Abuse at ICE Facilities

By- Whitney Derman

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE has been a sore subject in recent years as people have increasingly become more aware of the atrocities ICE officers have committed against immigrants — for example, separating families and many cases of sexual assault. This article will look at the scope of the atrocities committed by ICE and why this has been happening.

Crimes Committed by ICE

There has been a huge influx of sexual assault charges recently in ICE custody, including 1,224 complaints filed between 2010 and 2017 and obtained by the intercept (Speri, 2018). Although this number already indicates a severe problem, it does not adequately address the sheer terror immigrant families have experienced.

Although the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requires ICE to publicly release “all aggregated Sexual Abuse and assault data” annually, they have never done so (Speri, 2018). Despite ICE maintaining internal records of these incidents starting in 2014 (the same year the law was made and ten years after the founding of ICE), all record drafts are currently under internal review (Speri, 2018).

Maintaining the records internally and not releasing them seems to imply that these atrocities are widespread and systematic, not isolated incidents committed by bad individuals.

According to Jesse Lerner-Kinglake of Just Detention International, a group that works to end sexual violence in all detention facilities, “Sexual Abuse is an underreported crime everywhere, but it is especially so in detention, and exceptionally so in immigration detention. On top of feelings of shame and the victim-blaming that all survivors face, detainees who are sexually abused by staff are faced with the horrifying prospect of having to report the assault to their rapist’s colleagues and friends” (Speri, 2018). This means that the majority of cases are not even reported internally.

Beyond feeling awkward or shamed from speaking about this with their abuser’s colleagues, there are much bigger and more detrimental risks for those who choose to report. Those who reject sexual “requests” or report these incidents may be threatened with deportation (Speri, 2018). For example, “A man said a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent threatened him with deportation after he refused to engage in oral sex — and that the officer told him he would be deported to Haiti, even though the man is from the Bahamas” (Speri, 2018). Similarly, “In Texas, a Border Patrol agent driving detainees between detention centers pulled over and let a woman get out after she performed oral sex on him, according to another complaint” (Speri, 2018).

Sadly, Sexual Abuse has not been limited to adults held in immigration detention centers. There have been many reports of sexual harassment committed against minors perpetrated by both adults and other children. From 2016 to 2019, “the federal government received more than 4,500 complaints . . . about the Sexual Abuse of immigrant children who were being held at government-funded detention facilities” (Haag, 2019). These records, involving “children who had entered the country alone or had been separated from their parents, detailed allegations that adult staff members had harassed and assaulted children, including fondling and kissing minors, watching them as they showered, and raping them. They also included cases of suspected abuse of children by other minors” (Haag, 2019).

Why ICE is the Problem

Fundamentally, ICE being in charge of immigration is an issue because its mission is rooted in anti-terrorism efforts (Najera, 2020). As a result, immigrants are treated like criminals and will likely remain this way unless serious reform is made to ICE or if another organization takes over (Najera, 2020). Another organization taking on the role of policing the border is not too far a reach as, for “most of the 20th century, it was the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) that policed the border, periodically showing force in workplace and community raids that led to deportation. At other moments in this history, INS agents worked with employers to selectively enforce border policy, ensuring that there were sufficient Mexican laborers to keep the agricultural industry afloat” (Najera, 2020).

However, in the 1990s, initiatives were put in place to militarize the border, and the 9/11 attacks caused immigration policy to shift dramatically (Najera, 2020). “In 2003, when the INS was replaced by the Department of Homeland Security and its agencies — ICE, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services — immigration issues were folded into a new mission of national security: the removal of “criminal aliens” (Najera, 2020).

This mission is a serious problem because it means immigrants are treated as criminals instead of people who want to live the American dream. And because they are not citizens, they are not given the human right of innocence until proven guilty. Also, because of the hefty requirements needed to immigrate legally, many people who have good reasons to come to the U.S. (such as being able to provide for their family or escape political turmoil) are treated like criminals. While it can be easy for white Americans to say things like, ‘Well, my family immigrated here legally,’ this is largely hypocritical and unfair because immigration laws were not nearly as strict when many European families first moved here from Ellis Island and Angel Island. In fact, until the Emergency Quota Act was passed in 1921, the U.S had an open-door immigration policy (National Park Service).

Additionally, harsh immigration policy is NOT a partisan issue. Although people often think of a particular party or politician when it comes to harsh immigration laws and abuse under ICE, it is a bipartisan issue. Political beliefs do not change the fact that abuse is abuse.

ARO does not stand for any form of abuse against any person. To learn more, please visit GoAro.org.

References

Haag, M. (2019, February 27). Thousands of immigrant children said they were sexually abused in U.S. detention centers, report says. The New York Times. Retrieved March 13, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/27/us/immigrant-children-sexual-abuse.html

Najera, J. R. (2020, October 1). Op-ed: Why abuse and neglect of immigrants proliferate in ice detention. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 13, 2022, from https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-10-01/immigrants-detention-ice-abuse-hysterectomies

Speri, A. (2018, April 11). 1,224 complaints reveal a staggering pattern of sexual abuse in immigration detention. Half of those accused worked for ice. The Intercept. Retrieved March 13, 2022, from https://theintercept.com/2018/04/11/immigration-detention-sexual-abuse-ice-dhs/ U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). Immigration. National Parks Service. Retrieved March 13, 2022, from