BAKER COUNTY, Fla. – When Guillermo Serrabi, an immigrant from El Salvador, was transferred to the Baker County Detention Center in October 2021, he was immediately placed in solitary confinement.
Serrabi spent 88 days in his solitary cell.
To this day, Serrabi and his attorney say the exact reason remains unclear.
What Serrabi says happened during those 88 days led him to file a federal lawsuit against the United States government, Baker County Sheriff Scotty Rhoden and a corrections officer.
Serrabi’s case, filed in May, is one of two recent lawsuits filed by the ACLU of Florida and other advocacy groups that accuse Baker County corrections officers of medical neglect, using excessive force and other violations.
“After years of violence against immigrants at the Baker County jail, we’re suing to obtain justice for our client and to challenge the impunity officers at this facility continue to enjoy,” ACLU of Florida staff attorney Amien Kacou said of Serrabi’s case.
The second lawsuit was filed on behalf of 33-year-old “Ana Doe” on July 17 and accuses Baker County officers and staff of “unconstitutional abuses” that she says happened after she requested feminine hygiene products and was placed in solitary confinement.
News4JAX obtained a copy of both complaints that detail the experiences both detainees said they had while housed in solitary confinement in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at the Baker County Detention Center.
The lawsuits also point out the history of complaints against the immigration detention facility, ranging from racial discrimination to retaliation and harassment.
On Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that he authorized the opening of an immigration detention center at the Baker Correctional Institution in Sanderson, shifting plans away from a previously considered site at Camp Blanding in Clay County.
The new facility, dubbed “Deportation Depot,” is only 20 minutes away from the Baker County Detention Center.
‘Why do they think I’m a monster?’
Serrabi arrived in the United States in May 2013, when he was 12 years old.
Eight years later, Serrabi, who was never convicted of a violent crime or an aggravated felony, received a deportation order for being unlawfully present in the country.
On Oct. 29, 2021, during the first year of the Joe Biden administration, Serrabi was transferred to the Baker County Detention Center and was placed in solitary confinement.
According to the lawsuit, ICE officers instructed BCSO that Serrabi should be placed and kept in solitary confinement because he refused to take a COVID-19 test. However, Serrabi said he was fully vaccinated against COVID-19, and the complaint says ICE’s Pandemic Response Requirements at the time called for detainees to be held in an “isolation period” no longer than 10 days.
So why did Serrabi spend 88 days in solitude?
Immigration attorney and co-founder of Sanctuary of the South Katie Blankenship, who helped file Serrabi’s lawsuit, said she has a “pretty good guess” as to why.
“They were trying to pressure him to sign papers so they could put him on a plane earlier. It’s a pressure technique. ‘We’re going to keep you here until you sign away your rights.’ And that’s what they wanted him to do, and he was smart enough to not want to do that and understood that he had due process rights and refused to sign away his rights,” Blankenship said.
As the days went by, Serrabi said his previously diagnosed mental health conditions worsened.
According to the complaint, Serrabi reported “feelings of increased persecution by ICE.” He also said BCSO officers would come by his cell every two days asking if “he was ready to be deported,” despite having an ongoing case.
“I haven’t done anything to be in confinement. Tell me, what do you see in my eyes? Why do they think I am a monster?” Serrabi would ask himself.
Serrabi said he was praying and singing to himself in December when two officers entered his cell.
According to the complaint, one of the officers told him that “nobody wanted to hear him sing,” and threatened him with violence.
Serrabi said he told the officer that he only “feared God.”
The encounter escalated.
“The officer punched him in his left ear, dislocating and damaging his eardrum,” the complaint says.
The complaint says Serrabi was “denied any medical treatment until the following day.” He reported pain and trouble hearing.
Medical staff performed an exam, but, according to the complaint, Serrabi’s medical chart has no notes on further treatment or care.
“They are supposed to do a thorough investigation after a use of force and determine what happened. Was this a necessary use of force? Was it appropriate? And was the detained person upon whom force was used properly treated, provided medical care, checked on after all of that sort of stuff? None of that is in the record. None of that is in his detention records. None of that,” Blankenship said.
To this day, Serrabi suffers from hearing loss and physical injury stemming from that incident, Blankenship added.
News4JAX reached out to the Baker County Sheriff’s Office for comment on the litigation, which is still moving through the courts. We also asked about the current employment status of the officer mentioned in the lawsuit and if he faced any disciplinary action.
“These allegations were investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General (DHS-OIG). The investigation determined the findings were unsubstantiated. The case is currently under litigation, and I can’t comment any further,” Baker County Sheriff’s Office Undersheriff Randy Crews said.
Serrabi was eventually deported back to El Salvador.
“He went basically straight from solitary into a deportation plane. I don’t think he spent much time at all back in general population,” Blankenship said.
Blankenship said that despite suffering permanent hearing damage, Serrabi’s current biggest challenge is his mental health.
“It’s hard to express how inappropriate it was to keep him there and what it did to him. And so, his mental health issues and the PTSD have been greatly exacerbated. And he struggles daily with that,” Blankenship said.
Click here to read the full complaint
The story of ‘Ana Doe’
Note: This complaint refers to the plaintiff as “Ana Doe” to protect her identity. Her case includes details some may find disturbing.
After completing her bachelor’s degree in social communications and journalism in Colombia in 2015, “Ana Doe” arrived in the United States on a tourist visa.
During her time in Florida, Doe said she was “abused and manipulated” by a man who “forced her to steal jewelry,” and when she protested, “he physically abused her and threatened her family,” and Doe’s complaint refers to her as a “human trafficking survivor.” She was eventually sentenced to one year in prison after being convicted of theft and robbery.
In 2022, police arrested Doe for violating a temporary court order related to her son’s custody, and in early May 2023, she was released into ICE custody and transported to the Baker County Detention Center.
A couple of weeks after she arrived at Baker, Doe, who was menstruating, said she asked an officer in English if she could use a bathroom. Due to her limited English proficiency, Doe then explained in Spanish that she needed a feminine hygiene product, the complaint states.
The officer responded in English, but Doe could not understand what he said to her, so she said she didn’t respond.
“When Ms. Doe did not respond, the officer became irate and began to speak faster. The officer then began to yell at Ms. Doe,” the complaint says.
Doe did not end up getting the feminine hygiene products she had requested. Instead, she said, she was placed in solitary confinement.
According to the complaint, Doe was placed in solitary confinement over charges of “disobeying [a] verbal or written order,” “conduct that disrupts,” and “interfering with a staff member.”
While in solitary confinement, Doe “began bleeding through her clothing, as Baker guards still refused to provide her with feminine menstruation products,” the complaint reads.
After repeated attempts to request assistance, Doe said she saw “no other option” than to break the cell’s sprinkler, in hopes of getting medical attention.
She said two officers then entered the cell that had become filled with “dark, foul liquid,” and transferred her to a new cell.
According to the complaint, the officers returned to her new cell with a restraint chair.
Doe was then told to put on a “torn” anti-suicide smock, and officers strapped her into the restraint chair, according to the complaint, and left one of her breasts exposed.
“With her arms fastened to the chair, Ms. Doe was unable to adjust the smock to cover herself,” the complaint says.
The complaint then states Doe “sobbed uncontrollably while restrained,” and “no Baker staff member made any effort to cover Ms. Doe.”
“While her breast remained exposed, male Officer Defendants walked by the window of her cell to ogle her and mock her,” the complaint says.
Doe said she was strapped to the restraint chair for approximately three hours before she was released.
According to a whistleblower who worked as a nurse practitioner at the Baker County Detention Center during this time, corrections officers showed a video recording of Doe in the restraining chair.
“Officer Defendants described the video as demonstrating a ‘good example’ of a use-of-force incident,” the complaint says.
Doe said she was initially told she would be in solitary confinement for three days. However, she said she was later sentenced to 30 additional days after the sprinkler incident.
Sarah Gillman, director of Strategic U.S. Litigation at RFK Human Rights, noted that those who are detained in the custody of ICE, such as Doe, are not in criminal detention.
“They’re in civil detention. And so, because they’re in civil detention, their detention is not supposed to be punitive. They’re not there because they are awaiting a criminal trial. They’re not there because they’ve been convicted in a criminal trial. They’re there for civil immigration purposes,” Gillman said. “And I think what happened to Ana is representative of how this particular facility has overused solitary confinement as a way to instill fear.”
According to the complaint, Doe was not allowed to attend her disciplinary hearing in person to discuss her additional 30-day sentence, and she was only able to listen to the hearing via phone call, which was held in English.
“She was not provided an opportunity to speak or to defend herself,” the complaint says.
Gillman said Doe’s experience tells a bigger story.
“Sadly, Ana is not singular in her treatment that she received. We’ve seen that in other facilities as well, not only in Baker, not only in the state of Florida,” Gillman said. “Especially if you’re a woman, you can understand that if you’re having that particular time of your month, as they say, and you’re not able to access feminine hygiene products, or you’re not even able to access enough toilet paper, I mean, what that does to you? It’s a degradation of your humanity.”
News4JAX reached out to the Baker County Sheriff’s Office to request a statement regarding Doe’s lawsuit, and the agency responded that it had “no comment on ACLU’s ridiculous allegations.”
Gillman said Doe’s case is in the very initial stages, but she is confident that once the defendants respond to the lawsuit, the case will continue to move forward. Gillman added that Doe is still in the country while her immigration case remains pending.
While Doe is suing for compensatory damages, Gillman said the goal is greater than a sum of money.
“I’m not Ana, so I can’t speak for her, but I think that the lawsuit is a representation of what was happening to many other people who were detained in Baker County,” Gillman said.
Click here to read the full complaint
History of complaints
The Baker County Detention Center became operational in June 2009 with 508 beds. Staff with the Baker County Sheriff’s Office run the facility, and ICE oversees its operations.
Since its opening and especially in recent years, the immigration detention site has been subjected to multiple complaints and federal investigations regarding excessive force, unlawful segregation and medical neglect.
In 2022, the Department of Homeland Security, Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) conducted an in-person spot check investigation of the immigration facility due to the “large number and gravity” of allegations that raised concerns regarding detainee safety, according to a DHS report.
The report states the CRCL was “especially concerned” that new allegations showed consistent patterns of earlier-identified concerns such as verbal, emotional and physical abuse by facility staff, racial discrimination, significant language access issues and continued barriers to legal access.
After a three-day visit to the facility, the CRCL determined there was a “pervasive culture of racial discrimination, abuse and neglect of the detainee population at Baker.”
According to the DHS investigation report, when interviewed, several detainees made near-identical statements regarding verbal abuse by staff, including: “if you don’t like it, go back to your country,” “no one would care if you died,” and that they were referred to as “monkeys” or “wet-backs.”
In 2024, the DHS Office of Inspector General conducted an unannounced inspection of the facility. The findings included that Baker County Sheriff’s Office staff did not comply with all use-of-force standards and that they did not have a log showing staff responses to detainee requests.
Read the 2024 final report from the OIG below
Immigration Attorney Vilerka Bilbao said she’s known about the Baker County facility and its troubling conditions since 2015, when she was still a law student.
“Since the beginning, we’ve known about abuses, including excessive force, for example, voyeurism from officers and to female detainees, lack of medical care, neglect in medical care, food that has either perished or rotted that is being served to individuals,” Bilbao said.
Bilbao said the conditions have only gotten worse since then.
“Part of it, I think, is because this is a state facility or county facility that just makes money off of the amount of people there,” Bilbao said. “There’s no interest to spend money on detainees. So they are going to spend as little money as possible to complete their contract.”
Every ICE detention facility has to abide by the 2019 National Detention Standards to “ensure that detainees are treated humanely; protected from harm; provided appropriate medical and mental health care; and receive the rights and protections to which they are entitled.”
However, Bilbao said those standards are not always met, resulting in cases such as Serrabi’s and Ana Doe’s.
“When you hear stories of clients telling you repeatedly the same things, it gets to a point where you’re like, ‘They’re not making this up.’ Why? Why would they be making this up?” Bilbao said.
Bilbao said she has encountered some issues when trying to communicate with some of her clients detained at the Baker County Detention Center.
“Clients are detained 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Sometimes we need to see them on a Saturday morning or on a Sunday. Sometimes we need to prepare for trial, and we need to sit with them for six hours to prepare their case. Those things tend to be very tricky. You have to schedule things ahead of time with Baker,” Bilbao said, adding that as an attorney, she is supposed to be able to show up and have access to her clients.
News4JAX contacted ICE to ask how it ensures the National Detention Standards are being enforced at these immigration facilities and what actions have been taken to address the hundreds of complaints against the Baker County Detention Center. At the time of this publication, we have not heard back.
A call for change
In response to the long history of complaints regarding the Baker County Detention Center and the recent whistleblower report, advocacy groups and even Florida politicians have called for the closure of the immigration center.
However, with an aggressive crackdown on immigration under the Donald Trump administration, ICE detention facilities do not seem to be shutting down anytime soon. Instead, they are expanding.
One good example is the recently opened immigration site in the Florida Everglades, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz," which has been at the center of controversy— not only because of its name, but also due to numerous reports of poor conditions at the facility.
An example closer to home is a planned facility at Baker Correctional Institution that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday.
DeSantis had previously said a second facility would not be built until “Alligator Alcatraz” was filled with detainees, and, on Thursday, he said, “we have reached that point” where another facility would be needed. That facility will be in Baker County, just 20 minutes from the current detention center.
Bilbao said something needs to change.
“I’m not saying that we don’t need detention centers. There are individuals who have come to this country, who have committed horrible crimes, and we don’t want to keep them here, and we don’t want to release them. However, money should not be the only thing driving this detention center or this business,” Bilbao said. “You can operate a detention center and still be a good human being.”