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For Immediate Release
August, 06 2015, 03:45pm EDT
Contact:
ACLU of Florida Media Office, media@aclufl.org, (786) 363-2737
ACLU Warns ICE about Treatment of Hunger-Striking Detainees at South Florida Immigration Detention Facility
22 men at Krome Service Processing Center in West Miami-Dade County have been on hunger strike since July 25 after being misled about bond hearings
MIAMI, FL
In a letter sent today to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida raised serious concerns regarding the treatment of 22 Sikh men who are on hunger strike at a South Florida immigration detention facility.
The 22 detainees, asylum-seekers from India, went on hunger strike when they learned that the judge who would hear their bond appeal, Judge Rex Ford at the Broward Transitional Center (BTC), does not grant bonds to individuals in their circumstances, even though other detainees in identical circumstances in the same jurisdiction are granted bond.
The men were then transferred to Krome Service Processing Center. Based on promises by ICE officials that they would receive a bond hearing at Krome, they ended the hunger strike. However, when the day of many of their bond hearings at Krome arrived, their cases were transferred back to BTC for removal hearings. Beginning on July 25, the men went back on hunger strike. Several of them have now been hospitalized and are being threatened with force-feeding and the use of the Baker Act.
"These men believe they have been willfully misled about their rights, and it seems like ICE officials have made things worse," stated ACLU of Florida Staff Attorney Shalini Agarwal. "The situation is urgent because of these men's rapidly deteriorating health. We are working to get to the bottom of this, especially in light of ICE allegedly responding unlawfully toward hunger-striking detainees in other immigration detention facilities."
The ACLU of Florida also intends to file a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties later today. From the letter sent to the ICE field office:
"The ACLU of Florida has serious concerns about these events, as the alleged actions by ICE suggest that the agency has jeopardized these men's health by making false promises of a meaningful bond hearing. We are especially concerned because we have heard about other situations around the country in which ICE and ICE-contracted facilities are alleged to have responded unlawfully to hunger strikes by immigration detainees, in some instances retaliating against the detainees by placing them in solitary confinement, and in other situations inviting consular officials of the country from which they are seeking asylum to exert pressure on the detainees.
"We are gravely concerned by the facts alleged and write to get your account of what has happened."
A copy of the letter is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/letter-ice-hunger-strike-detainees-krome/
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
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The country's largest Muslim civil rights group on Thursday called for added protections for U.S. Reps. Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar after Florida state Sen. Randy Fine issued an apparent threat against the two Muslim lawmakers.
Fine, who has the endorsement of President-elect Donald Trump in his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives, called himself the "Hebrew Hammer" in a post on X on Tuesday and suggested Reps. Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Omar (D-Minn.) should leave office for their own safety.
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Despite rainy conditions, the United American Indians of New England held its 55th annual National Day of Mourning at Cole's Hill in Plymouth, Massachusetts. Kisha James, who is an enrolled member of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) and also Oglala Lakota, shared how her grandfather founded the event in 1970 and pledged to continue to "tear down the Thanksgiving mythology."
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James took aim at fossil fuel pipelines, oil rigs, skyscrapers, corporations, the U.S. military, mass incarceration, and the criminalization of immigrants, and declared that "no one is illegal on stolen on land."
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arrested 21 pro-Palestinian protesters who blocked the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade route.
According toABC 7:
For the second year in a row, the group ran in front of the Ronald McDonald float to briefly stop the parade.
This year, they jumped the barricades at West 55th Street just after 9:30 am.
Many sat on the ground, locking arms and chanting "Free, free Palestine!"
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Video footage shared on social media shows members of the New York Police Department grabbing protesters and their banner, and throwing at least one person face-first into the road.
Multiple Indigenous groups circulated messages about Thanksgiving on social media Thursday.
NDN Collective said that "as Indigenous peoples, we reject colonial holidays rooted in the genocidal erasure of our existence. We demand #LANDBACK to reclaim sovereignty, repair ties with Mother Earth, and protect Indigenous ways of life—honoring them for generations to come."
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highlighted that "'Thanksgiving' is a white-washed holiday designed to conceal its true origins of violence, genocide, land theft, and forced assimilation."
"We must re-evaluate what we've been taught about the history of this land and recognize that genocide, extraction, and exploitation of our lands and communities continue today," the group argued.
Brenda Beyal, an enrolled member of the Diné Nation and program coordinator of the Brigham Young University ARTS Partnership's Native American Curriculum Initiative, wrote about the history of Thanksgiving on Wednesday for The Salt Lake Tribune.
"Our history books mark 'the first Thanksgiving' in 1621 when at least 90 Wampanoag men, led by Massasoit, walked in on a Puritan harvest feast," Beyal detailed. "Approximately 150 years later, all 13 colonies celebrated a day of solemn Thanksgiving to celebrate the win of the Battle of Saratoga in December of 1777. [U.S. President] George Washington called for a day of thanksgiving and prayer in 1789 to give gratitude for the end of the Revolutionary War."
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Israel imposed a last-minute curfew on Wednesday night, prohibiting Lebanese citizens from crossing into the south overnight.
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