Washington, DC – For years, the Krome immigration jail in Miami has been serving inedible food to Muslim people held there, including pork-based meals in violation of their religious beliefs. In a letter to various components within the Department of Homeland Security, Muslim Advocates, Americans for Immigrant Justice, and King & Spalding LLP wrote:
During the pandemic, ICE officers at Krome have repeatedly served pork or pork-based products to Muslim detainees, contrary to the detainees’ sincerely held religious belief that they are forbidden from consuming pork. Muslim detainees have been forced to accept these meals, because the religiously compliant or halal meals that ICE has served have been persistently rotten and expired. Nonetheless, ICE has continued to serve these rotten halal meals for over two years even after the detainees notified prison officials that the meals were inedible. As such, Muslim detainees are regularly served meals that they simply cannot eat. Such actions not only violate detainees’ constitutional rights, but also put their health and well-being at serious risk.
In response, the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism said: “Forcing Muslim detainees to choose between food and their faith is another egregious example of ICE’s continued disregard for human rights and religious liberties. ICE and DHS must feed Muslim detainees safe, healthy, and halal food.”
Rev. John L. McCullough, President and CEO of Church World Service, declared: “Reports that ICE is force-feeding Muslim detainees pork are not surprising, but they are disgusting. The agency has been acting with impunity and outright disdain for the inherent dignity of human beings for years now. This is a new low. The United States government has now joined the ranks of anti-semites and Islamophobes who have used this same tactic for centuries. It is also the same unconscionable tactic being used in China’s concentration camps imprisoning Uyghurs. I join Americans of conscience and all faiths to denounce this inhumane practice that degrades our own nation’s dignity. We call for ICE to immediately end this practice, and for the U.S. Congress to suspend its funding until it is confirmed that this has ended. It is past time for Congress to hold this out of control agency accountable.”
Rev. Mary Katherine Morn, President and CEO of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, responded: “These latest actions by ICE are a flagrant denial of the human right to religious liberty as well as the Constitutional protection of the free exercise of faith. Violating dietary restrictions have long been part of the arsenal of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic regimes responsible for crimes against humanity. These reported actions are also yet another example of the dangerous mainstreaming of anti-Muslim views under this administration. It is not lost on us that these abuses toward Muslim detainees are being reported the same week the U.S. President has endorsed a self-declared ‘proud Islamophobe’ in a Congressional race—a candidate who (among other travesties) has cheered on the deaths of refugees at sea. We must never allow hateful words and actions against Muslims, Jews, or any religious group to be normalized in our society. Our government owes the equal protection of the laws and the U.S. Constitution to every person under its jurisdiction.”
The Interfaith Immigration Coalition is made up of 55 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.
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