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US Ice officers ‘used torture to make Africans sign own deportation orders’ (The Guardian, Julian Borger)
Abuses are reported to be increasing in the leadup to the election.
According to multiple accounts, detainees were threatened, choked, beaten, pepper-sprayed and threatened with more violence to make them sign. Several were put in handcuffs by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officers, and their fingerprints were taken forcibly in place of a signature on documents called stipulated orders of removal, by which the asylum seekers waive their rights to further immigration hearings and accept deportation.
Lawyers and human rights advocates said there had been a significant acceleration of deportations in recent weeks, a trend they see as linked to the looming elections and the possibility that Ice could soon be under new management.
“The abuse we are witnessing, especially right now against black immigrants, isn’t new, but it is escalating,” said Christina Fialho, executive director of an advocacy group, Freedom for Immigrants (FFI). “In late September, early October of this year, we began to receive calls on our hotline from Cameroonian and Congolese immigrants detained in Ice prisons across the country. And they were being subjected to threats of deportation, often accompanied by physical abuse.”
19 women allege medical abuse in Georgia immigration detention (Los Angeles Times, Molly O’Toole)
These corroborated claims follow recent whistleblowing about medical abuses in detention camps.
The medical experts found an “alarming pattern” in which Amin allegedly subjected the womento unwarranted gynecological surgeries, in most cases performed without consent, according to the five-page report, which was submitted Thursday to members of Congress.
“Both Dr. Amin and the referring detention facility took advantage of the vulnerability of women in detention to pressure them to agree to overly aggressive, inappropriate, and unconsented medical care,” the report states.
The medical team conducted its review in tandem with a coalition of advocates and lawyers representing the women that has been investigating the allegations. The coalition members are from Project South, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Georgia Detention Watch, the South Georgia Immigrant Support Network, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Southeast Immigrant Freedom Initiative, the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. and Innovation Law Lab.
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