El Refugio welcomes Daniela!

El Refugio is excited to introduce our new co-worker, Daniela! She joined El Refugio in September via a Freedom For Immigrants fellowship program. Daniela, originally from Venezuela, was detained at Stewart Detention Center. We got to know Daniela when she joined a Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) complaint in 2022 blowing the whistle on a male nurse at SDC with a pattern of sexually abusing women. She later participated in a rally to shut down SDC.

Now living in the Midwest, Daniela is excited to contribute to the immigrant community while helping people who have experienced difficult situations in detention, providing them with the support they need to heal and move forward. 

Her goal is to prevent more women from going through what she experienced and to provide help, hope, and guidance. She is learning from El Refugio and other grassroots organizations involved in the movement to end immigration detention. 

“One of the most attractive aspects of this fellowship is for me to be able to have contact with people currently detained and urge them not to remain silent and not to be afraid,” Daniela said, “to let them know that out there are many professionals to help them have their story told, to encourage them not to be silent or to stop fighting.” 

“I believe them.” 

If Daniela had the opportunity to speak directly to ICE officials, this is what she would say: “I would like to show you one by one the aggressors you employ daily and make you understand that you lead an organization with criminals of abuse and harassment within your institution, corrupt people capable of hiding crimes of abuse that mark thousands of lives annually. I would show you the victims and make you listen to their stories. Take off the blindfold … Since you employ sexual assaulters and abusers year after year, stop hiding their crimes and turn them over to the authorities. And if the web of corruption within your institution has blinded your eyes, I would like to contribute to opening them.”