“Even God Cannot Hear Us Here”: What I Witnessed Inside an ICE Women’s Prison

On a Tuesday in March, I had spent most of my day working on my dissertation proposal and started to feel exhausted and hungry. It was the holy month of Ramadan, and I was fasting. Once finished, I quickly got ready to attend an iftar dinner, throwing on my hoodie, sweatpants, and a jersey headscarf—definitely not a day for being fancy. I was looking forward to taking a short walk and catching up with friends at the interfaith center, when I was suddenly surrounded and grabbed by a swarm of masked individuals, who handcuffed me and shoved me into an unmarked car.