April 24, 2013
Infiltration Leads to DHS Opening Civil Rights Investigation into ICE
First step in cleaning up problem agency
NATIONAL—After being infiltrated and exposed by the National Immigrant Youth Alliance, Immigration and Customs Enforcement will now have to comply with a civil rights investigation by the Department of Homeland Security into five separate incidents of detainee mistreatment. NIYA will make the communication from DHS (with personal case information redacted) available to reporters upon request.
In response to infiltration of ICE facilities in Florida and Michigan, ICE has accused NIYA twice of making false allegations. Every single detainee ICE releases because of our organizing, however, stands as a small admission of guilt from the agency. With this forthcoming investigation into five separate incidents of mistreatment, we may finally get a deeper admission of wrongdoing from DHS and their private contractor, GEO Group, Inc.
Yesterday, Michigan ICE informed us that they will release our infiltrator there, Claudia Munoz. We have obtained information of serious mistreatment—including verbal abuse that authorities internally have tried to correct—that we will make public in the coming days. Everilda Calvo-Sanchez, a detainee from Guatemala who is eligible for legal residence, was released two weeks ago after NIYA exposed her case as a failing of local ICE officials to follow national ICE policy.
NIYA will continue to organize against the attacks on immigrant communities and the indignities immigrants must face in detention. We know local ICE officials, like Regional director Rebecca Adducci, do not follow policies set forth by their national office until we hold them accountable. We stand by our demand that Adducci be fired or resign, and we will continue to bring ICE’s wrongdoing to light, anywhere and everywhere.
Last summer, 26 members of Congress supported our call for a full review of all cases inside Broward Transitional Center. While that demand has not yet been met, this investigation is admission that the behavior of their local officials is too repugnant to ignore, even by their supervising department.
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