How ICE detainees traverse a road to nowhere

15 transfers. 11 facilities. 4,800 miles. A man first detained in Florida spent 30 days in a federal detention center in Hawaii.

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CUFFED detainees are escorted to vans at the federal building in L.A. on June 7.

(CARLIN STIEHL Los Angeles Times)

From January through July, 12% of those detained have been transferred at least four times. In the first half of 2024, 6% of detainees were transferred four or more times.

Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, said transfers have been used as a retaliatory tactic for those who make requests, file complaints or stage protests such as hunger strikes. Transfers move people from places where they may already have an attorney or where there are established legal-services organizations to a place that is unfamiliar and where there may be fewer resources for detained migrants.

ICE moves people from temporary holding spaces to more long-term housing as they prepare detainees for deportation. But, as a result, they could be sent far from loved ones, professional organizations, church groups and other community networks. They miss out on in-person visits from family and instead have to pay for phone or video calls. Ghandehari said she believes this isolation is deliberate.

"Conditions are bad because it's meant to be a deterrent," Ghandehari said. "So it's also part of the way the system is set up. And I think transfers play into that more than people realize."

On July 18, a 20-year-old man was deported from the Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana to Honduras. Two months prior, on May 13, he was arrested outside Orlando, Fla., and then transferred 15 times back and forth across the country between facilities in Florida, California, Arizona, Hawaii and finally Louisiana.

He had no criminal history. Public ICE data do not show whether he had an attorney or was fighting his case to remain in the country.