Severely ill ICE detainees face imminent deportation to unknown African states, advocates say

O centro de detenção Krome, no oeste de Miami, Flórida, no Dia da Independência em 2025. Fotografia: Pedro Portal/Miami Herald via Getty Images. Ver imagem em tela cheia.

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Preferir o The Guardian no Google Parentes de detentos gravemente doentes em duas prisões de imigração na Flórida dizem que as autoridades estão prestes a deportar seus entes queridos para países desconhecidos na África, apesar de condições médicas que pioram.

Flights are scheduled as early as Wednesday, according to the families and the immigration advocacy group the Workers Circle, which has been monitoring conditions and speaking with detainees inside two Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in south Florida.

The group said multiple sick detainees with varying conditions had been targeted for imminent deportation, and learned about the operation only in the last few days.

The affected detainees are at the Krome North processing center in Miami, which was found to be experiencing severe overcrowding by a government inspector’s report last month, and the Broward transitional center in Pompano Beach.

Ambas as instalações são operadas de forma privada em nome da ICE.

Anisley Cortés, the wife of Noslén Sendra, a 41-year-old Cuban national, said her husband had been incarcerated since last November, first at the now closed “Alligator Alcatraz” immigration jail, and at Krome since April.

Ela disse que ele tem diabetes não controlado e pancreatite aguda, que resultou em uma internação hospitalar de semanas no início deste ano.

Shalyn Fluharty, an immigration rights attorney, said information from the detainees indicated deportation flights were imminent.

Fluharty disse que os imigrantes já deportados eram amarrados nas mãos, tornozelos e cintura durante longos voos, e alguns que reclamaram foram colocados em envoltórios corporais completos sem possibilidade de se mover.

Responding to a request for comment, a spokesperson for the homeland security department demanded to know the affected detainees’ personal information. The department did not respond further when provided with Sendra’s details.

Betancourt said families risked retaliation for their relatives by coming forward. “This is not a single one-off story,” she said.

Durante duas visitas não anunciadas a Krome em maio, inspetores governamentais encontraram múltiplas violações de não conformidade com os padrões de detenção, incluindo superlotação severa.

Holding 1,102 detainees in a facility with a maximum capacity of 882, the report said, “jeopardizes the safe and orderly operations within the facility”.

Other listed violations included an inadequate number of operational toilets, sinks and showers, and previous complaints included female detainees made to use toilets in full view of men, and arriving detainees held for more than 24 hours in a bus in the parking lot because of a lack of space.

Defensores dizem que a ampla repressão de imigração do segundo mandato de Donald Trump causou superlotação em centros de detenção em todo o país, que o DHS tentou aliviar aumentando os voos de deportação para os chamados 'terceiros países.

The controversial practice, approved by the US supreme court last month, has seen hundreds of detainees deported to at least a dozen African countries where they have no ties.

A Human Rights Watch report earlier this month found countless examples of abusive treatment during and after the flights, and detainees subjected to persecution, arbitrary incarceration and torture following their arrival.