U. S. officials are not anxious to shed more light on the details of the deportation process for illegal immigrants. Stories written about the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in the U.S. press typically end with the phrase: “All those arrested will be deported to their native countries.”

Rarely is mention made of where “those arrested" will be kept until they are deported, since the general belief is that Americans have no interest whatsoever in detention centers.

Human rights advocates from Pennsylvania conducted their own investigation at several dozen detention centers across the United States. What they saw shocked even the most experienced experts on prison life.

“The only place I saw anything like this was when I worked as a medic in prisons in the poorest African countries,” said human rights advocate Harry Waller. “Detained illegal immigrants are held in inhuman conditions. Even children are kept behind barbed wire in terrible heat. The food is terrible and there are no qualified doctors.”

There are currently thousands of families of illegal immigrants awaiting deportation in similar conditions. Human rights advocates note that some of the inmates are critically ill and need emergency medical care.

“When my four-year-old daughter came down with a heavy cough, I asked prison officials for help," recounted Mira Salgado, a native of Colombia. "I was told that the doctor was on vacation and that I should try to find a doctor among the inmates. They only summoned a doctor four days later when my daughter lost consciousness. He had her taken to intensive care."

Salgado was in one of the detention centers in California, where the number of inmates sometimes exceeds the standard limit by eight to 10 times. The prisoners complain that they have to take turns sleeping and bribe guards to get good food.

“The price of a pack of cigarettes reached $30,” said Phillip Capella, who was deported after spending seven months in prison. “Local speculators would buy up all the popular products at the small prison store. One person killed himself because someone stole all his cash. That was the scariest time in my life.”

Illegal immigrants in detention centers frequently use up all their savings trying to convince immigration officials to rescind their deportation orders.

“The wait for a final ruling is accompanied by litigation with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS),” explained James Frantz, a human rights advocate from Florida. “There have been cases where undocumented immigrants have spent $40,000 to $50,000 – their entire savings from many years working here – on legal services. But the sentence always remains the same: deportation."

The Wackenhut detention center for illegal immigrants in Florida is one of the grimmest in the country. In fact, there is little to distinguish it from prisons that hold convicted killers and rapists.

“We were put in an enormous room holding over 200 people," recalled Bobik Mago, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo who was denied political refugee status. “There were no doors or partitions in the bathrooms and showers so that the guards could see the inmates at all times. We were all considered to be dangerous criminals, while the only crime most of us had committed was living in the United States illegally."

Officials at Hillsborough Prison in Tampa came up with an original way to help young inmates. These adolescents were placed in a cell with bright pink walls for 15 minutes a day to prevent them from becoming hysterical or suicidal in closed surroundings.

"We believe that doing this helps to ease psychological tension," Anthony Shembrey, one of the program's creators, stated proudly. “If a pink room seems to help them, we will try it out at other prisons in America.”

Amnesty International (AI) promptly accused prison officials of conducting forced experiments on inmates.

“If this had been done to U.S. citizens, officials at Hillsborough would be behind bars,” said AI spokesperson Roger Walkers. “The inmates do not have any rights and are petrified of being deported, so they obediently follow all the orders of their jailers. We do not have the slightest conception of what goes on in detention centers.”

Last year, Les Gullo, a Sudanese inmate at a detention center in New Mexico, secretly handed over a letter to AI representatives that read: “Please help us! We are victimized every day. We are not allowed to speak on the telephone, write letters, or meet with a lawyer. We are forced to signed voluntary deportation papers.”

When AI members showed up at the detention center unannounced, they found that the inmate named Les Gullo had already been “sent home.” Now he will only be able to make his case and criticize the U.S. immigration system from his native Sudan. It seems unlikely that anyone will hear him.

“Workers at immigration prisons can do whatever they want with inmates,” continued Roger Walkers. “We have uncovered hundreds of crimes ranging from bribery to sexual violence. Undocumented immigrants are completely dependent on prison officials. After all, they can be deported within 24 hours if officials so desire.”

Children who are behind bars with their families suffer the most. Arizona resident Rick Chavez ended up in a detention center with his wife and four young children.

“We were only allowed to talk to each other through bars during exercise time," recounted Chavez. "I thought about my children every night. They begged me with tears in their eyes to get them out of their cell."

Michelle Brann, who works for a women’s rights organization, called the deportation centers human zoos. “I cannot believe that this can go on in civilized America," she said. "I will never forget the expression on this nine-year-old girl's face as she looked at me from behind bars and cried. When I called the supervisor a sadist, he just shrugged and coldly answered that this is how illegal immigrants should be treated."

Another problem that has emerged over the last few years is that inmates are forced to sign various documents that are only made available in English. Those who speak English poorly – mostly Africans and Latinos – sign what prison officials call unimportant documents only to find that they have actually given consent to deportation.

“I was asked to sign a paper after I put some of my things in storage,” said an enraged undocumented immigrant named Jorge Diarro. “I though it was just a list of clothes, but it was actually a consent form for deportation.”

Prison officials frequently take these kinds of steps to free those working in the massive deportation structure from extra bureaucratic troubles. And this works for the government too, since keeping an illegal immigrant in a detention centers costs between $50 and $240 a day.