Abused Asylum-Seekers Launch Legal Battle Against ICE and its “Concentration Camp” Prisons

MPN spoke to advocates and an attorney working on a lawsuit by a group of refugees who are suing the government and for-profit GEO Group for the abuse and torment they suffered at the notorious Adelanto ICE detention center in California.  

Elliott Gabriel
By Elliott Gabriel
Adelanto Detention Center

ADELANTO, CALIFORNIA – A group of refugees from Central America, who faced beatings and abuse while detained at a California detention center last year, are pursuing legal action in hopes of drawing attention to the systematic abuse of migrants who are being confined in a growing network of concentration camp-style facilities across the United

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Don’t Kid Yourselves, US Immigration Prisons Are Absolutely “Concentration Camps”

Inhumane forms of immigrant mass incarceration weren’t rolled out by Trump alone, but we should still recognize the danger of the Homeland Security State’s rapid expansion and growing cruelty.

Elliott Gabriel
By Elliott Gabriel

In our previous report on the U.S. immigration enforcement regime, MintPress News looked at how the for-profit prison industry and anti-immigrant lobbyists have driven the U.S. government’s war on immigrants. In this report, we look at the factors that fueled the monstrous growth of the migrant incarceration system and concentration camp network

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Trump Administration Using ICE to Target Immigration Activists

Since Donald Trump’s inauguration, multiple high-profile cases have surfaced where immigrants involved in community activism were deported or faced an increased threat of deportation.

Kevin Gosztola
By Kevin Gosztola
Ravi Ragbir, center, executive director of the New Sanctuary Coalition, walks with hundreds of supporters as he arrives for his annual check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, March 9, 2017, in New York. The Trinidadian immigrant works with an interfaith network of congregations and activists working to protect New York's immigrant families from detention and deportation. He was convicted of wire fraud in 2001 and served his sentence but has now been deported. (AP/Mark Lennihan)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to be escalating its targeting of immigrant rights activists for deportation. Since President Donald Trump was inaugurated, there have been at least ten prominent cases where immigrants involved in community activism were deported or faced an increased threat of deportation. Ravi Ragbir, who is the

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Homeland Security Audit Finds Widespread Detainee Abuse At Immigration Prisons

“The findings of the report support our ongoing call to immediately release people from detention, as ICE has proven time and time again to be incapable of meeting basic standards for humane treatment.”

Kevin Gosztola
By Kevin Gosztola

The inspector general for the Homeland Security Department conducted unannounced inspections of six immigrant detention facilities overseen by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). It uncovered glaring examples of detainee abuse and mistreatment at four of the facilities. Inspections were conducted in response to complaints from immigrant

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An Immigrant, a Found Gun, an Accidental Shooting: Who or What is to Blame?

The Zarate case provides a tragic and glaring example of a common public safety lapse that, in this instance, happened to involve the participation of an immigrant. But the underlying problem would be just as serious in the complete absence of immigrants from the U.S.

Thandisizwe Chimurenga
By Thandisizwe Chimurenga
A man walks past candles, flowers, and a photo of Kate Steinle at a memorial site on Pier 14 Friday, Dec. 1, 2017, in San Francisco. In this fiercely liberal city, city leaders remained attached to San Francisco's sanctuary city status despite a not guilty verdict in a killing that sparked feverish immigration debates because the man who fired the gun was in the country illegally after being deported five times. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)

Jose Zarate, an undocumented immigrant charged with the murder of a woman two years ago, was found not guilty on Thursday by a San Francisco jury. Kate Steinle was walking with her father along the city’s Embarcadero pier in July of 2015 when police said a man walked up to her and shot her. She died from a single gunshot wound to the back.

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ICE Chief Says Immigrants Should Be Looking Over Their Shoulders

He also said “no population of persons” in the U.S. illegally is safe from deportation.

Jake Johnson
By Jake Johnson
Ice Cheif Tom Homan speaks at the announcement of the new Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement (VOICE) office at a news conference in Washington, April 26, 2017. (AP/Susan Walsh)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director Thomas Homan declared on Tuesday that the federal government "shouldn't wait" for undocumented immigrants to commit a crime before they are detained, comments that were characterized by one immigrant rights activist as part of the "reign of terror" President Donald Trump has unleashed in immigrant

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