For nearly three weeks, Colorado Springs resident Marivel Azpeitia has been recording phone conversations with her fiancé, Edwin Euceda Rios, while he has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In those recordings, he describes witnessing violence by detention center staff against another detainee, threats of further violence, days of isolation, missed meals, unheated living spaces, lack of medical care, going days without showers or time outside, and the inability to file a grievance.
In the recorded conversations, the frustration is audible in Euceda Rios’s voice.
“This is not the America that I know. This is not the America I was raised on,” he said during a call in which he told Azpeitia he had been unable to speak with the correct ICE staff about self-deportation – even after days of saying he was ready to leave the country and return to Honduras rather than endure the conditions in ICE detention centers any longer.
“Just please keep staying on their good side,” Azpeitia said.
The arrest
Azpeitia told Bulletin she and Euceda Rios were driving through Memphis, Texas, on Dec. 20 to pick up Euceda Rios’s children and spend time with them over the holidays when they were stopped by law enforcement with the Hall County Sheriff Department. The traffic stop led to Euceda Rios’s arrest and then transfer to ICE custody.
A dispatcher/jailer with the Hall County Dispatch/County Jail told the Bulletin that Euceda Rios is charged with a Misdemeanor A for marijuana possession of between 2 and 4 ounces. The Bulletin has submitted a records request to clarify why Euceda Rios was pulled over and if the marijuana charge stemmed from that traffic stop or is an older charge, and if the sheriff’s office was aware of any previous criminal history or outstanding warrants.
Azpeitia, who is in her late 20s and works in retail, told the Bulletin that Euceda Rios was brought from Honduras into the U.S. as a child without legal status. He is now 30 years old and owns a local roofing company, attends church and gives a hand up to others.
After his arrest, Euceda Rios was transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, first at Bluebonnet Detention Center and then to the Diamondback Correctional Facility. The Bulletin used the ICE online detainee locator, which showed Euceda Rios is currently detained at Diamondback.
Azpeitia said they do not have the money for an attorney – but while this article was being written, a pro-bono lawyer took the case.
On Jan. 6, Rios was briefly interviewed via phone call by television journalist Don Lemon on parts of his experience in ICE detention.
Alleged assault at Bluebonnet
Bluebonnet Detention Facility is in Anson, Texas, a small city in the north central part of the state. 
In a recorded call shared with the Bulletin, Euceda Rios described to Azpeitia an alleged altercation between an older detainee and guards that he and other detainees witnessed in which the elderly detainee was in the shower and got into a dispute with guards, who pulled him from the shower. Euceda Rios said the guards choked and kicked the elderly man, and then took him out of the confinement area bleeding on a stretcher.
Euceda Rios said that, following the shower incident, guards threatened the detainees with tear gas. Euceda Rios gave Azpeitia the number to the sheriff’s office for the Bluebonnet area, and asked her to call and report what was happening inside Bluebonnet and ask for help. “We are fearing for our lives,” Euceda Rios said to Azpeitia.
Azpeitia called the local sheriff’s office and recorded the call. The dispatcher told her there was nothing the sheriff’s office could do, and recommended she call Bluebonnet. Azpeitia said she had been calling repeatedly, and they would pick up and hang up, or tell her they couldn’t give her any information at that time.
Azpeitia recorded a phone call to Bluebonnet in which she tried to report the incident involving the guards beating the detainee. The person who answered, who identified himself as a lieutenant, said he could not help her. He said the supervisor wasn’t there but would not say the supervisor’s name or when that person might be available; he said to call back later. Azpeitia asked how to speed up her husband’s deportation and the staff member said he could not help with that, either.
In a later recorded phone call, Euceda Rios said he was placed in isolation and then transported to Diamondback Correctional Facility in Watonga, Oklahoma.
Bluebonnet was in the news in April of last year when a Reuters drone captured footage of male detainees in the dirt yard of the facility using their bodies to spell out the letters SOS, the universal signal of emergency distress. The detainees, many of whom claimed innocence, feared the Trump administration would send them to the notorious El Salvadoran prison CECOT without due process, as happened to hundreds of men accused of being gang members.
Poor conditions alleged at Diamondback
Recorded conversations between Euceda Rios and Azpeitia describe alleged conditions at Diamondback, including not being given medicine when he was sick, not getting to bathe or go outside, and cold living quarters. He said he was still being held “in the hole” – in isolation – but without a hearing to determine if he had done something to warrant that treatment.
“They take me out of the cell in handcuffs … like I’m some criminal. They denied me the right to a hearing. They denied me the right to a witness,” he said.
And, he said, he had been unable to file a grievance; he’d been walking around with a written one for days, but no one would take it. He’d asked to speak with a supervisor, but that hadn’t happened either.
The facility had recently opened and seemed to Azpeitia and Euceda Rios to not be ready for inhabitants: phone numbers didn’t work, the staff didn’t know how to set up commissary or other accounts.
Leaning on faith
In a phone call between Azpeitia and Euceda Rios after his arrival at Diamondback, Euceda Rios was discussing the poor conditions he was experiencing and Azpeitia was audibly upset, crying softly.
“It’s ok, baby. It’s not your fault, it’s not your fault. Now you see the America that you’re in. Now you see what’s going on” Euceda Rios said. “We thought that this wasn’t going to affect us, but now you’re seeing it.”
Euceda Rios shifted to a more positive tone.
“But hey, I was up at 12 a.m. … I had a good talk with God, and it’s going to be good. Just trust that, it’s going to be good,” Euceda Rios told his fiancée. “He spoke to me, He said our trials will serve as your testimony in the future …
“This will be for our testimony in the future. We will be able to help many people with this. Our testimony will speak out loud for what God has done and will keep doing in our lives, OK? So just trust in that and pray. Don’t forget to keep praying. That’s the only way we can beat this, OK?”
“OK, baby, I love you,” Azpeitia answered.
“I know you do … thank you so much for not leaving my side,” Euceda Rios said.
He said he needed to end the call so the other detainees could use the phone.
Euceda Rios told Azpeitia, “I love you much, mucho, mucho.”
“Te amo,” Azpeitia said. “I love you mucho mucho mucho. Besos.” – “I love you. I love you so, so, so much. Kisses.”
Azpeitia said she is exploring moving to Honduras to potentially join Euceda Rios there.
Azpeitia said ICE had suspended Euceda Rios’s contact for several days but reinstated his ability to make phone calls during and after the Don Lemon interview. She said the lawyer has been trying to talk to the facility but hasn’t been able to get a secure line to speak with Euceda Rios, and it seems she is being hung up on.
No comment or info from ICE
Unlike regular law enforcement agencies, ICE does not maintain a public record of their daily activity like a police blotter. ICE agents do not have standard uniforms, badge display protocol, or body camera policy. As the Bulletin has noted before, the agency operates largely out of public view with little mechanism for transparency or accountability.
I reached out to Diamondback for information and comment. A woman identifying herself as a lieutenant answered the phone. While I was explaining the nature of the call, the call ended. I called back and the same thing happened. I called a third time and asked, “Did you hang up on me?” And the person said “No, you’ve been hanging up on me.” And then the call ended again. I did not end any of the calls.
I reached out to Bluebonnet for information and comment as well. Bluebonnet told me to call the ICE Dallas Field Office. After trying several extensions that did not work but instead ended the call, a person answered. That staff member transferred the call, and the person I spoke to next told me to call ICE’s main media line, a number with a Washington, D.C. area code. That number went straight to a voicemail that did not identify itself as belonging to ICE, nor did it give any indication of what agency or person it belonged to. However, I was able to confirm on the ICE website that it was the correct number. I left a message. I will update this story if we hear back.
Editor’s note Jan. 19, 2026: This article was updated to remove a reference to ICE not having a system for public records requests. The United States Citizen and Immigration Services handles ICE’s implementation of the Freedom of Information Act which provides some types of documentation related to ICE. DHS handles other types of requests.
Editor’s note Jan. 20: We found a great resource on immigration-related reporting and requesting records from various involved agencies. Read it here.
