Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “News”
by Dan Scanlan “Andrea Jacoski, a director with Americans for Immigrant Justice, said her team saw abuses during site visits and heard more during interviews with clients detained there. ‘We have authored reports and complaint letters throughout the years alerting ICE and the Baker County Sheriff’s Office staff, who oversee the detention center, of the egregious human rights violations occurring …
“Tatiana Hernández is a staff attorney on Americans for Immigrant Justice’s Lucha Project, which helps immigrant victims of crime gain legal status and connect with resources. She says protections exist for undocumented people who are victims of crime. ‘Because they’re undocumented, that ends up being a vulnerability for individuals,’ said Hernández. ‘The US government has seen it’s a vulnerability, they …
“Another organization that filed a complaint with DHS, Americans for Immigrant Justice, provided exclusive data compiled from screenings of more than 2,300 children detained by CBP last year. Half of them described ‘cold temperatures’ in holding facilities, nearly a third said they were held for longer than the 72 hours allowed under the law, and around 15 percent reported ‘lack …
“Immigrant advocates in the United States filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denouncing the continuing abuse and ‘appalling treatment’ of immigrant children, Americans for Immigrant Justice (AI Justice) reported Thursday. The humanitarian group lamented that the irregularities reported by 70% of the children they interviewed in 2021 continue, who ‘reported experiencing conditions or abuse’ while in …
By Syra Ortiz-Blanes and Michael Wilner “Lily Hartmann, a human rights advocate at Americans for Immigrant Justice, said her organization applauded the announcement to limit use of the facility. But she also told the Herald that they and other immigrant rights organizations continue to push for the facility’s permanent closure so that no immigrants are detained there in the future. …
By Syra Ortiz-Blanes “A group of 17 members of Congress asked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Wednesday to shutter a Florida detention center that houses migrant detainees and that is at the heart of multiple complaints made to the Biden administration. The Feb. 2 letter points to a slew of recent grievances from immigration advocates and watchdog …
by Matthew Phelan, Scientific American “Every day crowded cells holding people at an immigration detention facility in Florida have been doused with caustic disinfectants that have caused breathing problems and bleeding, according to reports from the detainees. The disinfectants contain two chemical compounds that scientific research has implicated in long-term damage to human cells and—in animals—to reproductive health. On August …
“Seven immigrant women held at a remote immigration detention center in Florida filed a complaint with federal officials, shedding light on an appalling pattern of abuses including sexual abuse by guards and a psychiatrist amounting to violations of the Prison Rape Elimination Acts (PREA), exposure to a highly toxic chemical spray, life-threatening medical neglect, violations of COVID-19 safety protocols, and …
Souther Poverty Law Center “MIAMI – Immigrants held in U.S. custody and their attorneys reached a settlement with the federal government over COVID-19 protocols at three South Florida Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers. The agreement presumptively provides for six months’ oversight of ICE’s compliance with reduced population requirements, CDC pandemic guidelines, and ICE’s own Pandemic Response Requirements by a federal …
by Cheryl Little and Krystina Francois “Reforms to fix our nation’s broken immigration system are long overdue. To fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and thrive again, we need Sen. Marco Rubio, the son of immigrants, to help lead bipartisan efforts to finally address this urgent issue. It will benefit all Floridians. Despite their value to our society as economic …
