In a new report to the United Nations, an Arizona migrant advocacy group argues that conditions in immigration detention centers in the United States amount to torture.
The report from the Kino Border Initiative and Loyola University Chicago School of Law documents instances of alleged mistreatment in immigration detention from recent deportees in Nogales, Sonora.
“Abuses have been going on and are still ongoing to this day in detention centers in the U.S. for immigrants, which is very preoccupying because they go to the level of becoming torture,” said Juan Cuellar, KBI director of education and advocacy and report author.
Recent deportees told KBI they experienced crowded conditions and verbal and physical abuse in U.S. immigration detention centers.
“They were being denied food, they were being denied water, they were being denied access to medical attention when it was direly needed,” Cuellar said.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that any claim of subprime conditions at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers is false.
The interviews and surveys cited in the report were conducted with people who had recently been deported from the United States at Mexico’s “Mexico te Abraza” — or “Mexico Embraces You” — center in Nogales, Sonora, just across the border from Arizona.
The Mexican government set up those centers along the U.S.-Mexico border at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term to process recent Mexican deportees and set them up with transport to the parts of the country their families are from.
Testimonies cited in the report include alleged examples of poor conditions in ICE detention centers, including a recent deportee who claimed there was a lack of access to clean water or edible food while he was detained in Arizona. He and others whose testimonies were cited in the report also said they were denied access to healthcare.
The report argues the conditions inside U.S. detention centers amount to violations of international human rights standards.
The United Nations Convention Against Torture prohibits torture under any circumstances, as well as other cruel or degrading treatment or punishment. That treaty defines torture as acts in which “severe pain or suffering” are used by a public official to obtain a confession, as punishment or for “any reason based on discrimination of any kind.” The United States ratified the treaty in 1994.
The KBI report argues poor conditions inside immigration detention facilities are an intentional tactic used to convince detainees to leave the United States on their own accord, rather than wait for immigration proceedings to unfold. The report cites several examples of recent deportees who said they signed “voluntary departure” agreements after being denied access to healthcare or after experiencing other poor conditions while in detention.
“The fact that the treatment is so bad is a way for them to say: ‘We can make them leave without having to wait for a final decision by a judge, which can take months,’” Cuellar said.
Typically, submissions like this one are sent to the United Nations after a call for input when the body is preparing its own report, Cuellar said. But KBI and Loyola University are submitting their report outside of a call for public input from the intergovernmental organization.
“This is something that we decided to do unilaterally,” Cuellar said, ”because the level of abuse is too much.”
Cuellar said his organization hopes the report provides the United Nations with tools they can use to start their own investigation into alleged abuses inside U.S. immigration detention centers.
-
Top Republican Arizona state lawmakers are lining up with the Department of Homeland Security — and against the Tohono O'odham Nation — over whether the federal agency can build 62 miles of border wall through that reservation.
-
Part of a 2024 ballot measure that will create a state-level immigration system is set to take effect on Tuesday.
-
Two more ICE facilities in Arizona are keeping some detainees quarantined for possible measles exposure after a third facility reported multiple cases of the extremely contagious virus.
-
Mexico will request criminal charges over 17 Mexicans who died in ICE custody or during immigration enforcement operations by the Trump administration, officials said Thursday.
-
Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says her government will “go further” than prior diplomatic notes and calls for investigations as the number of Mexican nationals killed by U.S. immigration officers or dying in custody increases.