Migrants held in ICE detention centers continue to denounce abuse by officials

SEATTLE - Migrants being held at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) facilities say they continue to experience inhumane conditions and abuse by staff as they await a resolution to their asylum requests.

In 2020, the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) opened complaints alleging abuses of the civil rights and civil liberties of individuals in the custody of ICE at the Otero County Processing Center in New Mexico.

As reported by The Latin Times in June, five migrants detained at New Mexico's Torrance County Detention Facility shared a letter on social media denouncing the treatment received at the facility, complaining about the shortage of medicine, water and personal hygiene products. The letter added that people detained at Torrance were victims of racism, malnourishment and even reported physical and phycological abuse.

"This is not a detention center for immigrants, this is a prison where they leave you up to six hours in your cell and where you get no more than one hour of recreation," said Fernando Crespo in a phone interview with Noticias Telemundo back in July.

As immigration continues to be a heavily important topic for voters ahead of the 2024 presidential elections, experts and civil rights advocates argue that the current situation inside ICE detention centers could dramatically change depending on who is elected president.

"If Donald Trump is elected for another term, he certainly would not have a problem by expanding detention centers," said Kevin Appleby, senior fellow for policy and communications at the Center for Migration Studies of New York. "Without a doubt, Trump will want to expand detention centers as well as keep using county jails and even federal facilities to keep on detaining migrants," added Appleby.

By the end of Trump's term as president, the average daily capacity at ICE detention centers jumped from 34,000 during the Barack Obama administration to almost 50,000, according to a report by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The report also mentions that during Trump's term, ICE expanded its detention centers by 50% by agreeing to opening more than 40 new facilities across the country.

In April, during an an interview with Time magazine, Trump was asked whether he would build new detention camps as part of his campaign pledge to carry out the biggest deportation of migrants in the history of the U.S., "I would not rule out anything," Trump said. He added that "there wouldn't be that much of a need for them", he said, as the plan is to deport migrants in the U.S. illegally back to their home countries as quickly as possible.

During the interview, he said he would use National Guard troops to assist in his planned deportation efforts and, in case they were not able to, he would use the military.

When asked about the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, a post- Civil War law that prohibits the deployment of the military against civilians, he said "these aren't civilians. These are people that aren't legally in our country. This is an invasion of our country," he added.

On the other hand, Kamala Harris, the virtual presidential nominee for the Democratic Party, said on July 30 that she would support a bipartisan coalition that would seek to increase the financing of detention centers, as well as increasing the number of Border Patrol agents, asylum officials and immigration judges.

"I think that, in case Harris is elected, a lot of the people in charge of the detention centers will remain in their jobs," said Appleby. "Unless there is increased pressure to develop new alternatives, the most likely scenario is that the trend will continue by giving ICE more funding," he said.

Earlier this year, Congress released its Fiscal Year 2024 funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, increasing the budget for ICE detention from $2.9 billion to $3.4 billion in response to the more than 3.2 million encounters of migrants during 2023. According to U.S. Border and Customs Protection, that is the highest number of encounters on record, surpassing the almost 2.8 million encounters registered in 2022.