U.S. immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) has been denounced as a “rogue agency” after new allegations of assaults on asylum seekers surfaced, and the deportation of migrants from Africa and the Caribbean continued in defiance of the Biden government orders.
Joe Biden announced his immigration agenda on Tuesday and his Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, was confirmed by the Senate, but continued deportations suggested that Biden’s White House did not yet have full control over Ice, which several accusations of human rights violations and accusations face that it targeted black migrants disproportionately.
A coalition of immigrant rights groups has published affidavits of Cameroonian asylum seekers who they say were tortured by being forced to approve their own deportations. The asylum seekers described being forced to the floor and that their fingers were stained and deported on deportation documents they did not want to sign.
An ice plane carrying Cameroonian, Angolan, Congolese and other African migrants is expected to depart Louisiana on Wednesday, despite an order from the incoming Biden government to end a 100-day suspension of deportation flights.
A Trump-appointed judge in Texas blocked the Biden moratorium last week and approved it by state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who played a leading role in trying to overthrow the election result.
However, the judge did not block the guidelines laid down by the then acting Secretary of Homeland Security, David Pekoske, which came into effect on Monday and ruled that deportations should be limited to suspected terrorists, convicted criminals who posed a “threat”. for public safety “, and migrants who arrived after 1 November last year.
Ice carried out a deportation flight to Haiti on Tuesday morning with people who did not meet any of these criteria. One of the deportees on the flight was Paul Pierrilus, a 40-year-old financial consultant from the state of New York who, according to Haiti, has never been to Haiti and is not a Haitian citizen. Country Ambassador to Washington. Ambassador Bocchit Edmond told activists he was surprised by the deportation, but did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
Pierrilus was abducted at the last minute of a January 19 deportation flight following the intervention of his local congressman, Mondaire Jones. But despite the temporary delay, he was flown to an Ice Airport in Alexandria, Louisiana, early Tuesday and boarded a plane to Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital.
“There was nothing we could do to stop it,” said Jones, the Democratic Representative of the 17th District of New York. “Unfortunately, Paul’s story is not unusual. Black immigrants in particular have been excessively targeted and deported in recent weeks by our racist, inhuman immigration system. ”
Jones told the Guardian: ‘Ice is a rogue agency that needs to be brought to the heel. There is no world in which an agency under the control of the leader of the executive should continue to deport people after the president of the United States signed an executive order that stopped the deportations for 100 days. ‘
There was no response from the National Security Council to questions about any further attempts to stop the Ice flights. The State Department referred inquiries to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The DHS did not respond.
On Monday, a coalition of migrant rights groups – Freedom for Immigrants, Al Otro Lado and advocates for immigrant rights – made new allegations to the DHS about what they described as torture of Cameroonian asylum seekers.
One of them, identified by the initials HT, described being taken to a room with darkened windows in the Winn Correctional Center on January 14, where he was forced by Ice agents to place his fingerprint on a document in place a signature and waive his rights to further legal proceedings before deportation.
“I tried to get up because of the force they were using on me, and they stumbled upon me,” HT said. ‘I fell to the floor; I kept my hands under my body. I held my hands tightly in the middle so they could not get it. Five of the Ice officers and one of the officers in green … joined them. They printed me out and said I should give my finger for the fingerprint. ”
The statement from HT continues: “When the one with my hands pressed on my neck, the other one came in front of me, pulled my head from above and pulled my neck straight so that they could easily suppress me. One climbed on my back. I had a lot of trouble breathing. It happened for more than two minutes. I gasp for air. I told them, “Please, I can not breathe.” I asked them to release me. They said they did not care; what they need is my fingerprint. ”
An Ice spokesman said it would not be possible to respond to the allegations by Tuesday. The agency was earlier accused of using torture to force prisoners to sign release departments in October.
Most, if not all, of the Cameroonians on Wednesday’s scheduled flight are English-speakers from the west and south of the country, fearing imprisonment, torture or death when they return amid a brutal civil conflict between the government and English. separately.
Martha, the sister of one of the Cameroonian deportees, identified only as NF for his safety, said they were the only surviving members of their family after their brothers were killed by government security forces because they were members of a was non-violent organization. , the National Council of Southern Cameroon.
“He’s definitely going to get a very long prison sentence. I’m not back home, so I can bribe her. That’s the only way you can get out, ‘said Martha, who arrived in the United States before her brother and was granted asylum.
“That’s why I’m really shaking now, because I do not know what’s going to happen if he’s in jail. There were people who went the first time [Ice deportation] fled in October and they are still in jail. ”
Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said on Tuesday: “Ice is accelerating pending flights for many of these asylum seekers who have escaped torture and death in their homelands, only to be sent back in imminent danger without considering their asylum applications fairly or fully. “
He added: ‘This is unacceptable and is contrary to our values as a nation. Ice should stop these flights immediately. ”