This article was originally published by Truthout on Mar. 08, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license.
In November 2022, a long-time permanent resident of the U.S. was released from FCI Dublin, a California federal women’s prison. A probation officer had visited and approved her to stay at her mother’s home. The woman, who asked to be identified here by the pseudonym “Cristal” due to fear of retaliation, was looking forward to rebuilding relationships with her family, particularly her daughters — ages 12 and 6. “All I wanted was to spend the day with them,” she told Truthout.
She was also relieved to be out of Dublin, a notorious prison dubbed “the rape club” after decades of staff sexual abuse. At Dublin, she had been sexually harassed and verbally abused by an officer, physically assaulted by another, witnessed other officers sexually abusing women, and been subjected to retaliation.
Before her arrest, Cristal had been a long-time permanent resident of the U.S. Her conviction for drugs invalidated her green card, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a final removal order based on her felony conviction. Despite a pending application for a U visa for crime victims who have assisted law enforcement, upon her release from Dublin she was met by an ICE officer holding chains, and transported to the Northwest Detention Center (NWDC), an immigration jail run by private prison corporation GEO Group in Tacoma, Washington.
Cristal’s experience is far from unique. According to records from the Bureau of Prisons, 227 people incarcerated at Dublin between April 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024, had immigration detainers. A coalition of human rights organizations compiled a list of 35 women who were sexually abused, or provided information to investigators, and, as of 2023, were facing deportation. According to Cristal’s attorney, Susan Beaty, at least 20 survivors of Dublin sexual abuse were detained and then deported after they completed their prison sentences. Another 20 survivors are either in immigrant detention or in the community but facing deportation.
At least 20 survivors of Dublin sexual abuse were detained and then deported after they completed their prison sentences.
Under the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, survivors of sexual abuse and other gender-based violence are eligible for a U visa, which provides temporary immigration status and the possibility of permanent residence. For years, ICE policy had been to exercise discretion in deciding whether to detain or start removal proceedings against people with pending visas for victims of gender violence or who had family members in active military service. But the second Trump administration reversed those protections, leaving Cristal, along with countless others with pending visa applications, to face detention and deportation.
“He Knew What He Was Doing”
Another woman, who asked to be identified by the pseudonym “Beatriz” because she has a pending visa application, is another woman formerly incarcerated at Dublin. She has a pending application for a T visa (a visa for trafficking victims) as well as a son in the Navy. Both should have protected her from detention and removal. Instead, she was deported to Mexico, a country she had left as a teenager and where she no longer has family.
Beatriz arrived at FCI Dublin in 2009. She remained there until the prison abruptly closed in 2024.
“The [staff] sexual abuse happened all the time,” she told Truthout. Those who complained were transferred to another federal prison, making it harder, if not impossible, for their families to visit. For Beatriz, whose family lived in California, that was incentive enough to keep quiet.
Around 2015, the abuse worsened under a new prison administration. “We started seeing the lieutenant covering for the officers,” she recalled. “They started feeling more comfortable.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, Beatriz was the head orderly on a housing unit which became the quarantine area for those who tested positive.
One of the unit officers was Darrell Smith, whose nickname among incarcerated people and staff was “Dirty Dick Smith.” Beatriz would ask if he would open the door to the kitchen so that she could bring water to the sick women.
“He used to be like, ‘Yeah, you gotta pay me.’” The pay, Beatriz said, was to show him her body.
Those weren’t the only times that Smith took advantage of his position. He often worked the night shift and, when passing the cells, would wake women, order them out of bed and to bend over and pull down their pants and underwear. He would then use his flashlight to see their genitalia. “He did it to different inmates,” Beatriz recalled. “I was one of them.”
Once, Smith came to the laundry room when Beatriz, as orderly, was doing the unit’s laundry. Everyone else was locked down. She told him to leave,reminding him about the surveillance cameras. But Smith knew which cameras were working and what they could see.
He pulled her pants down and placed his fingers inside her vagina. She reported him to a lieutenant, who did nothing.
To avoid Smith, Beatriz quit her orderly job and began working in the commissary. But after the lieutenant’s inaction, she stayed quiet about Smith’s abuse.
After federal investigators started interviewing women and certain officers had stopped working at the prison, she approached her case manager. Still fearing retaliation, she posed her experience as a hypothetical. She saw that officers put women who talked with investigators in the SHU (Special Housing Unit, or solitary confinement) and wanted to avoid that fate.
Shortly before officials announced plans to close Dublin, a friend connected her with attorney Susan Beaty of the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, which provides legal services to California immigrants behind bars. Beaty encouraged Beatriz to speak with federal prosecutors. She did.
When Dublin closed in April 2024, she was transferred to a federal prison in Florida, far from both family and legal help.
There, she encountered similar hostilities. Once, when she was changing clothes, an officer opened her cell door. Beatriz asked her to close the door since she was naked. “She didn’t care,” she recalled. “She said it wasn’t Dublin.” The officer placed her in the SHU. She lost a month of good time, or time off her prison sentence for good behavior.
As she neared the end of her prison sentence, Beatriz petitioned for a T visa, a visa designed for victims of trafficking.
Nonetheless, ICE officials picked her up and brought her to the Orange County jail, where she spent four days in the drunk tank without underwear, toothpaste, a toothbrush, a shower, or a way to tell her family where she was. Then she was transferred to the Baker County jail, which contracts with ICE and whose abusive conditions have made headlines.
One night, at 3:00 am, staff woke her and told her she was leaving. At first, they would not tell her where she would be going. Then, they informed her she was going to Texas which, she knew, was where immigrants were sent shortly before deportation. From there, despite her pending visa application, she was flown to Tabasco, a southeastern state of Mexico.
The Mexican government arranged for a bus to bring the deportees from Tabasco to the Mexico City airport, where they would board flights to their final destinations. The bus driver refused to drive them to the airport unless the riders paid him extra. Immigration officials had given each person a card containing a few pesos, but no one had actual cash. The driver left them at the bus station. There, Beatriz asked a stranger to use their cell phone, then called Beaty, who ordered her an Uber to ferry her across town to the airport.
Now, Beatriz lives across the border from her daughters. She recently traveled to Mexico City to be fingerprinted at the embassy as part of her T visa application. Otherwise, she waits.
In September, Smith’s second federal trial ended in mistrial and prosecutors announced that they would not seek a third trial. Nine others, including the warden, either pled guilty or were convicted and sentenced to 20 to 96 months in prison.
When Beatriz heard about the mistrials, she was angry, sad, and afraid. “He was the one who had more victims [than the others],” she said. “It’s not our fault that the cameras don’t work. He knew what he was doing. He used to tell me, ‘I know I can be here, this camera is not gonna see.’ He even told me one time that he got pulled over by the lieutenant. He told him to slow down, that he was going to get in trouble. He told him [the lieutenant] that they can’t prove it.”
Beatriz lives in fear that Smith might find her. He had told her that he had properties in Mexico and that he had made trips to visit another woman from Dublin who had been deported to Tijuana. “He told me, ‘Wherever you go, I’ll find you.’”
Those fears keep her up at night. To avoid the possibility of encountering him, she rarely leaves the house, not even to shop for food. Instead, her daughters bring groceries during their weekly visits.
“Sometimes I feel like I’m still in jail,” she reflected. “All because of him.”
“If That Same Abuse Occurred Across the Street”
To apply for a U visa, crime survivors must obtain certification from a law enforcement agency attesting that they reported the crimes and cooperated with investigation and prosecution efforts. But, said Beaty, although dozens reported the abuse, cooperated with law enforcement investigations, and made prosecutions possible, the U.S. attorney has issued certifications for only 7 of 50 Dublin survivors.
“If that same abuse occurred across the street at the county jail or at a state prison in California, any number of agencies involved in the investigations and prosecutions would be required under California law to sign certifications,” Beaty told Truthout. But, they continued, “because these crimes occurred out of federal prison and because of the decisions federal agencies have made that so many victims have been left without protection.”
In December 2024, a federal court ordered the Bureau of Prisons to pay $116 million to 103 Dublin survivors, including immigrants represented by Beaty and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. Since then, nearly 300 additional women have come forward with sexual assault claims and lawsuits for the abuse they suffered while at Dublin.
Under previous administrations, Beaty had seen dozens of clients released from Dublin and allowed to remain with their families in the U.S. while their visa applications were considered, a process that takes between five and 10 years. In January 2025, however, the agency’s discretion to not detain visa applicants has disappeared.
Cristal, however, had applied for a U visa based on domestic violence she had endured before her arrest and incarceration.
Six months before, in the summer of 2024, ICE granted Cristal a temporary stay of removal while officials processed her application. She no longer faced imminent deportation. Still, ICE kept her in detention.
One month later, she was told she would be released that afternoon. A member of La Resistencia, an organization advocating for NWDC’s closure, drove her to the airport. There, she boarded a flight to her family’s hometown.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Cristal recalled. “I was scared that I’d see an officer come and get me, like it was all a mistake.”
“I feel like I’m always watching over my shoulder … Now, with the bracelet on my leg, I feel like any second it’s going to vibrate and I’m going to be arrested.”
But it wasn’t a mistake. When her flight landed, Cristal hugged her mother and her youngest daughter, who would soon turn 8. “It was the best day of my life,” she recalled.
Still, the horrors of being unable to escape ongoing sexual abuse plague her. “I try not to show it,” she said. “I don’t want my family to worry.” Sounds of jangling keys, slamming doors, beeping alarms, or walkie-talkies trigger anxiety attacks. So does the sight of a police car or officer.
The hostile climate for immigrants has heightened her fears. Initially, ICE required her to check in every few months. At her last check-in, however, she was directed to another office and placed on an electronic monitor. She now has twice-monthly check-ins.
“I feel like I’m always watching over my shoulder,” she said. “Now, with the bracelet on my leg, I feel like any second it’s going to vibrate and I’m going to be arrested.”
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