An 18-year-old US citizen who was held in immigration detention for almost a month slept on the floor of a cell crowded with 60 men and lost 20 pounds from a lack of nutritious food — all while being denied access to a phone to call his family or a lawyer.
Attorney Claudia Galan said the conditions that Francisco Galicia faced in Customs and Border Protection detention were so bad that he considered signing the paperwork that would deport him to Mexico just to get relief. The high school student was born in Dallas in December 2000, according to his birth certificate.
“The officers were just telling him they didn’t believe he was a US citizen, he was Mexican and should go back to Mexico,” Galan told BuzzFeed News. “He said that it was inhumane, the worst experience ever. He doesn’t wish that to anybody.”
View the complete July 24 article by Claudia Koerner on the BuzzFeed website here.