Abuses

When Detention Is a Death Sentence
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is pursuing a massive increase in resources for immigrant detention centers, a fundamentally flawed network of largely privatized and remote facilities used to hold immigrants. Yet this already unwieldy system has a concerning history of abuses and substandard conditions, which would likely only… Read More

Immigrants Rights Group Sues U.S. Government Over Family Separation at the Border
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit this week to demand the immediate release and reunification of an asylum-seeking Congolese mother and her 7 year-old daughter, who had been forcibly separated by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officers at the U.S.-Mexico border last November. Read More

Oversight Agency Finds ICE Improperly Obtained Contract for Texas Family Detention Center
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) released a damning report this week, finding that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) improperly modified an older, existing contract with the City of Eloy, Arizona to create the notorious… Read More

Immigrant Women and Girls Often Face Abuse, Homelessness After Arriving to the United States
Immigrant women and girls face unique challenges in navigating the U.S. immigration system, their dire circumstances often exacerbated by the gender-based violence they encounter on the journey and upon their arrival to the United States. These struggles were captured in a new report from the Tahirih Justice Center, which surveyed… Read More

Homeland Security Watchdog Conducts Surprise Inspections of Immigrant Detention Centers
The Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General (DHS OIG) released a report which found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) detention facilities are violating their own detention standards when it comes to housing immigrants. The OIG, which serves as a watchdog division for DHS at large, found that… Read More

How Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Turns Immigrants Into Criminals
It has been well established for decades that the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, immigrants who have committed no violent offense are often subjected to a different kind of violence doled out by the U.S. immigration-enforcement system. Young undocumented immigrants… Read More

How Discretion Failed One 10-Year-Old Girl and What the Future Holds
Much has been said about Rosa María Hernández, the latest target of the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has the responsibility and authorization to enforce the immigration laws against those inside the United States without authorization. However, the government’s choice to target a ten-year… Read More

DHS Wants to Monitor Immigrants’ Social Media. No One Knows What They Will Do With This Information
In a sweeping encroachment upon privacy, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it is planning to dramatically ramp up its surveillance of virtually anyone in the United States who is not a U.S. citizen by birth. In a rule which appeared in the Federal Register on September… Read More

Why Are More Pregnant Women Being Held in ICE Detention?
Pregnant women held in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody are required to be released, as detention frequently leads to extreme stress, depression, and in some cases, miscarriage. But over recent months, service providers have witnessed an increase in the number of pregnant women detained by ICE and… Read More

Increasing Numbers of Pregnant Women Facing Harm in Detention
The American Immigration Council, in collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC), and others filed this complaint on behalf of numerous women who are or were pregnant and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The complaint, filed with DHS’s… Read More
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