EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The empty room held three aluminum benches, a toilet shielded only by two 4-foot barriers and a telephone on the wall.

It was hard to see the inside of a contiguous room because more than a dozen men blocked the view as they looked out through glass windows to see their belongings placed in sacks for storage.

For 9 out of 10 of those men, the intake hall, dorms, kitchen and recreation areas of the El Paso Processing Center of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will be the America they remember when sent back to their countries in the next two to three months.

That’s because of the 90% asylum denial rate in an ICE El Paso Field Office that has seen 34,399 unauthorized migrants removed from the country since October 1. That’s nearly a four-fold increase from the 9,300 ordered out in fiscal year 2023.

The center currently houses 730 single adult males and females. Seventy-five percent of them had previous run-ins with the law in the United States or their home countries. Those with a history of misdemeanors wear orange jumpsuits. The ones in red allegedly committed crimes.

Still, all of them will have due process, a medical screening, access to legal resources and be treated humanely before an immigration judge decides their fate, said Mary De Anda-Ybarra, field office director of ICE in El Paso.

“They are not inmates; this is not punitive. […] We hold people in custody that are going through an immigration process,” De Anda-Ybarra said during a rare media tour of the ICE El Paso Processing Center. “We know that ICE sometimes has bad stories showing that individuals are being harassed, being tortured, that we are not caring for them properly. So, we want to be able to have that transparency.”

A history of abuse allegations

Records show the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security received 113 reports of alleged rights violations in El Paso between Oct. 1, 2022, and Feb. 8, 2024.

Almost half the complaints (44 percent) arose from a lack of communication between detainees and ICE staff; a third (34 percent) involved complaints about the food, and the rest alleged inadequate medical care and mistreatment.

One complaint last September involved staff members allegedly taunting and verbally abusing a detainee because of his sexual orientation.

Another dated Oct. 11 alleges a male detainee fought off a rape attempt by another male detainee in a bathroom, reported the incident and was told to “keep it to himself.”

Talking to detainees was off-limits during Tuesday’s walk-through a facility built in 1966 but going through renovations. A new dormitory is in the works and several new areas have gone up in recent decades.

The women’s dormitory has several metal bunk beds lined up in rows, with lunch tables near the entrance where a security guard sits behind a desk. The women have access to tablets they can take to their beds or plug into a router to communicate with their loved ones. Board games are available on request and each detainee can go to a courtyard for four hours each day.

The men not assigned red uniforms can volunteer for kitchen or maintenance detail and be paid $1 a day – consistent with most state prison pay scales.

Everyone who comes into the El Paso Processing Center (EPC) gets a medical checkup including chest X-rays to screen for tuberculosis or other health issues. It’s rare to see detainees come in with stab wounds or broken bones resulting from falls, or severe dehydration because those types of injuries usually are taken care of at hospitals.

The average stay at EPC is 66 days, with those facing criminal prosecution in the U.S. staying for a year or more.

An ICE official on Tuesday said conflicts between detainees are handled administratively inside the facility. But when a detainee assaults ICE personnel, they are referred for prosecution to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

New push toward transparency in El Paso

De Anda-Ybarra said not all migrants apprehended by the Border Patrol between ports of entry or U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the ports are routed to ICE. CBP has the discretion to place some migrants willing to go back to Mexico on expedited removal. In the last few months, Mexicans constitute the largest nationality among those being apprehended in the El Paso region.

“We have several countries that allow charters to go into their countries. We also have commercial (flight) removals. So besides having the diplomatic relations with Mexico to be able to return them here through the land border, we are also working with them for interior repatriation,” De Anda-Ybarra said.

Mexico and El Salvador are two countries cooperating with the U.S. to investigate the criminal histories of those held by ICE.

De Anda-Ybarra, an El Paso native who took over the reins of the El Paso Field Office 18 months ago, said several groups recently have toured the EPC. They include federal government monitors, congressional office staff, nonprofit groups and even representatives of international organizations.

“I am glad they are here – I am so glad you are here because I want to be able to show you that they (the migrants) are treated very well. It is organized, it is clean, they eat good food,” she said. “I joke around about people gaining weight here, but they do, because they are on a 2,500-calorie diet.”