Migrants at US detention centre forced to eat ‘like dogs', report says
The report by Human Rights Watch, which gathered testimony from detainees, relatives and lawyers, documented a series of alleged abuses at three facilities in southern Florida and said people were subjected to degrading treatment, a lack of medical care and overcrowding.
Former detainee Harpinder Chauhan, a 56-year-old British entrepreneur and father of two, recounted an incident in April in which he said dozens of men were denied food for hours. They were crammed into a single cell with their feet shackled and their hands tied behind their backs.
Food was eventually given to them on chairs, but they remained restrained, said Mr Chauhan, who Human Rights watch said was taken into Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody because of problems with his taxes. 'We had to bend over and eat off the chairs with our mouths, like dogs,' said Mr Chauhan. He was eventually deported back to the UK.
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. According to Human Rights Watch, Mr Chauhan had lived in the US since 2016 and first entered the country on an E-2 investors visa. ICE officers detained him on February 11 after he ran into tax problems.
He and other former and current detainees paint a picture of filthy, overcrowded facilities where migrants are treated poorly. One woman described being held at Krome North Service Processing Centre, which is usually reserved for men in South Florida.
'There was only one toilet, and it was covered in faeces,' she said. 'We begged the officers to let us clean it, but they just said sarcastically, 'Housekeeping will come soon.' No one ever came.'
Another man said the intake centre he was kept in was freezing. 'They turned up the air conditioning … You could not fall asleep because it was so cold. I thought I was going to experience hypothermia,' he said.
Under President Donald Trump, the number of people detained by ICE has increased dramatically as he continues to crack down on illegal immigration. As of late last month, an average of 56,000 people were being held in immigration detention centres per day, a 40 per cent increase from the same time last year and the highest in US history.
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