Washington, DC – The title of the press release said “ICE honors Human Rights Day.” The effect, for those who know the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, could not have been more jarring.
“ICE is one of the principal abusers of human rights in the United States,” said Katie Adams, Domestic Policy Advocate with the United Church of Christ and Co-Chair of the Interfaith Immigration Coalition. “This is gaslighting in its purest form. December 10th is about holding ICE, and others like them across the globe, accountable for crimes against humanity. Pretending ICE is somehow part of the solution is outrageous.”
ICE is the agency that deports cancer patients and U.S. military veterans; the agency that took asylum-seeker Nebane Abienwi off of life support against his family’s wishes, and then denied them the right to claim his body. Pepper spray, rubber bullets, rotten food, and isolation from family, attorneys, and other inmates are all just “another day on the job,” inside ICE’s immigration jails.
The point of ICE detention is to break the individual in question, so that he gives up fighting his immigration case. The absolute volume of reports documenting the inhumane, unsanitary, and illegal conditions in which immigration detainees are held is overwhelming. They paint a horrifying, consistent picture of the unaccountable way that ICE agents conduct their jobs inside this vast network of private and local government-run jails.
Not to be forgotten, ICE’s sister agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, left 16 year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vazquez to die without medical care and still refuses to vaccinate children against the flu, adding to a long and ugly legacy of abuse.
This year on Human Rights Day a real human rights organization, the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), issued a report documenting “physical and verbal abuse that encroach[es] on civil and human rights,” carried out by the Border Patrol and ICE in San Diego County, CA against children.
And Allyson McKinney Timm, Founder & Executive Director of Justice Revival, wrote: “The present government administration has tried mightily to skirt accountability on human rights and flout the global authorities that protect them, but it cannot forever evade the principles of justice to which all nations are bound.”
Justice Revival, which mobilizes faith communities to defend human rights, educates congregations about Human Rights Day and encourages them to honor it each December. They provided a set of educational and worship resources and are urging serious reflection on the U.S. human rights record this year, which will be under review before the UN Human Rights Council in May.
The Interfaith Immigration Coalition is made up of 54 national, faith-based organizations brought together across many theological traditions with a common call to seek just policies that lift up the God-given dignity of every individual. In partnership, we work to protect the rights, dignity, and safety of all refugees and migrants.
Follow us on Twitter @interfaithimm
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