In an attempt to covertly lower the standards of immigrant detention facilities, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has once again proven that inside the walls of its detention centers, conditions and management of its facilities are unbound by the laws.
In an exposé, the Texas Observer identified the watered-down protections that would result in changes to its National Detention Standards that would further threaten the “health and safety of roughly one-fifth of all immigrants in detention.” In these new changes to its standards, ICE continues and expands its cruel negligence to migrants in the case of serious injury or illness, finding loopholes to treat them “as soon as practicable” and create weakend protections for immigrant detainees.
According to Mario Carrillo, Campaigns Manager at America’s Voice:
What started as an already broken and inhumane system is getting worse. ICE has now laid the groundwork to completely extinguish any signs of improvement or hope for humane conditions for migrants suffocating in the confined walls of its detention facilities. With the weakening of its standards, ICE officers now have a free hand to place migrants in solitary confinement, giving them more authority than ever before to abuse detainees and turn a blind eye on their suffering or potentially serious health consequences. In all shapes and forms, this administration has found ways to undermine, neglect and disregard the human rights of these migrants who have been forced into horrid conditions.
While migrants suffer and die in their cells because of the administration’s incompetence and lack of regard for human decency, let this be clear: Trump and his administration will continue to make drastic and unnecessary changes to its immigration detention systems under false pretenses. The blood of migrants has been forever stained on their hands and the reputation of the United States.
