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Somewhere in a sweltering desert, cockroaches scurry around the cell of Carlitos Ricardo Parias. He holds up a plastic bottle, gazing at the worm-like creatures swimming in his water. His other arm is turning purple from a gunshot wound for which he says he hasn’t received proper medical care.

His gulag isn’t in a distant Soviet or banana republic. It’s about an hour and a half from Disneyland, in a small California town called Adelanto. After ICE officers shot and detained Parias last October, the Los Angeles-based journalist will cross 300 days in ICE detention on Monday.

His horrifying conditions aren’t unique among immigrant detainees, but Parias’s case is extraordinary. Perhaps no journalist has endured such a sustained sequence of violence, prosecution, and imprisonment at the hands of the U.S. government.

Even in detention, Parias remains a journalist. He began reporting on the horrid conditions that he and other detainees endure. Through video recorded by his visitors and accounts relayed to other reporters, Parias exposed the worm-like creatures in drinking water and roaches in the cells.