TRAFFICKED & TORTURED
Mapping ICE Transfers

Inter-detention transfers are a cruel and traumatizing form of abuse inflicted upon people in immigration detention. Functioning to further isolate and dehumanize immigrants, transfers are characteristic of the detention system itself; they’re used to deprive people of their human dignity and restrict the most basic human elements of autonomy and freedom of movement.

FFI’s “Trafficked and Tortured” report, released in February 2023, uncovers how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) weaponizes inter-detention transfers of people in its custody to pad the agency’s budget and as a harsh form of retaliation, torture, and labor trafficking. The report includes interactive maps visualizing thousands of ICE Air flight routes, including “circular transfers.”

To read the full report, scroll to the bottom of this page, or download here.
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SUMMARY of findings

The report tracks 70 unique instances of “circular transfers,” in which individuals are transferred, sometimes thousands of miles, between multiple detention facilities before returning back to the same facility they had been detained originally. The findings underscore how ICE, failing to operationally justify its transfer practices, spends millions of taxpayer dollars annually to senselessly shuffle individuals back and forth under tortuous conditions, often in retaliation against those who speak out against the agency’s abuses.

ICE imposes transfers against individuals or groups in its custody on a daily basis, forcibly placing immigrants into hand and ankle shackles for the duration of a cruel and isolating process that can stretch across multiple days. According to the report, intra-detention ICE Air flights have increased by 94% over the past two years. 

Transfers are a uniquely traumatizing experience, and they inflict a devastating toll on individuals’ physical and mental health. During a transfer, people are often not told where they are being transferred to — or why. Throughout the journey, they may not be provided with adequate food, water, or even access to a bathroom.

VISUALIZATIONS

The interactive visualizations in the report include: 

• 676 instances of domestic ICE transfers documented by FFI from May 2020 to July 2022;

• 70 unique individuals who underwent “circular transfers” (ending up at the same detention facility where they had been detained initially) documented by FFI from May 2020 to July 2022;

• 14,000 “domestic shuffle” or intra-detention ICE Air Flights from January 2020 to May 2022.

THEMES OF CIRCULAR TRANSFERS

ICE weaponizes transfers to retaliate.
Transfers are often weaponized by ICE to abruptly retaliate against those who speak out against the conditions they are caged in. ICE commonly uses transfers to stifle internal organizing and collective advocacy efforts, such as hunger strikes, filing complaints, or other forms of resistance. This form of punishment is explicitly condoned in the agency’s National Detention Standards.

ICE weaponizes transfers to torture.
Transfers are torturous, as they inflict physical pain and mental anguish upon individuals for specific purposes under an official capacity. Four first-person testimonies featured in the report illustrate the devastating consequences of transfers on individuals’ well-being and mental health. 

ICE weaponizes transfers to labor traffick.
ICE’s frequent transfers prove vital to the immigration detention system’s reliance on the forced labor of those in ICE custody. Oftentimes, immigrants are effectively trafficked from detention facility to detention facility and immediately put to work upon arrival. As one individual interviewed for the report observed, “I am being trafficked from one facility to another… to clean for $2 a day.”

Recommendations TO END TRANSFERS

For Congress:

• Pass legislation that prohibits the transfer of any individual in ICE detention except at the request of the individual;

• Through the annual appropriations process, drastically reduce the budget for ICE’s “Transportation and Removal Program,” which currently costs taxpayers nearly half a billion dollars per fiscal year, and continues to increase each year.

For the Biden administration:

• Immediately exercise operational and discretionary authority to cease all transfers between ICE facilities except at the request of the detained individual;

• Remove “Disciplinary Transfer” as an approved sanction from all versions of the ICE national detention standards;

• Mandate monthly public reporting on the numbers of ICE intra-detention transfers, including any internal agency justifications.

For local government and states:

• End transfers from jails and prisons to ICE and stop being complicit in ICE’s inter-state trafficking of community members;

• Support and pass legislation to end ICE detention contracts, and devote sufficient funding to resources such as legal service provision and deportation defense so that individuals can continue to access them regardless of if they are transferred.

CONCLUSION

In the wake of the detention abolition movement's success in terminating local detention contracts (at least 36 contract terminations since 2017), ICE appears to be relying on transfers more frequently to suppress these gains and retaliate against internal-external organizing efforts.

Given ICE’s ongoing abuse of transfers to suppress advocacy efforts, and the incentive to sustain the agency’s enormous scale of operations and budget through these practices, ending transfers is critical in aiding local efforts working toward just closures of specific detention facilities, as well as in supporting FFI’s ultimate mission of abolishing immigration detention.

Read the full report here: