By Taylor Brandon and Charlton “CJ” Davis
For Hector Smith and his son David, June 3, 2025, was shaping up to be an average day. They went to work early that day; they headed home late in the afternoon. Hector, an undocumented immigrant who requested anonymity for this story when he and his son met with Mississippi Youth Media Project student journalists in Jackson in July 2025, was leaving Home Depot on Interstate 20 when he looked in his rearview mirror and saw a K-9 police SUV, its windows blacked out.
“At first I didn’t notice them,” David said in an in-person interview with the Mississippi Youth Media Project. “But then my dad said, ‘Look, there’s an SUV behind us.’”
A mile later, it was still trailing them.
The SUV continued to stay close behind Hector and his family before turning its lights on. Hector pulled the car over and waited patiently. The police officer got out, tapped the tailgate and continued walking up to the driver’s side window. David’s mind raced and jumped to what could possibly be happening. However, one thought stayed consistent: “I wish I was driving.”
Immediately, David asked why they were pulled over. The officer claimed the driver was driving recklessly. David, sitting in the passenger seat, saw nothing out of the ordinary in his father’s driving; both had, after all, been keenly aware of the vehicle following them closely.
The officer asked for Hector’s ID. David sat still, on edge, not knowing what could happen next because his father was undocumented. The officer assured Hector and his family that the stop was just going to be a warning. He then ordered Hector to step out of the vehicle for a search. After patting Hector down, the officer walked to his car and made a few calls, telling the family to sit on the curb and wait.
Within minutes, eight more law-enforcement vehicles arrived on the side of I-20 where the original officer’s vehicle had pulled them over. Brandon Police Department officers arrived, then the Pearl Police Department joined them. (Neither commented for this story.) The last cars to arrive belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The main officer from Brandon began reading Hector his Miranda rights while simultaneously slapping the handcuffs around his wrists, the men told the Mississippi Free Press student journalists. Hector was charged with reckless driving.
The arrest was accomplished in a flash. The immigration sweep that ensnared Hector that day parted 27 men and women from their families. Some have been deported. Others languish. Most were caught somewhere in the tangle of immigrants, side-by-side with Hector, in the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center in Jena, trapped in an American limbo.
‘He’s My Role Model’
The 17-year-old son watched as ICE ripped his father from him. “It all felt like a lot to bear,” David told the Youth Media Project. “He’s my role model, my biggest supporter. I rely on him a lot.”
The officer took all of Hector’s belongings, including $200 in cash he was carrying. They did, however, forget to confiscate his phone, which Hector kept on him during his detainment.
David watched his dad step into the backseat of the blacked-out SUV. As it sped off, his mind spun. He began running in the scorching sun after the car and watched as it disappeared from sight. The son was able to track his dad’s location through a tracking app called Life360. Once he got into Madison, David walked to the sheriff’s office.
Upon arrival, David saw a pastor who had been known to help immigrants, but this time the religious leader explained apologetically to the teenager that due to the presidential administration’s restrictions, he couldn’t help Hector’s family.
‘“(The pastor) tried talking to some of the agents,” David said. “But they said they couldn’t help us with anything.”
The teenager, feeling defeated, finally called his mom from the station. He tried to cover his pain and panic with a simple “Hey, mom,” then told her what happened. She immediately picked him up and drove home, cautious of any further police presence.
Call in the Middle of the Night
At home, the family began calling all the local jails—and Hector’s phone—to find him. There was no response. It was almost as if he was a ghost. It was getting late when David’s mom suggested it was time to call it a night and try again in the morning. Everyone agreed.
The phone rang around midnight. David immediately woke and looked at the phone. It was his dad. The phone had awakened David’s brother as well, so they answered the call together. Hector explained that he had snuck out his phone to call them. He informed them that ICE was still holding him at the Madison County Detention Center.
“I’m OK, don’t worry. Everything will be OK soon,” Hector said as he hung up.
The boys sprinted out of the room and down the hall to wake up their mom.
“We just talked to Dad!” David told her. “He’s in Madison County!”
For their mother, it was a bittersweet moment. Her husband was healthy and in communication with the family, however briefly. But as suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone. And this was only the beginning for Hector. He was up against a system that meant to keep him captive, a system set in place by years of consecutive administrations—but massively expanded under President Donald Trump.
His dad’s words that night were the last David would hear from him for the next few weeks.
Immigrant Health Care At Risk
The Trump administration has dramatically tightened immigration enforcement, with the U.S. Department of Justice aiming to enact a mass-deportation regime by framing immigrants as a “national security threat.” President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” provided tens of billions to ICE’s budget for hiring and the construction of new detention facilities, like the beleaguered but still open “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida, making it a larger law-enforcement agency than the FBI, ATF and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is engaging in expedited removal, which allows the government to quickly deport someone whom they believe is undocumented without the opportunity to see a judge.
President Trump signed the executive order on Jan. 21, 2025, to begin expedited removal anywhere in the country of any undocumented person who cannot prove they had been in the U.S. for two years before the arrest. These changes, which closely follow Project 2025 campaign promises and plans, were set into effect on Jan. 21, 2025—just one day after Trump took office.
The new governmental changes not only affect the detainee process but also the community’s access to health care. The Immigration Forum reports that 45% to 71% of undocumented immigrants do not have access to health care.
President Trump included plans to ensure that American taxpayer resources are not used to support immigrants in the United States in his “Big Beautiful Bill”—including access to health care. Parts of the bill, which he signed into law on July 4, 2025, are aimed at stopping immigrants from obtaining Social Security Act benefits, which include Medicare and Medicaid.
‘Are You Legal Here?’
Isaura Camacho, a community health organizer at Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, says new anti-immigration policies hurt the Hispanic community’s access to medical services. Camacho took her own parents and community members to discount clinics that were once federally funded but now are not.
“The first thing that was affected was the discounted clinics,” Camacho said. “The prices have gone up on appointments and medicine.”
These clinics were once available to undocumented immigrants who needed affordable health care, but new policies have created a barrier to services for immigrants.
Camacho described her experience assisting a young Colombian woman. “She couldn’t afford routine check-ups while being eight to nine months pregnant,” Camacho said. “The first thing they asked her while she was in serious pain was, ‘Are you legal here?’”
These new policy changes were not just hurting people who were detained but were destroying the entire community around her, Camacho soon realized.
“This immigration system was created for the U.S. to benefit; yet, the very people who are contributing to this system get no access to health care,” Camacho said.
‘Madison County Still Has Your Money’
The Madison County Sheriff’s Department processed Hector into the detention center in Madison County. They took all his belongings, along with the $200 cash he had worked hard to earn. When they took his money, they gave Hector a receipt and told him to keep up with it for the rest of his stay. He thought of this as a little strange, but he held on to that receipt for dear life.
As weeks went by, Hector began to get more comfortable in the system. He started talking to more people who shared similar experiences and, through this, he uncovered a dark secret: People who lost their receipts lost that money forever. The money was very important to detainees because that’s what they planned to use when they returned to the outside world. The receipt was their lifeline.
When Hector was transferred to Jena, Louisiana, he was instructed to give officials the receipt for his money, and he did. Instead of giving Hector the money, though, the family said Madison County, which declined comment to YMP student reporters, still had his money. It would take Hector over a month of calling with David’s help after his eventual release on bond to locate those funds.
But Hector couldn’t dwell too much on this money problem. From the time he walked into the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, commonly referred to as Jena or LaSalle Detention Center, he had larger problems to worry about.
‘I Couldn’t Even Eat’
On June 17, 2025, Hector walked into the Jena facility along with 20 to 30 detained immigrants. White brick walls loomed over him, and when he walked in, he was stunned by how crowded it was. Hector is not the only Mississippian who has been held at Jena. There have been reports of detainees such as Kerlin Moreno-Orellana and Kasper Eriksen imprisoned there.
“There were around 90 to 100 people crowded into one cell with me,” Hector said.
The overcrowding was overwhelming. He was a long way from home. Problems in the facility began unfolding in front of his eyes.
The LaSalle Detention Center has faced several allegations and complaints from detainees saying their basic needs, such as food and water, were not met. Several alleged denials of—or restricted access to—medical treatment.
“We would have to ask two to three times before we were ever able to receive medical attention,” Hector said.
Hector said that, while detained, he and other inmates were exposed to bad drinking water, sickening him and many others. “They gathered us all together and announced to us that the water was contaminated,” Hector said. “But I was already experiencing stomach aches and problems prior to them announcing it.”
Mistreatment of immigrants, including the lack of safe drinking water, is a known problem in detention centers in Louisiana, both before Trump’s second term began and since his anti-immigration efforts this year.
The Jena processing center’s response to the issue was to give inmates one small 16-ounce bottle of water a day, Hector said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been notified multiple times of contamination issues at the processing center, as well as complaints of medical, verbal, sexual and physical abuse. Yale Law School students and civil-rights advocates filed a complaint about its drinking water and food within the past several years. The Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights filed another recent complaint for a detainee who has experienced abuse at these facilities. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has conducted several internal investigations on the Jena facility and others in Louisiana.
“I couldn’t even eat because of how filthy everything was,” Hector said.
The GEO Group, a private prison company, operates the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center, or CLIPC, and has been managing the facility. The GEO Group runs 28 immigrant facilities across the U.S.
In response to an interview request, GEO Group spokesman Christopher V. Ferreira issued a statement on the water contamination at the processing center: “We can confirm that during the middle of June, water at the Central Louisiana ICE Processing Center was impacted for two days by scheduled maintenance to the City’s water main by the City of Jena. In the interim, all individuals at the Center were provided with bottled water. Water services at the facility have been functioning properly following the completion of the maintenance by the City.”
The Youth Media Project contacted the GEO group with further questions, but Ferreira did not respond to inquiries about detainees reporting being sickened during the water outage, neither how many reported symptoms of illness nor what the facility did to treat their condition.
ICE Response: ‘At Times Things Happen’
Jena is one of many detention centers that the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses to detain immigrants. ICE’s stated goal at these detention centers is to “arrest and remove aliens who undermine the safety of our nation’s communities and the integrity of U.S. immigration laws.”
The Youth Media Project spoke with Lindsay Williams, a spokesperson for ICE for southern states, including Mississippi. Williams stated that ICE has no record of water issues in Jena and does not handle any financial issues within the detention center.
“Our mission is to identify, arrest, detain and remove aliens from the country,” Williams said. “We do that every day.”
Williams says that facilities holding immigrants across the U.S. may have problems but have been or are currently being repaired. “I can tell you (that) just like any jail or any facility if there are plumbing issues or some sort of infrastructure issues, that has happened,” Williams said. “Just like in your own personal homes, at times things happen. You work around that.”
The ICE spokesman said he does not know the specifics of the water issues at Jena. However, he told YMP that ICE performs several inspections through a third-party inspector. July 26-28, 2022, inspection report, the Jena facility received a superior rating on the care of the facility.
Williams had no clear answer on ICE’s part in monies taken at arrests.
“I don’t know exactly how it all works, because it’s not something I do. There is a record of somebody being in a detention facility,” Williams said. “I’d imagine that there’s a record of what their property was or is.”
Williams said ICE’s main goal is to protect the states and to have an honest system. “One of the major things that we want to do is to get everything right,” he added.
‘We Couldn’t Give Up’
The Madison County Sheriff’s Office released Hector on bond to go home with his family at the end of June. Although he was finally home with his sons and their mother, it was not the end for them. The family now has to figure out how to navigate life after the ordeal.
“We were trying to figure all sorts of things out and figuring out what is going to come next,” David said.
Hector now awaits his master hearing, which is a public proceeding where the judge explains the charges against the respondent and shares the next steps. The hearing has been pushed back to sometime next summer. Hector’s family must also continue paying the legal fees that come with the process of deportation.
“The bond alone was $7,500,” David said. “Not only that, but we have to pay for legal fees and for his attorney to represent him at the master hearing.”
David graduated top of his high school class with high honors this past May. He planned on entering the National Guard to serve as a combat medic; however, he expressed second thoughts now that he has seen the actions of the new administration.
“I honestly feel betrayed,” David said. “To get my father taken away like that months after I made this decision is heartbreaking.”
He still wants to serve to save his family.
“At times, yes, I still want to serve, and even though I didn’t join the military because I wanted to save my parents’ citizenship, I’m going to use that in hopes that it can carve them a path to citizenship,” David said.
Hector’s story is one of hundreds that haven’t been told. Similar incidents are happening throughout the entire state.
Isaura Camacho, the community health organizer at Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance, said the system has had flaws for a while. Her family had a similar experience with ICE. “I remember even experiencing the same thing during Katrina. In 2005, my parents were wrongfully accused of human trafficking,” Camacho said.
She added that the problems create mistrust for organizations that are trying to support the Hispanic population of the state. “I want to help the community, and I want them to come to us for help.”
For now, Hector remains with his family in the Jackson area, awaiting what will come next. “We just had to keep going. We couldn’t give up,” David told the Youth Media Project.
Story authors are Taylor Brandon and Charlton “CJ” Davis, student journalists in the 2025 Mississippi Youth Media Project, which produces a sister publication of the Mississippi Free Press. The nonprofit Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, founded and based in downtown Jackson, Mississippi, runs both newsrooms. MFP investigative reporter Nick Judin was the reporting mentor on this project. Read more award-winning YMP high-school journalism at jxnpulse.com.
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