Dossier mode
Sexual Abuse in ICE Detention
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the The Untouchables hub.
Abuse behind a door that deports the witness.
Sexual abuse of detainees in ICE custody — graded case by case. A closed facility, contractor staff, and a victim the government can remove before the case is done: impunity engineered by the setting.
The structure is the story: detention concentrates every ingredient of impunity — closed doors, private contractors, and a removable witness — not the identity of anyone in it.
A guilty plea is a conviction; a charge is a charge; a 'pattern and practice' complaint is an allegation until adjudicated. We grade each on its own record.
A detention officer pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a woman in ICE custody.
David Courvelle, a contract officer at the South Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Basile (run by the GEO Group), pleaded guilty in Dec 2025 before U.S. District Judge Summerhays to sexual abuse of an individual in federal custody (up to 15 yrs). Per court records: repeated sexual contact with a Nicaraguan detainee under his supervision, inside the facility, with other detainees arranged as lookouts; he resigned after investigators obtained recordings. A conviction on the record.
A federal officer faces seven counts of sexual abuse — charged, not convicted.
Andrew Golobic faces seven counts involving two women and pleaded not guilty; prosecutors said at least six women in the system had had sex with him and feared undiscovered victims. Named as charged, presumption of innocence held on guilt. The advocacy attorney's 'dozens, if not hundreds' of client reports since 2018 is attributed to her — a lead about scale, not an adjudicated count.
El Paso: advocates allege a 'pattern and practice' of assault — a complaint to DHS's watchdog, not yet adjudicated.
A Texas advocacy group filed a complaint with DHS's Office of Inspector General alleging guards 'systematically' assaulted at least three detainees, often where cameras couldn't see, involving an officer as senior as a lieutenant; guards allegedly told victims no one would believe them. Obtained by ProPublica/Texas Tribune; the El Paso DA forwarded 'potentially criminal allegations' to DHS OIG. Attributed allegation, not a finding — exactly the systemic claim we don't launder into our own voice.
The accountability gap is documented, not inferred: they can deport the witness.
In the El Paso matter a woman who reported abuse faced removal 'next week,' meaning investigators could lose a key witness; her attorneys had to ask immigration officials to pause the deportation. The same government that investigates the abuse controls whether the witness stays. Combined with closed, contractor-run facilities and camera-blind areas, that is an impunity mechanism specific to detention. The dynamic is FACT; the conclusion that it produces impunity is the hub's through-line.
North Lake (2026): she reported an assault — ICE deported her mid-investigation.
A transgender Venezuelan woman at the GEO Group–run North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, MI reported in March 2026 that her cellmate sexually assaulted her. ICE confirmed a March 16 medical exam and called its investigation 'ongoing' — then she was transferred out two days later and deported to Venezuela about a month on, while the case was still open. The documented timeline (report, 'ongoing' statement, deportation) is FACT; the assault is her account; the alleged assailant was a cellmate but the custodial failure is the agency's. The clearest live instance of the deportable-witness mechanism.
The national picture: thousands of complaints, almost none investigated.
Government complaint data obtained under FOIA: of 1,224 sexual-abuse complaints in immigration detention from 2010 to Sept 2017, the DHS Inspector General investigated about 30 — ~2.5%. In 719 (59%) the accused was an officer or private contractor, not another detainee. DHS logged ~33,000 complaints of all abuse types 2010–2016. Caution on viral numbers: the ~14,700 figure counts all complaint types against ICE, not sexual abuse. The verified point is the ratio — thousands of reports, almost no investigations.
How this page is graded.
- FACT: Courvelle's guilty plea; that Golobic is charged and pleaded not guilty; the El Paso complaint's existence and referral; the deportable-witness dynamic in the record.
- PRESUMPTION OF INNOCENCE: Golobic's guilt is un-adjudicated; named as charged only.
- ATTRIBUTED, not asserted: the 'pattern and practice' / 'hundreds of reports' scale claims — tied to the complaint or the advocate, never stated as a proven count. Distinct from ice-cbp-agent-criminality (off-duty crimes).
Why it matters.
The Untouchables hub tracks how the powerful evade accountability for sexual crime — through flight, position, or the seams between jurisdictions. Immigration detention is the institutional version: the victim has the least power and the least ability to stay and testify; the facility is closed and often privately run; and the watchdog is a part of the same department that runs the facility and signs the deportation order. No conspiracy needed — the ordinary machinery is enough. It sits beside ICE/CBP agent criminality and Policing the Poor.
Help us fill these lines.
- OpenWhether the El Paso complaint results in charges, and whether the key witness is allowed to remain to testify.
- OpenWhether anyone is held accountable in the North Lake case now that the complaining witness has been deported.
- OpenHow weakened detention-oversight standards affect the reporting and investigation of abuse as the detained population grows.