While in ICE custody, thousands of migrants reported sexual abuse

So sexual abuse in immigration detention has been happening for decades. These cases have come up for watchdog organizations. We want to take a deeper look and really understand the extent to which this was happening. And so, we were looking at two sets of data. One was from the Office of the Inspector General which you mentioned and then the other was from ICE itself that was looking at 1,310 allegations of sexual abuse occurring between 2013 and 2017. So, we were looking at those two sets of data but understanding that there were a number of issues with those sets of that. The first, of course, is that this issue is largely under reported. We’re talking about a population who are often fleeing violence and persecution, who are often asylum seekers, who don’t speak the language as in the case of Eddie and the guard Daniel Sharkey. He didn’t speak Spanish, he didn’t speak English. Many of these people don’t have access to lawyers because they’re not entitled to one. So who they’re going to report these things to is very difficult if you don’t have that access to a lawyer. And then beyond that there is this fear of deportation if you tell someone, will you be deported back?