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Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman question DHS on secretive ICE transfers [1]
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Date: 2022-08-11
Legal Aid Society attorney Alex Jackman said that her client was among at least 60 detained immigrants who were transferred in late July, and among the estimated 35 detained immigrants who were moved to a privately operated facility in Natchez, Mississippi. Natchez’s Adams County Detention Center has its own history of abuses. Jackman told worker-owned news outlet Hell Gate that she had an appointment the client, but that it had been abruptly canceled. “When I called Orange [County Jail] to ask why it was, they said he was no longer there, and they couldn’t tell me where he was.”
“The lack of transparency by ICE is still ongoing,” Ocasio-Cortez and Bowman say. “So far, it has been unclear whether OCCF has decided against renewing its contract with ICE or if ICE is unilaterally phasing out its contract with OCCF.” They say this “lack of clarity” is relevant, “especially where different standard operating procedures apply, depending on the status of the ICE contract.” Ocasio-Cortez and Bowman write the transfers are “even more alarm[ing]” considering we’re now facing two global health emergencies.
“Just last week, the World Health Organization publicly announced that MPX (also known as monkeypox or orthopox) is a global health crisis, and on Thursday, July 28th, New York State Health commissioner declared Monkeypox an ‘imminent threat to public health.’” Data has previously shown that ICE’s intentional disregard for the safety of detained immigrants added nearly 250,000 COVID cases across the nation (and also helped spread it abroad through reckless deportation flights).
“Given this escalating public health crisis, we would hope ICE would learn from its prior mistakes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and refrain from transferring people out of New York State,” lawmakers continued. “Otherwise, it is only a matter of time until MPX similarly decimates people inside ICE detention facilities and those in their surrounding communities.”
“We also ask that you brief our offices with up-to-date information regarding where people are being transferred to, and any further plans to transfer New Yorkers,” they tell Mayorkas and Johnson. They further say they support local advocates’ call for detained immigrants’ release to their homes and communities, noting the “robust network of legal and social service providers” available in the region to assist them.
“ICE’s reckless behavior to transfer detained immigrant New Yorkers to unknown locations in the midst of two global health crises shows that they not only have failed to learn from their past mistakes, but remain shamelessly committed to separating families and endangering the American public,” advocacy groups Bronx Defenders, The Legal Aid Society, and Brooklyn Defenders said last month. “We demand ICE stop the transfers, and release detained immigrant New Yorkers to their families where they can access the care and community support that ICE is incapable of providing to those they detain.”
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