In just the past year and a half, the Trump administration's war on immigrants has perpetrated the following crimes against humanity:
- Created a phony university to entice undocumented immigrants;
- Suggested fortifying Trump's racist border wall with a snake- or alligator-infested moat (after suggesting CBP shoot migrants in the legs);
- Refused to inoculate detained migrant families from deadly diseases;
- Ended deportation deferrals for immigrants suffering from serious medical conditions like cancer and HIV;
- Administered DNA testing to identify migrants posing as families;
- Disqualified legal immigrants relying on public assistance for green card eligibility;
- Committed what the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics characterized as "government-sanctioned child abuse";
- Transferred $9.8 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency's (FEMA) disaster relief budget to ICE for more migrant detention camps.
- Engaged in nasally force-feeding at least half a dozen detainees engaged in hunger strikes;
- Penned hundreds behind chain-link razor wire fencing, forcing them to sleep on the ground in a temporary outdoor detention camp.
- Threatened to deport international university students enrolled in online classes, forcing many of them to opt for in-person instruction amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
That's far from all.
Licensed Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) psychotherapists are violating migrant children's trust by submitting confidential session notes to ICE, which then uses the information against the children in immigration court to deny them asylum status and deport them.
Several asylum seekers have died in CBP custody.
Two years ago we learned about refugee children in U.S. custody being injected with psychotropic drugs.
In August 2019, the Trump administration ramped up its war on immigrants when it proposed denying green cards or visas to immigrants who rely on public benefits like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, Medicaid, and Section-8 housing.
Last month we learned about immigrant women detained in the private prison company LaSalle Corrections-owned Irwin County detention center in Georgia being subjected to involuntary hysterectomies.
And, of course, there is the administration's child separation policy for which 545 migrant children's parents cannot be located.
Amid all this, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a.k.a. Trump's deportation force, are now being accused of torturing Cameroonian asylum seekers into signing their own stipulated orders of removal, or deportation orders in which asylum seekers waive their rights to further immigration hearings.
Many detained in a Mississippi ICE detention center refused to sign because of the threats to their lives back in Cameroon.
Detainee "Patrick" has been unable to sleep fearing ICE agents might come to deport him.
He told The Guardian:
"I live in worry because I don't know what awaits me. I don't even know what the next day is going to look like, and will I be taken back home."
His lawyer, Ruth Hargrove, explained:
"He actually has a very strong case for asylum, but the problem is he may die before he gets his hearing, because he was supposed to be on that plane that went out last week [clandestine Oct. 13 flight to Douala with 60 Cameroonian and 28 Congolese asylum seekers], and his ICE officer just guaranteed that he will be on the next flight."
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).