Nine people died in custody of the customs immigration and control service (ICE) in USA Since the president Donald Trump He returned to power on January 20, said on Wednesday, May 14 Todd Lyons, interim director of this agency.
Upon White House The Republican President promised a massive expulsion of migrants in an irregular situation, whom he considers “criminals” for having illegally entered USA.
His government claims to focus on those with a criminal record, on gang members and drug traffickersbut the lawyers of some detainees or expelled and human rights defense organizations accuse him of indiscriminate arrests based only on tattoos.
This Wednesday, during a session of the Budget Commission of the Chamber of Representatives of the Congress, Lyons said that ICE “Prioritize the worst of the worst”, but the Democrats They questioned him.
“What we have seen under the Trump administration should cause chills (…) to all Americans“Because” it is not focusing on the worst of the worst, as she says, “said Congresswoman Veronica Escobar.
It focuses, according to her, on migrants that “mostly they do not represent absolutely any threat to the public, students with green cards (residence) and visas” and people “with legal status without criminal record.”
“This is the worrying type of pattern we see in the authoritarian police, not in a democratic republic,” said Escobar.
His democratic colleague Lauren Underwood asked Lyons how many people have dead in custody of his Migratory Agency.
“The total of Deaths In custody amounts to nine, “replied the interim director, who says ICE acts with” transparency. “
“We carry out an exhaustive investigation” on all cases in charge of the Office of Professional Responsibility of ICE And local jurisdictions, he said.
The interim director held in his speech that “ICE It has some of the highest detention standards. “
ICE Subcontract to private companies to arrest migrants and for services such as transport, medical care or food, which generates controversy for its millionaire benefits and arrest conditions.
“The history of some of these private operations is lousy, and characterized what happens within them as equivalent to abuse of the abuses of the Human Rights“said Escobar, who cited overcrowding in the facilities,” medical negligence “, lack of access to bathrooms and water and inappropriate nutrition.