By LeRoy Nellis | Austin, Texas
Inside a jail, you stop taking people at face value.
By the time this happened, I was already being illegally detained inside the Williamson County Jail. I had also already figured out that not everyone housed around me was who they claimed to be. Some presented as inmates, spoke the language of confinement, and blended into the environment—but their behavior didn’t match the reality of incarceration.
Over time, patterns emerged. Individuals operating as inmates asked targeted questions, steered conversations, and carried themselves with an ease that didn’t belong in a cellblock. I identified what appeared to be undercover Williamson County detectives and ISFs embedded in housing units, operating under the cover of incarceration.
It was during this period that I overheard a conversation that clarified the tactic being used. Two men, presenting as inmates, spoke within earshot about having “friends with ICE” and using those relationships to coerce undocumented individuals into testifying. The statement wasn’t emotional or exaggerated. It was operational—described as a capability.
Inside a jail, implications carry more weight than threats. When immigration enforcement is introduced as leverage in a custodial environment, fear becomes a substitute for evidence. Undocumented detainees understand immediately what is being suggested: cooperation may preserve stability, resistance may invite transfer, holds, or deportation.
This is not lawful investigation. Local detectives do not have authority to use real or implied federal immigration consequences as bargaining chips. When a sheriff’s office allows or facilitates this dynamic—especially by embedding undercover actors among detainees—it transforms custody into coercion.
Testimony obtained under these conditions is not voluntary. It is shaped by fear, survival calculus, and confinement. Any case built on it is structurally compromised.
What stood out most was not just what was said, but how comfortable it was said—inside a locked facility, by people pretending to be inmates, surrounded by individuals with no ability to leave the pressure behind. That confidence does not come from rumor. It comes from practice.
Local law enforcement does not get to warehouse fear. Federal power is not a tool for manufacturing testimony. And justice cannot survive when intimidation is laundered through silence and confinement.
LeRoy Nellis 