What goes on inside Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers across the US happens behind closed doors and high fences.

Personal accounts of lengthy detention, misery and sickness and allegations of abuse rarely reach the public directly while people are still behind bars.

But a group of men detained in Texas found a new way to communicate what they are going through in custody, despite being shuttered from the outside world. They compiled hundreds of pages of handwritten testimony and some hand-drawn art, and mailed it from inside the privately run ICE jail.

One man even wrote two protest songs and sang them over a crackly prison pay phone to the Guardian. In a solemn and defiant tone, he sang from the perspective of one detainee to another: “We are the people, raising our voice. You are my brother, brother I am. Today as you find yourself in this prison, give me a hug, I give you love.”

Others’ stories were scribbled on notepaper, between July and September this year.

“We are immigrants, we are not criminals,” one wrote. Distraught, the men blame their situation on “nothing more than the result of racist policies” by the Trump administration.

“Why is it that a simple migrant, who one day leaves for work, can end up not seeing sunlight nor breathing pure air for days, simply due to a status adjustment?” one writes, nodding to Donald Trump’s actions of detaining immigrants despite them having temporary legal status or ongoing cases.

The men find themselves “behind bars, living an experience that marks a ‘before’ and ‘after’ for the detainee and his family”, another testimony says.

The detainees are at the T Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor, on the outskirts of Austin, a place nicknamed “la perrera” – Spanish for “the dog pound” – to reflect harsh conditions.

The package of writings and art was mailed to a detainee’s relative and shared with the advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy, which shared it with the Guardian.

Many tens of thousands of people are detained by ICE across the country – the majority without criminal histories – amid the anti-immigration crackdown. The men’s reported experience is common, but their way of communicating it is not.

The Guardian received testimonies from at least five detainees after months of detention, but is withholding most identifying details for their safety.

They add up to almost 200 pages of narratives in Spanish, drawings and documents. The T Don Hutto facility is run for ICE by the private prison company CoreCivic. The men wrote that the facility makes them feel not like people but like “inventory”.

One explained that they wanted to “alert, denounce and affirm what is seen, lived and felt daily, while being detained”.

One series of drawings depicts a man waving to his family as he leaves for work, but then being arrested by ICE officers swooping outside a grocery store and locking him up. Other, sparely drawn sketches show the detention center’s bleak cells, hallways and communal areas, along with an immigration court.

The fiery testimonies make allegations of abuse by CoreCivic guards, and substandard food and medical care.

“CoreCivic plays a limited but important role in the immigration system,” a company spokesperson said in a statement. “We do not decide who is detained, for how long, or whether someone is released. Our job is to care for the people at our ICE-contracted facilities safely, humanely and with dignity while their cases proceed.”

“The safety, health and well-being of the individuals entrusted to our care is our top priority. We do not dismiss the concerns of the people in our care, and we respond to legitimate issues through established processes,” the spokesperson added.

The detainees also sent out a list of demands, including calls for their immigration cases to be processed more quickly, to be reunited with families, the release of children from other immigration centers and of detainees with developmental disabilities. They also called for investigations into the rising number of immigrant deaths in ICE detention.

“These first-hand accounts reveal more than what is happening inside a single detention facility. They expose an entire system that strips people of their dignity, separates families and treats fundamental constitutional rights as optional,” said DaMareo Cooper, co-founder of the New York-based Center for Popular Democracy, a progressive advocacy organization. “What is equally powerful is the extraordinary courage of those risking so much to speak out. Behind every testimony, every piece of artwork and every story is a human being enduring unimaginable pain.”

In a statement, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that “any allegations of subprime conditions or misconduct at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center are FALSE”.

“All detainees are provided with 3 meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries,” a DHS spokesperson added. “Illegal aliens also have access to phones to communicate with their family members and lawyers. Certified dietitians evaluate meals.”

However, the men, who regard some of the testimonies as a collective appeal, write: “Being an immigrant does not mean you do not have rights.” They go on to say that their notes and drawings were done “for those who will be here, for those of us who are here, and for those who left”.

The Hutto facility is relatively small and detains only men. In late September, there were 497 total detainees – almost reaching full capacity, according to a review of a daily roster page. Most people were booked into the facility in 2026, with many others in 2025. Two men have been detained for more than three years, since September 2023, according to the roster.

“We know some community members in there right now – we get a lot of information about how bad it is,” said Alejandro Caceres, an organizer with the Austin Sanctuary Network, an immigrants rights group in Texas. Caceres said he had also heard repeated complaints about alleged retaliation by guards, substandard medical care and food, and the use of solitary confinement in the facility.

A Honduran father describes in his testimony how he was arrested by ICE in San Antonio, Texas, in August, after seven years in the US. He says he does not have a criminal record. He worked at a mechanic’s shop, and cycled to a convenience store during break to get coffee and cigarettes, but as he was leaving, he says, he saw a black vehicle speeding towards him.

“I thought it was someone driving drunk or under the influence of drugs, or someone who wanted to kill me,” he writes.

He described his fear as the people in the vehicle jumped out and pepper-sprayed him. He lost consciousness and woke up to officials splashing water on his face, he said.

“It was exactly at that moment that I discovered they were ICE,” he writes. The Guardian was unable to confirm his account.

Detainees also accuse guards of abuse. In late September, a detainee described how he saw a Cuban man attempt to take a piece of bread from the cafeteria back to his cell to later eat it “alongside his coffee”. The guards would not allow it, so he quickly ate it in defiance. According to the written account, the confrontation escalated, with guards beating him to the floor, bleeding. Other detainees “only saw through glass how they beat their companion”, the detainee wrote.

In a statement, CoreCivic said that incident “was reviewed in coordination with ICE, and it was determined that excessive use of force was not used”.

DHS did not respond to any of the specific allegations of abuse, with a spokesperson saying the department “are not going to entertain unnamed allegations from the Guardian”.

One of the men detained in the facility who chose to be named is Julian Osorio Garcia, an asylum seeker from Colombia who spoke by phone from inside and is the man who wrote the protest songs and sang them over the phone.

“I do not know why migrants are treated in such an inhumane way,” he said. “We have so many stories here. I have heard some situations that are extremely difficult.”

Osorio has requested asylum in the US and received a work permit while waiting for his case to be decided. But he was arrested in Texas in May, after he and a friend were pulled over by local law enforcement working with ICE – an increasing trend – according to him and a cousin, in separate phone interviews.

Osorio came to the US in 2023 with a legal tourist visa and about one year later requested asylum after being threatened by criminal groups in Colombia, he and his cousin both said. According to a Colombian judicial document shared with the Guardian, a Colombian magistrate with the country’s special jurisdiction of peace found Osorio to be an “indirect victim” of the country’s decades-long civil conflict.

Osorio’s attorney filed a habeas petition with a US federal judge in June, requesting his release while he fights his case. A federal judge in Texas denied Osorio’s petition in late October, meaning he cannot be immediately released from detention.

“It’s a migratory process that is costing tears, the separation of families, the loss of so much money for families [trying to fight their cases] – it’s leading to death,” said Osorio.

“And how can a private company profit from all this?” he asked, referring to CoreCivic.

DHS wants to deport Osorio. A spokesperson said he entered the US legally in 2023 “but chose to violate our nation’s laws by refusing to depart by the required date”.

“This administration is not going to ignore the rule of law just because the Guardian would like us to,” the spokesperson added. “Osorio Garcia will receive due process and remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of his removal proceedings.”

The DHS did not respond to follow-up questions about this. Records show Osorio’s asylum case has not been decided.

In its statement, DHS also said that Osorio had been arrested in 2023 in Texas for driving while intoxicated. Court and arrest records accessed by the Guardian show that he was never convicted in connection with the charge and that the case is “inactive”. DHS did not respond to follow-up questions about the case.

The writings suggest strong solidarity among the detained immigrants. Osorio sang over the phone: “They persecute us, they arrest us, they put chains on us … Let’s all take to the streets, let’s go out en masse, we are Hispanos Free.”

One testimony says that when individual immigrants are released from the facility, the other detainees say goodbye by clapping and shouting as loudly as they can.

“Because, from here, no one leaves that easily,” one piece of testimony said.