The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more commonly known as ICE, has seen major mobilization under the Trump Administration. With raids on cities and workplaces, the tens of thousands of detainees coming into the system are being funneled into specific locations: ICE detention centers. On their homepage, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement claims that these centers are a temporary holding place for “aliens [in order] to secure their presence for immigration proceedings or removal from the U.S”. More, that those being held are “those that ICE determines are a public safety or flight risk during the custody determination process”. Now, though this is what the government body claims, it is far from the truth. Indeed, this shoddy description of the centers is a shameful facade for horrendous conditions, humanitarian crisis, and abuse.
With deportation quotas pushing officers to round up as many suspected illegal immigrants as possible, more than 70,000 individuals are now being held within detention centers, causing massive overcrowding (Detention Watch Network). Crowding within the prison walls, met by a completely apathetic overseeing force, begets a myriad issues in turn. The Texas detention center of Dilley is a microcosm for the issues surrounding ICE detention centers across the country. Mothers and fathers are being rounded up across the country, as far as New York, and sent to Texas, more than a thousand miles away. More, in such cases as the children (including infants) are sent to the center as well, they will still be facing extreme conditions (CNN). The overcrowding continues as officers fail to legally deport detainees quickly, and so–in centers like Fort Bliss, Texas–tent cities begin to form within the camps, where the floor floods with a slurry of sewage, children atrophy from rotten food, and misbehavors are thrown into solitary confinement. As the conditions worsen, ICE officers inside feel the pressure to deport, and begin using a final tactic: violence. With beatings, threats of breaking up families, and even sexual violence, officers extort detainees so that they will sign “voluntary” deportation forms and thin out the prisons (Activists Without Borders). Clearly, in ICE detention centers, it is terror and abuse of America’s minority populations which reigns supreme.
It is evident now, of course, why the Immigration and Customs Enforcement would want to keep everything occurring in their detention centers hushed up. With such mounting abuses, it is clear that ICE wants the atrocities kept behind the prison walls. Still, voices are speaking out: After a year-long investigation, Senator Jon Ossoff uncovered more than 1,000 credible human rights abuses happening in ICE detention centers, shedding light on some of the facilities’ most terrible abuses (Senate). Still, we must always remain on the offensive, as what ICE may call “threats to public safety”, it is evident that these individuals are simply mothers, fathers, and children like any other American citizen, and have rights that are being terribly infringed upon. Therefore, never again may they try to lie to our faces, or cover up the atrocities they commit; for we, too, have a right, a right to truth.
Author’s Note: So, this is, quite obviously, an examination of the gross attempts by the Trump Administration’s ICE to cover up their own misdeeds and pretend like the innocent victims of their abuses are in some way dangerous or deserving of this treatment. It should be stated not just here, but 10,000 times over that any human right abuse is absolutely unacceptable, and no matter what the perceived crime may be no human should have to sustain such inequity. Of course, despite the immense amount of disgusting treatment I’ve already described, I am sure that we only know a small amount of all the horrors occurring in these detention centers. With the security force being made up of ICE officers who would never self report, and with current department policy being that no congressman can inspect a detention center without a week’s notice in advance, it is clear that there is likely so much that they are trying to keep hidden from the public eye. Nevertheless, I believe that it is the solemn duty of every American to remain ever vigilant and outspoken against this kind of police action. The mothers, fathers, and children being housed in these unhygienic, overcrowded, abusive camps deserve it no less than any normal American citizen, and the dignity and respect they do deserve is being stripped from them, and all evidence of misdeed hidden. Therefore, speak out, do not let the voice of this crusade go silent, and fight back against the tyranny that is the ICE detention centers!
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