RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) — A Raleigh father is sharing with ABC11 what he says he experienced inside a federal immigration detention center, and the health battle he says he’s now facing.
David Cardenas Centeno said what was supposed to be a routine, annual check-in for his asylum case turned into a nine-day ordeal that ended in a Charlotte-area hospital.
“It’s hard. I’m a human being. We don’t deserve this. Immigrants, we don’t deserve this,” he said.
Centeno and his family say they escaped violence in Nicaragua and claimed asylum in 2022.
He says he and his wife have working permits, social security numbers, and believe they have the ability to stay in the country while their asylum case makes its way through the courts.
That’s why he was shocked when he was detained by federal immigration officials during his routine immigration check-in on December 4 in Charlotte.
His wife, Cecilia Mendoza, says she and their daughters were shocked.
“My daughters started crying when I told them because, well, it’s expected when you go through this heartbreak.”
Centeno claims he has no criminal record, and says he’s concerned about what he says were the conditions in federal custody.
“There, you don’t feel like a human being. You feel like nothing. You feel like trash,” he said. “There’s one toilet, where everyone can see you, and there’s 40 people in one cell.”
ABC11 asked ICE about the conditions in the detention center.
During his stay, he says he was also denied medical care. He tells ABC11 he is diabetic and has heart conditions, saying his pleas for help while in custody went unanswered.
“I finally got medical attention for my condition when they saw that I basically had fainted in the cell,” said Centeno.
This entire time his wife says she had no idea what was going on, until she says she got an anonymous message.
“I don’t know who they were. All they said was, ‘Get a lawyer, he’s in really bad shape,'” said Mendoza.
Federal agents released Centeno from custody on Friday, after community members in Charlotte, where he was detained, pushed for his release.
Centeno says he was never told why he was detained.
“All they said was you’re going to be deported. Maybe you’ll see a judge, but that’s it,” he said.
Centeno says his doctors tell him he needs open heart surgery, but says he is still too weak to be operated on after this experience.
Still, he says he needed to speak out about what happened.
“If I don’t speak publicly and stay silent out of fear, they could keep doing this to other people,” he said.
Centeno says he was deported in 2013 for using a different name to enter the country, and says the Department of Homeland Security has not returned his immigration paperwork since he was detained.
ABC11 reached out to DHS and ICE, asking why Centeno was detained, why it apparently took so long for him to receive medical care, and how the conditions in the detention center are.
Editor’s note: All quotes from Centeno and Mendoza have been translated from Spanish.
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