News (Noticias) Tagged ‘detention’

CONTACT: Rachel Myers, (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

LAUREL, MS - In the wake of the largest workplace immigration raid in the country that involved the arrest of at least 600 workers and reports that raise grave concerns about the actions of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Mississippi officials, the American Civil Liberties Union began an investigation of ICE’s conduct and called on the Bush administration to ensure that constitutional rights are scrupulously respected going forward. Staff from the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project arrived in Mississippi today to assess the situation firsthand.

“We are deeply concerned by reports that workers at the factory where the raid occurred were segregated by race or ethnicity and interrogated, the factory was locked down for several hours, workers were denied access to counsel, and ICE failed to inform family members and lawyers following the raid where the workers were being jailed,” said Mónica Ramírez, a staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project who has traveled to Mississippi to meet with family members and lawyers about the government’s actions.

On Monday, ICE agents raided a factory located in Laurel, Mississippi owned by Howard Industries Inc., detained at least 600 workers and transported the arrested workers to a federal immigration detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, nearly 200 miles from their homes and family. Some of the workers who are parents of small children were released with an electronic monitoring device and ordered to report back to an ICE office. A few of the arrested workers have been charged under the same criminal statutes used by the government in the recent Postville, Iowa raids that were heavily criticized for the mass prosecutions and assembly-line guilty pleas that the government employed.

The ACLU of Mississippi and the national ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project are also working closely with organizations and advocates in Laurel, Hattiesburg and Jena to monitor the government’s actions, assess the conduct of the raid and ensure compliance with the constitutional requirements of due process and non-discrimination.“

Nitin Dhopade, the chief financial officer for Micro Solutions Enterprises, was headed toward the accounting department on the afternoon of Feb. 7 to deliver checks he had just signed. Suddenly, he says, he encountered armed men and women wearing bulletproof vests and uniforms branded with “ICE,” which stands for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Dhopade, 47, says he and 30 other administrative workers for the Van Nuys, Calif., company, which recycles used toner and ink cartridges, were marched down a stairwell lined by officers. The workers were ordered against a wall and told not to touch anything or use their cellphones. “There was no way you could leave. You were definitely detained,” he says. “None of us were in handcuffs, but there was no way you could say ‘I’m leaving.”*

Imran Ahmad (a pseudonym), a 29 year-old Pakistani computer scientist who can see the Statue of Liberty from his studio apartment in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood, says he no longer believes in the symbol of freedom cast in copper. “Freedom is relative. It depends on things like where you’re from and what you look like” says Ahmad. He reached this conclusion, he says, because of what happened to him as a orange-uniformed detainee held for more than 3 years in numerous federal detention facilities: the denial of habeas corpus (his constitutional right to plead his case before a judge), facing growling dogs, watching friends languish and die while in custody, the “subtle torture” of living for months in a tiny, windowless white room while a nearby TV set blared American Idol or “24.”

After a fellow detainee died under mysterious circumstances, which were covered up by detention facility authorities, Ahmad says he was threatened with lines like “We don’t want you to tell or speak to anyone about this” and “We have cameras and people [detainees] who are watching you, monitoring you.” Though Ahmad was released, he is still in deportation proceedings.”*

European Union lawmakers voted Wednesday to allow countries in the bloc to hold undocumented migrants in detention centers for up to 18 months and ban them from EU territory for five years.

Approved in this medieval French border city, which is home to a significant population of North Africans and Turks, the legislation establishes common rules for expelling foreigners who are detained on EU territory without permission to be there.

Described by critics like Amnesty International as “severely flawed” and an erosion of human rights standards, but by supporters as a balanced approach, the so-called return directive passed in the European Parliament by a vote of 369 to 197, with 106 deputies abstaining.”*

Mexican officials said Thursday that at least 18 Cubans have reached Texas more than a week after masked gunmen hijacked an immigration bus in southern Mexico and seized them.

Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that the U.S. Border Patrol detained the immigrants in Hidalgo County in Texas.

At least six masked gunmen hijacked the bus along a remote jungle highway June 11. They forced seven unarmed immigration agents and two drivers to get off before they fled with 33 Cubans and four Central Americans who were being taken to a detention center for undocumented migrants.”*

As Latina Lista posted yesterday, a bill for the medical care and humane treatment of detained undocumented immigrants while in detention was presented to the Senate this week.

One of the sponsors of the bill, New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez said, “We cannot forget that everyone who immigrates to this country, whether they are documented or not, is a human being. A detention should never amount to a death sentence. We should neither expect nor tolerate this type of neglectful treatment of our fellow human beings in the United States of America. At some point, this becomes more than a legal issue – it becomes a human rights issue. We have to ensure that the type of human rights we champion around the world is being observed here at home.””*

If they are not from Mexico, they will find themselves “detained” in one of several detention facilities under the responsibility of the federal government’s Homeland Security department.

That’s why a bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate yesterday, titled The Secure and Safe Detention and Asylum Act (S. 3114) is so imperative that it be passed.”*

Eight-year-old Gianella Ramos clutched a protest sign Monday at a City Council meeting, chanting “No to GEO! No to detention!”

She was among 30 protesters who rallied on the steps of the Aurora Municipal Center on Monday and called on the City Council to oppose the planned expansion of an immigration detention center that will more than triple the size of the facility.

“I do this for my mother who is an immigrant,” she said.”*

May has been an embattled month for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE, a division of the Department of Homeland Security, faced inquiries from House and Senate members about the inhumane treatment of people detained for violating immigration laws. This congressional scrutiny followed a special report in the Washington Post (and a rash of articles elsewhere) detailing stomach-turning—and sometimes deadly—mistreatment in immigrant detention centers.

A bill to improve detention center conditions has recently been introduced in Congress, but this legislation would do nothing to address the abuses committed by ICE officers well before the people they pick up reach a detention center. Nor would it alter the framework of immigration enforcement that has led to the mistreatment. Congress should be thinking about these problems, too—and so should the courts. “*

Each day, over 30,000 people are housed within detention centers across the United States. The New York-based Detention Watch Network says that last year, over 276,000 immigrants were deported.

Deportations have increased significantly since 1996, when laws became much more punitive. A criminal charge results in jail time and guarantees deportation of non-citizen immigrants, regardless of legal status and family “*

In an NPR interview with Washington Post reporters, Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein, responsible for a four part series on the treatment of foreign detainees inside ICE detention facilities, the pair describe how medical care for those detained is decided based on manuals that tell staff what they cannot do rather on what they can do for ill inmates.”*

Top lawmakers in Congress criticized the Department of Homeland Security yesterday for failing to provide adequate medical care to detained immigrants, and said they plan to demand explanations today from Secretary Michael Chertoff and Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) announced that Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and others will question Chertoff and Myers in a meeting today about reports of medical negligence and deaths of immigrants in ICE detention, as well as improper detentions of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

Carole Gustafson, president and founder of El Centro Latinoamericano in Waterloo, told Latina Lista that the Latino community is so on edge that local businesses are turning to her organization to reach out to them.

“I don’t trust (ICE). They say they’ve stopped but in the days after the raid in Postville, Latinos are reporting that they are being stopped on the street and taken to detention facilities,” said Gustafson. “It’s so bad that local businesses are reporting that their Latino workforce is not showing up for work and they want us to put out a statement saying that it’s alright now, but we can’t because we don’t know for sure.”"*

Today at a hearing before the Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee to address the impact of immigration raids on the workplace, children, and families, Janet Murguía, National Council of La Raza (NCLR) President and CEO, expressed concern that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) current immigration law enforcement strategy is both undermining other important federal law enforcement responsibilities and wreaking havoc on communities throughout the country.

NCLR believes that the United States can and should enforce its immigration laws. But as with any set of laws, our nation should enforce them wisely and well,” said Murguía. During the hearing Murguía spoke of substantial and growing evidence that the use of workplace raids as an immigration enforcement strategy is causing great harm to children, schools, child care centers, and community service agencies.

For example, Murguia testified that a recent raid by ICE at a meat-processing plant in Postville, Iowa has eviscerated a current investigation by state authorities of child labor law violations. Agriprocessors, Inc. was under investigation for allegedly employing underage children to work in the plant. Some of the children who were in a position to testify about the abuses have themselves been detained.

To place children in detention while their exploitative employer regroups and reopens within a day is a clear indication that our enforcement strategies need to be reassessed and our enforcement priorities need to be reexamined,” continued Murguía.

In her testimony Murguía also shared examples of ICE’s failure to follow its own procedure when it comes to enforcement. Despite ICE’s longstanding guidelines about not conducting enforcement activities in or around schools, Murguía cited examples of ICE targeting migrant Head Start programs in eight states. In some instances ICE vans were parked near Head Start centers at drop-off and pickup times.

We need to make sure we do not undercut the best interest of our children and to think carefully about how we enforce our immigration laws,” concluded Murguía.

Read a copy of Janet Murguía’s testimony“*

The government’s forced use of antipsychotic drugs, in people who have no history of mental illness, includes dozens of cases in which the “pre-flight cocktail,” as a document calls it, had such a potent effect that federal guards needed a wheelchair to move the slumped deportee onto an airplane.

“Unsteady gait. Fell onto tarmac,” says a medical note on the deportation of a 38-year-old woman to Costa Rica in late spring 2005. Another detainee was “dragged down the aisle in handcuffs, semi-comatose,” according to an airline crew member’s written account. Repeatedly, documents describe immigration guards “taking down” a reluctant deportee to be tranquilized before heading to an airport.”*

The head of a Congressional subcommittee looking into complaints of inadequate medical care in immigration detention announced on Tuesday that she had introduced legislation to set mandatory standards for care and to require that all deaths be reported to the Justice Department and Congress.

“This should not be part of the debate about illegal immigration,” the chairwoman, Representative Zoe Lofgren of California, said of the bill, which she introduced late last week. “This is about whether the government is conducting itself according to the basic minimum standards of civilization.””*

Hundreds of illegal immigrants awaiting deportation rioted at a county-run detention center and had to be subdued with tear gas, authorities said Wednesday.

The riot Tuesday started as a fight between detainees from rival gangs and spread to the detention center’s outdoor yard, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.”*

Central Americans without documents now face increased security within Mexico, including checks on the train for stowaways. It’s also harder for them to head north once they cross into Mexico because of hurricane damage to the train tracks.

The result: The number of non-Mexican migrants stopped by the U.S. Border Patrol has dropped almost 60 percent from 2005, despite increased detention efforts. About 68,000 non-Mexican migrants — mostly Central Americans — were detained last year, compared to 165,000 in 2005. Non-Mexicans make up about 10 percent of all migrants caught by Border Patrol officers.”*

*From: http://ap.google.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Walter Abbott lost his house, his drywall company – twice – and now his freedom.

When he discovered Maryland funds pro-immigration group CASA de Maryland, he fired off an angry letter to Gov. Martin O’Malley containing a threat on the governor’s life.

“It was out of frustration,” Abbott said.

Now is he on home detention awaiting a trial. “[CASA] helps find them a job – an American’s job that they help take away. They took away my job,” said Abbott, 44, of Parkville.”*

*From: http://www.examiner.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Undocumented immigrants are often held behind bars for weeks before their cases go before a judge. Detainees are experiencing depression, anxiety and uncertainty about the fate of family members, advocates said at a press conference last week.

“There have been suicides,” said Sister JoAnn Persch, a nun with the Catholic Campaign for Immigrant Justice who regularly prays with immigrant families outside a federal immigration detention center at Broadview, Ill., near Chicago.”*

*From: http://www.watertowndailytimes.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency currently has over 30,000 undocumented immigrants in detention. There are plans to build more detention facilities in the coming year to house the many immigrants the federal government plans to take into custody.”*

*From: http://www.latinalista.net
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Amid a crackdown on illegal immigration, two Dallas lawyers are urging illegal and legal immigrants and U.S. citizens of Hispanic ancestry to know their rights if stopped by traffic police in cities around Dallas.

Lawyers Domingo García and Fernando Dubove are threatening to file federal lawsuits alleging racial profiling and say they have about a dozen complaints from people who were stopped for traffic infractions and placed under detention by federal immigration agents.

But the lawyers said potential litigants wish to stay anonymous until they file a suit.”*

*From: http://www.wfaa.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Almost every day in the past week, large human smuggling loads were uncovered across Arizona, leading to the arrests of more than 600 undocumented immigrants, according to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.

Right here in the Valley, police discovered eight different drop houses, arresting more than 400 immigrants between last Wednesday and Monday night.

“While this is the time of year in which we normally see an increase in illegal alien traffic in Arizona, this past week has been exceptionally busy,” according to Katrina Kane, field office director of detention and removal operations in Arizona for ICE. “*

*From: http://www.abc15.com
Traducido: usando Google o Altavista/Babel Fish

Elvira Arellano, a Mexican citizen and sanctuary-deportee whose situation galvanized immigrant rights activism across the US, was scheduled to arrive in Vancouver to speak at a public forum on Sanctuary and Migrant Justice on Sunday Feb 10th and to join the US-based Marche Migrante on Tues Feb 12th at the border.

Elvira, however, was not allowed entry into Canada on Sat Feb 9th. No reasons were given for her refusal and it is believed she was held in detention prior to being deported back to Mexico. A member of No One Is Illegal Vancouver was called by immigration authorities, expressing ‘concern’ that Elvira’s visit was only for 3-4 days and asked if it was true that Elvira was here to speak at a rally / for political purposes.

Arellano took refuge in the Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago in 2006. Over the year, she become a spokesperson for the New Sanctuary Movement, as well as president of La Familia Latina Unida, and a symbol of resistance against the systemic violence, exploitation, and racism in the US immigration system. On August 19, 2007, having traveled to California on a speaking tour where she advocated the right of immigrant families to stay united, the single mother was arrested by US authorities and deported to Mexico, without her son.

According to an August 2007 Globe and Mail report “Faced with a spike in refugee claims from Mexicans - the country is now the top source of asylum seekers in Canada - Canadian authorities have been refusing entry to increasing numbers of Mexican citizens attempting to visit the country as tourists.Those turned away complain of harsh, insensitive and even racist treatment from Canadian officials”.

Since Mexican citizens are not required to get a visa to enter Canada immigration officers at the airport and at the border are given the power to determine whether or not they are allowed in, costing visitors thousands of dollars, resulting in maltreatment, stress and fear.

Elvira’s refusal and turn-back reveals the abritraty and restrictive nature of the immigration enforcement system deployed against racialized migrants, particularly in the post 911 climate and with the implementation of border agreements such as the Safe Third Country Agreement and Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement.

Therefore, it is crucial that we continue to struggle against the pain, anxiety, and violence caused by this regime of border imperialism and continue to actively organize ourselves to support dignity and self-determination for migrants.

In solidarity, No One is Illegal-Vancouver”