The Ann Arbor News printed an op-ed by Nerieda Guillian, member of the Washtenaw Interfaith Coalition for Immigrants Rights (WIRIC) and Master’s student in the School of Social Work. Guillian explains why the local Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raids constitute as unlawful and violations of human rights.
Guillian closes with this: It’s important as community members to not allow unlawful treatment against undocumented immigrants to continue. We must remind ourselves what Franklin D. Roosevelt once said: “Remember, remember always that all of us … are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.” We are all immigrants and there is no reason to violate the human rights of any, whether documented or not. The next time you ask yourselves, “Is it a violation when undocumented immigrants are detained and sent back to their native country?” I hope you answer, “Yes, the way they are being detained is unlawful and I’m not going to allow it.”
Those who maintain skepticism toward Guillian’s claim holds a view contrary to the paradoxical reality that, for being a proud nation of immigrants, we sure treat our undocumented immigrants like subhumans. The New York Times reports on the death of Boubacar Bah in Elizabeth Detention Center, an immigration jail in New Jersey. Bah, originally from Guinea, had been detained for overstaying his tourist visa. At the detention center, Bah injured his head from a fall. Even though Bah was visibly in poor condition, prison guards placed him in solitary confinement, thus, depriving him of necessary medical treatment. Approximately 12 hours after his fall, Bah was taken away by an ambulance “more dead than alive”, according to the Times. Bah’s family in the United States was kept in the dark about Bah’s injury until five days after his hospital admittance and emergency brain surgery.
Bah is one of at least 64 people who have died in immigration detention centers within the last four years. Bah’s death raises larger questions about the lack of oversight and transparency in the immigration detention system. According to the WIRIC, some local undocumented immigrants are currently being held in federal detention centers; but it is near impossible to get ICE to disclose any information on their conditions even if you are a family member of the detained.
To learn more about the detention and deporation system, visit the Detention Watch Network. And go here to follow the Time’s coverage on in-custody deaths.
