Volunteers who meet regularly with detainees at two detention centers in Orange County and one in San Bernardino County say they were notified by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials July 24 that their weekly visits had to stop.

A spokeswoman for the agency said the programs were suspended because some members of the visitation groups had bypassed standards put in place to protect the privacy of the detainees. She said the groups would be allowed to resume their programs if they agreed to follow the agency’s privacy policies.

Last month’s suspension came days after Christina Fialho, who heads an organization that represents visitation groups nationwide, published a Huffington Post article criticizing the agency’s treatment of transgender detainees at an immigrant holding facility at the Santa Ana Jail.

Fialho alleged that some transgender inmates were being delayed access to hormone treatment and accused some guards of telling transgender women to “use their male voice.” She did not identify the detainees or guards by name.

In a letter to Fialho on Friday, a top ICE official said Fialho’s blogging had transformed her into a “media representative” and said that if she planned to visit the detention center again with the intention of publishing stories, she would have to get clearance with the agency’s media representatives, disclose the purpose of the visit and obtain a signed consent form from any detainee she interviews.

“While promoting transparency with regard to immigration detention, ICE is dedicated to ensuring that detainees’ personal information is respected and safeguarded,” wrote Thomas Homan, the executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations at ICE.

Fialho said that though she does not believe that her blog post raised privacy concerns, her group was “open to working out a process that adequately protects detainees’ privacy.”

Michael Kaufman, an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, said the agency’s demands may violate free speech protections.

In a news release issued by the ACLU and a group of legal service providers that work in immigration detention centers, Kaufman said the suspensions “give the clear appearance that ICE is trying to silence its critics and shield the public’s awareness of detention conditions.”

Fialho’s group, Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement, has programs in eight of California’s 18 immigration detention facilities. She says the program’s volunteers serve as a bridge between detainees and their often far-away families and sometimes help detainees secure legal representation.

The visitation programs were suspended at Santa Ana City Jail and the James A. Musick Facility in Orange County, two jails that ICE pays to house immigrant detainees, as well as the privately run Adelanto Detention Facility in San Bernardino County. Adelanto, with 1,300 beds, is the largest immigrant detention center in Southern California.

Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for ICE, said detention facilities were closely monitored, and any allegations of misconduct were promptly investigated. She said that under ICE guidelines, transgender detainees who were already receiving hormone therapy when taken into custody were allowed to continue the therapy.

In her Huffington Post article, Fialho complained that some detainees had been denied therapy because of long delays in transferring their medical records from other detention facilities.

kate.linthicum@latimes.com