Prison rape commission meets in L.A.

Suffering years of violence and harassment as a transsexual in Mexico, Mayra Soto sought asylum in what she hoped would be a more tolerant U.S.

But the trauma continued here.

She was detained in an immigrant detention center in Los Angeles and forced by a guard to perform oral sex on him with the threat of violence, she said.

Soto's story, relayed tearfully to a bipartisan federal panel Wednesday, was one of many allegations of guards taking advantage of immigrant detainees.

The guard in Soto's case eventually pleaded guilty to sexual assault and served a six-month sentence. But Soto told The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission _ whose eight members include presidential and congressional appointees _ that her punishment was much worse: Guards moved her to a cell with accused murderers and rapists, she claimed.

"I took this as another form of retaliation," said Soto, 33, sobbing. "I still don't know how they could justify placing someone as feminine as me in the same unit as murders and rapists."

The two-day hearing in a federal courtroom is the sixth held by the commission nationwide, but the first to focus on sexual abuse of immigrants held in federal detention facilities.

The panel, led by a federal judge and made up of business leaders, academics and human rights workers, was formed by Congress in 2003 to find ways of deterring prison rape _ a crime that has claimed an estimated 1 million victims in 20 years, according to the commission.

Unaware of their rights, unable to speak English and afraid that speaking out could hurt their chance at freedom, immigrant detainees are one of the populations most vulnerable to abuse by guards, immigrant advocates testified.

Nationwide, some 23,000 undocumented immigrants are held in the facilities _ some for years at a time _ awaiting word on their right to stay in the U.S.

Hearings by the commission in five other cities have focused on juvenile victims, what corrections officials can do to prevent prison assaults, and how to streamline the reporting, investigation and prosecution of crimes. The committee is expected to report its findings to the president and Congress by early 2008.

A Florida advocate for immigrants' rights detailed allegations of more than a decade of sexual abuse of Haitian immigrants detained in a Miami facility by guards. Cheryl Little testified that anyone who complained was deported or transferred to remote facilities away from lawyers, family and friends.

"Anyone who wore a uniform had free access to women," said Little, executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, quoting a detainee.

Also testifying was a children's rights advocate from San Francisco, who said a female guard was allowed to make repeated advances on a 17-year-old immigrant detained in a youth facility, even after he complained to authorities.

The teen eventually returned to his home country in January to avoid further time in the facility.

The most dramatic testimony came from Soto, the only victim to speak at Wednesday's hearing.

Outside the courtroom, the Orange County hairdresser _ who has been granted a temporary right to stay and work in the U.S. _ said she hoped the pain of recalling her horror in public would lead officials to make changes.

"It's very painful for me, it brings back the fear, the trauma, the pain," Soto said. "But I think they need to know what is happening."