Biden sending thousands of immigrants seeking asylum to ICE prisons

• The president of the United States is sending thousands of immigrants seeking asylum to ICE prisons.
• Biden has maintained the same policy that was used during the Trump administration.
• “Your choice to stop them endangers lives separates families, inflicts trauma, wastes resources, and punishes people for exercising their legal right to seek asylum.”

President Joe Biden, is sending thousands of immigrants who ask for help at the border to prisons run by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE), according to a report by Human Rights First.

According to the report, the Biden administration has maintained the same policy that was used during the Trump administration in which immigrants who were requesting asylum were sent to ICE prisons, even if they were victims of domestic violence, torture or political persecution.

Biden sending thousands of immigrants seeking asylum to ICE prisons

Although the Biden administration continues to work to improve the possibilities for immigrants — for example, by ending Title 42 and accepting asylum applications again at the border — it is also true that they have maintained harsh measures such as locking up immigrants who request asylum.

In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has sent tens of thousands of people seeking asylum in the United States to prisons where they end up facing long detentions, discrimination, physical and psychological abuse, medical negligence, and more, revealed Human Rights First in its report entitled Aquí soy un prisionero.

Eliminate the use of cruel detention

Rebecca Gendelman, associate research attorney for Refugee Protection at Human Rights First and author of the report, thinks that “as the Biden Administration ends Title 42’s unlawful removal policy, it must not perpetuate the cruel and unnecessary use of detention against people seeking refuge in this country.”

“The government has legal authority to grant parole to asylum seekers and other immigrants. Your choice to stop them endangers lives separates families, inflicts trauma, wastes resources and punishes people for exercising their legal right to seek asylum,” she said, listing the disadvantages of this measure.

USA and its huge immigration detention system

Gendelman’s report indicates that, «The United States operates the largest immigration detention system in the world» and that it has been used against «people seeking protection as refugees.» Furthermore, she adds that “DHS has perpetuated a punitive immigration detention system, converting former family detention centers to incarcerate adults and expanding other existing facilities.”

According to the report, adult asylum seekers are a DHS priority for detention and deportation, including survivors of torture or gender-based violence, political dissidents, LGBTQ+ people and human rights activists who are able to live safely with their families in the US while their case is resolved. Instead, ICE chose to keep them in detention for long periods of time.

Biden should “set the example”

In addition to the arrests, «the administration has persisted in using the expedited removal fundamentally flawed against detained asylum seekers,” the report says. “DHS has unlawfully deported asylum seekers without credible fear interviews or ordered the removal of individuals through clearly erroneous credible fear negative determinations,” adds the report which worked on the cases of 270 asylum seekers and immigrants incarcerated by ICE.

The Biden administration «should set an example of global leadership by ending the mass detention of asylum seekers and providing a truly humanitarian welcome to people seeking refugee protection at the border,» Human Rights First said. Biden would be sending thousands of immigrants who ask for help to ICE prisons.

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