the U.S. since he was two years old. He also lives with a panic disorder. During a medical emergency, he suffered an anxiety attack when doctors drew his blood and struck a medical provider. He was eventually convicted of assault. 

He has now been detained at the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in rural Batavia, New York for over five months. He’s fighting his deportation case, with no end to his ICE detention in sight.

Marcus isn’t just facing prolonged detention—he’s doing it without an attorney. Currently, nearly 80% of detained people are not represented by an attorney. Legal access depends on geography, income, language, and luck. 

ICE imprisons people like Martin in remote detention centers in order to isolate them in “legal deserts,” where attorneys are scarce. Private attorneys are unaffordable, because the private prison companies who hold 86% of people in ICE detention maximize their profits by using detained people as cheap labor, paying them only $1 per day to clean cells and prepare food. Pro bono legal services are also limited, both because of capacity constraints and because detention center officials impede access to attorneys with restrictions on phone time and visitation.

Alone, detained people must prepare a legal defense before an immigration judge, squaring off against a government attorney fighting for their deportation. Unlike criminal detention, where the U.S. Constitution guarantees a right to a speedy trial and bail is available to those who can pay, immigration detention can drag on for years without an end in sight. And release on bail is impossible due to harsh laws that require mandatory detention during immigration proceedings. Simply to gain access to a hearing with an immigration judge for a chance at bail, people like Marcus must file a lawsuit in a federal court, without an attorney, to challenge the constitutionality of their prolonged mandatory detention.

Against this backdrop, access to legal aid is not just deficient. It is now under attack. The federal government has defunded key programs for lawyers for detained people lacking mental capacity to even understand what removal proceedings are. Federal officials accuse public interest lawyers fighting for their clients’ rights of abusing the legal system. And government attorneys are now under order to pursue sanctions against immigration attorneys fighting for their clients’ rights.

In the meantime, as the months of his detention wind on without an end in sight, Marcus waits for a chance to see an immigration judge, along with 59,000 other people held daily in immigration detention.