EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Advocacy groups are calling for the shutdown of a new immigration detention center in Fort Bliss, Texas. They also want the Trump administration stop conducting “indiscriminate” raids targeting immigrant workers.
“The shameful use of a military base for immigration detention is a disgrace to the values of our city and our country,” said Samantha Singleton, policy director of Border Network for Human Rights.
“Americans from all walks of life are watching,” she said. “They see neighbors and loved ones disappear in unmarked vehicles, they see the devastation of family separation, they see billions of taxpayer dollars being spent terrorizing immigrant communities while families across the nation struggle to put food on the table. …”
BNHR and several other organizations from West Texas and southern New Mexico on Thursday gathered on a sidewalk in Central El Paso to protest the recent opening of the East Montana Detention Facility. Forty activists lined the side wall of the Estrella del Paso building, some holding a large sign demanding to “Close the camps.”
Massive canvas tents at Fort Bliss already are housing 1,000 migrants – all of them adult males. The Trump administration plans to install more tents in the next year or so until capacity reaches 5,000 – which would make it the largest migrant detention facility in the country.
U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, toured East Montana Detention Facility on Thursday morning and reported to advocates she was told half of the detainees did not have a criminal record. That’s in contrast to recent comments by GOP lawmakers that only “criminal aliens” and those with final deportation orders would be housed in Fort Bliss.
“There’s lack of access and transparency as to who’s detained there,” said Becka Sheff, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico. “From what we are aware, the people at Fort Bliss come from all over the country … California and Florida, people still fighting their cases; they don’t have a final order” of deportation.
She said citizens of countries as diverse as Vietnam, Cuba and Venezuela are at East Montana.
Sheff and others called for accountability from ICE including access to the new detention center and to detainees.
Border Report reached out to ICE for comment. The agency sent a statement re-stating the need for additional detention center bed space and how the Fort Bliss “soft-sided” facility is comparable to any other detention center.
“The Fort Bliss Facility will offer everything a traditional ICE detention facility offers, including access to legal representation and a law library, access to visitation, recreational space, medical treatment space and nutritionally balanced meals. It also provides necessary accommodations for disabilities, diet, and religious beliefs,” the statement said.
Estrella del Paso Executive Director Melissa Lopez said El Paso has not been immune to workplace raids and arrests of immigrants in places ICE previously did not go into, such as courthouses.
“We had a circumstance recently in which one of the (immigration) judges pulled in several individuals into one hearing and summarily dismissed their cases without taking into consideration their circumstances,” Lopez said. “And then as soon as all of those individuals walked out of court, they were arrested.”
Lopez said she witnessed a workplace raid at a business in the same block as Estrella del Paso. “We had a number of federal law enforcement, especially immigration officers, surrounding our building,” which raised concerns about possible monitoring of the nonprofit’s activities, she said. It was a workplace raid “literally happening in our neighborhood.”
Limon Garza said at least 10 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients have been apprehended by ICE and face deportation. That includes Catalina Xochitl Santiago, who was arrested Aug. 3 at El Paso International Airport based on previous charges of possession of drug paraphernalia and trespassing.
Lopez said Santiago’s charges had been dismissed prior to her arrest in El Paso.
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