Ask Habib Sarr about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which offers protections and work authorization for immigrants brought to the United States as children, and he echoes the thoughts of other recipients.

"It was very overwhelming because I could work legally. I could obtain a driver's license," said Sarr, 30, who was born in Gambia but grew up in New Brunswick. "I was expecting to just reach a level of security of my life."

Sarr lost that sense of security when delays with his DACA-renewal paperwork landed him behind bars in August – for reasons that have not been made clear. Another indignity, he says, would come later during his stay in the Elizabeth Detention Center.

On the morning of Oct. 26, Sarr said he was in the recreation room of the facility, reading a newspaper, when he asked to return to his dormitory. He said a guard suspicious of his reasons for leaving the room conducted a body search – a routine procedure. Sarr alleges, however, that the guard conducted an improper search, touching his bare buttocks and pubic hair.

"I removed his hands and said, 'that's not how you're supposed to search me,'" Sarr, who has been detained since Aug. 22, recalled in a phone interview. "I turn around (to let the search continue). I guess he was kind of mad that I said something about it."

"I just felt violated," he added.

Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), confirmed that the agency's Office of Professional Responsibility is reviewing Sarr's complaint but that "preliminary findings by CoreCivic found the allegations to be unsubstantiated."

The allegation comes as immigration detention centers have come under scrutiny for how they treat detainees – as plentiful as ever during the Trump administration's crackdown on people without legal status. A report released last week by the Office of the Inspector General, who conducted a sample survey at four immigration detention centers, states that among other forms of mistreatment inmates were served food that wasn't properly handled, denied timely medical care and discouraged from filing grievances against officers.

At the facilities that were inspected, officials wrote, "specifically, some detainees reported that staff obstructed or delayed their grievances or intimidated them, through fear of retaliation, into not complaining. These deterrents may prevent detainees from filing grievances about serious concerns that should be addressed and resolved."

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Hudson County jail, one of the facilities inspectors visited, came under scrutiny over the summer when Carlos Mejia-Bonilla, a 44-year-old detainee from El Salvador, died in ICE custody. Authorities say the cause of the June 9 death was "internal bleeding and hemorrhagic shock."

Sally Pillay, director of the advocacy group First Friends of New Jersey and New York, said the report highlights mistreatment that immigrants regularly face.

“It is not acceptable that taxpayers dollars are used to incarcerate our immigrant brothers and sisters, while these facilities are plagued by abuse, mistreatment and a lack of accountability," Pillay wrote in a statement.

The report recommends that ICE ensure its Enforcement and Removal Operations offices review detainee classifications, language services, segregation and disciplinary procedures and protocol for filing and reviewing grievances. It also asked ICE to create a process for corrective action.

ICE said in a statement that the agency "concurred with the recommendation and has begun corrective action to address the findings in this report."

Elizabeth Detention Center wasn't one of the facilities inspected for the report, but some of the complaints swirling around the site mirror the poor treatment referenced in the government report.

Sarr spent 13 days in solitary confinement, during which time he filed a complaint against the officer he accuses of making an improper search. In the days after filing the report, Sarr said, he felt pressured to retract the complaint. He declined to do so.

A separate statement from ICE states Sarr was placed in "administrative segregation" twice after disciplinary committee hearings. The disciplinary committee found him responsible for two separate incidents: an assault on an officer and a "disruption to facility operations."

"ICE is firmly committed to the safety and welfare of all those in its custody," the statement said. "The use of restrictive housing in ICE detention facilities is exceedingly rare, but at times necessary, to ensure the safety of staff and individuals in a facility. Additionally, ICE detainees in segregation consist disproportionately of those with the most serious criminal convictions, and the segregation rates even for this population are substantially lower than at jails and prisons."

After hearing ICE’s statement, Sarr said in a phone interview that he never committed any such incidents.

“All I did was take his hands off my body, off my private parts, because I was shocked,” Sarr said. “If that’s what they consider assault, then they gave assault a whole new meaning.”

He added: “How come this sexual harassment is not being justified? ... They continue to discard that his hands were in my pants.”

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Growing up without legal status

Sarr's path to the detention center has been as circuitous as his arrival to the U.S.

Sarr was 3 years old when his family brought him to the United States on a tourist visa. He grew up in New Brunswick with his older sister, younger brother and parents.

In 2007, his senior year of high school, Sarr was held by immigration authorities. He said he never learned why other than because he lacked legal status. He was released shortly after, and his immigration case was administratively closed, but he had to take summer classes to finish high school.

Sarr went to college but soon left because of an illness in the family.

Sarr ran into trouble in 2010 when he and several friends were arrested on drug and weapons charges, according to court records. Sarr maintains his innocence but pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, a lesser charge. He paid a $125 fine.

He wrote in a letter reviewed by the Press, "I paid my debt to society for my past indiscretion, which was a fine of $125."

When Sarr applied for DACA in 2015, he disclosed the conviction. He was approved in 2015 and again in 2017, when he renewed his DACA authorization.

Sarr was working with a friend as a truck driver's assistant when he was asked to check in with ICE in late August. Although he had been approved for DACA a second time, his authorization card expired and he was waiting for his new DACA card to come in the mail. Nonetheless, he said, ICE detained him and did not say why.

During his detention, ICE reopened his immigration case – even though his new DACA card came in the mail about two months after August ICE check-in.

His current legal problems came into full view as Sarr and his then-girlfriend prepared to marry last fall. Sarr and his bride, a U.S.-born citizen from Highland Park who declined to be interviewed for this story, wed Nov. 3 in a small room within the detention center. By the next week, however, he was in the Essex County Jail.

Sarr said he still doesn't know why he is being detained. He requested to be released on bond at a hearing in November. He said the judge ordered him to remain in immigration detention, citing his criminal conviction from 2010.

Kyle Chan, his immigration lawyer, wouldn't speak at length about Sarr's case but did say that Sarr is not required to remain in detention. He hopes to get Sarr out on bond at his next bond hearing, which is Thursday.

"Mr. Sarr is anxious to begin life as a newlywed. He has been in the US since he was 3 years old; this is the only home he has ever known," Chan said in a statement emailed to the Press. "He is a beloved friend to many who have written letters of support for him in addition to being a loving uncle, brother, and son to his family."

Life under DACA

Sarr is far from alone in his uncertainty. He is one of an estimated 22,000 DACA recipients in New Jersey, and among more than 700,000 across the country.

While DACA offered Sarr protections from deportation and work authorization, the program's days are numbered. The Trump administration announced Sept. 5 that it would start to phase out DACA on March 5, putting the onus on Congress to come up with a legislative fix before that deadline.

In the meantime, Sarr gets weekly visits from his wife. She gets in line around 9:45 a.m., braving the chill from a nearby wind tunnel, and enters the county jail around 12:45 p.m.

“As much as I love my wife, I hate making her wait in line," Sarr said.

Sarr's wife, who dated him for a year before marrying him, declined to be interviewed. All she said was, contrary to what an immigration judge suggested at Sarr's November bond hearing, their relationship was not a "green card marriage."

Mayor Gayle Brill Mittler officiated at the couple's wedding. She called it the most bittersweet wedding she ever presided over.

"I got to marry them. He got to kiss his new bride, and then they had to be separated again," said Mittler, who has known the bride since she was born. "I drove back to Highland Park with (the bride) and her two sisters. The whole thing took maybe five minutes."

Now, when they do see each other, Sarr said, they can only sit across from one another. They're not allowed to hold hands.

His wife submitted a green card petition on his behalf. Sarr said he hopes that with the pending green card application and his DACA card in hand, he can convince the judge to release him.

"I just want to get back to regular life," he said.

Steph Solis: @stephmsolis; ssolis@gannett.com; 732-403-0074.