Gaby Del Valle, The Verge, June 28, 2024 "Chevron deference has given the Department of Homeland Security and its component agencies broad latitude. For example, under Chevron , decisions made by...
Prof. Nancy Morawetz said this on today's ImmigrationProf Blog : "In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’ decision in Loper Bright , you might think that everyone would agree that courts...
Dan Gooding, Newsweek, June 28, 2024 "LGBTQ+ migrants fleeing persecution have reported being subjected to physical and verbal abuse while in U.S. custody, with some being driven to self-harm, left...
Lautaro Grinspan, The Current, June 28, 2024 "People held in Georgia immigrant detention centers will soon face new challenges in their search for lawyers to represent them in immigration court...
John Manley, June 27, 2024 "As in past campaign seasons, we will hear politicians say that, when it comes to immigration, a person needs to “get in line” and wait his or her turn. ...
Eunice Hyunhye Cho, ACLU National Prison Project; Tessa Wilson, Senior Program Officer, PHR Asylum Program, June 25, 2024
"Since January 1, 2017, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has reported that 68 people have died in its custody. This number does not include detained people who ICE released immediately prior to their deaths, which ICE has admitted reduces the number of reported deaths, and allows the agency to avoid accountability requirements.[1] These deaths raise serious concern about continued, systemic problems with medical and mental health care provided in immigration detention facilities, and the absence of accountability or consequences faced by facilities where detained people have died. ICE currently detains, on average, approximately 38,000 people each day in a network of approximately 130 detention facilities nationwide. Congress, however, recently increased ICE’s budget to detain 41,500 people on a daily basis for FY 2024, at a cost of $3.4 billion.[2]
This report, a joint project of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), and American Oversight, provides a comprehensive examination of the deaths of 52 people whom ICE reported to have died in its custody between January 1, 2017 and December 31, 2021. Our analysis is based on a review of over 14,500 pages of documents obtained from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests; from local government agencies through state public record act requests; and from civil litigation. Report analysis also incorporates the review of ICE’s own investigatory reports into deaths in custody by independent medical experts, as well as interviews with two family members of people who died in ICE detention during the studied period.
Deadly Failures exposes the ways in which the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) internal oversight mechanisms have failed to conduct rigorous investigations, impose meaningful consequences, or improve conditions that cause immigrants to die in ICE detention. Based on independent medical expert reviews of deaths, the report further examines the ways in which systemic failures in medical and mental health care in ICE detention have caused otherwise preventable deaths."