When immigration agents detained Douglas Menjivar in June, it wasn’t his first time.
Menjivar, a 50-year-old master mechanic originally from El Salvador, had lived in the United States for most of the last twenty years. A decade prior, he’d spent 2013 to 2015 in immigrant detention, including at the Houston-area Joe Corley Detention Center, which is operated by the for-profit prison contractor GEO Group. What he endured there changed the course of his life.
While Menijivar was held at the Corley facility facing possible deportation, another detainee sexually assaulted him twice with the help of an accomplice, he said in an official complaint and in interviews with the Texas Observer and other media. The duo targeted him after he confronted them for raping an 18-year-old. Upon seeing the traumatized teen sobbing, Menjivar, who had been sleeping on a top bunk, offered to trade places, believing the culprits would not attack a grown man. But the two jumped him as he slept: One held Menjivar down, shoving a pillow in his face, while the other assaulted him.
