Federal complaint claims Black immigrants are discriminated against at Krome
Nine Black immigrants, among them five Haitians, have filed a civil complaint with the Biden administration over what they say is a disturbing pattern of racism and abuse at the Krome North Service Processing Center in South Miami-Dade County while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Advocates and the detainees are demanding release from the ICE detention center and a federal investigation into their allegations.
Among the accusations: that guards at Krome use threats, coercion and physical violence to obtain signatures on deportation paperwork from Black immigrants, poor hygiene at Krome and negligence of COVID-19 protocols, and a pattern of racial discrimination and disparity in decisions on who gets released. For example, the Black immigrants claim that only lighter-skinned Cuban migrants are being released.
“People in this dorm are displaying COVID-19 symptoms and are really sick,” Johan Cruyff Jimstar Aceus, one of the two individuals named in the complaint, said in the document. “There is no proper sanitation and no testing being done either.”
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not initially respond to a request for comment. ICE responded five days later. A spokesperson said Tuesday that in May 2021, the Krome Service Processing Center underwent its annual detention inspection by the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility’s Office of Detention Oversight, to ensure compliance with performance based national detention standards. “The facility was found to be in compliance and received an acceptable rating,” the spokesperson said.
The DHS Office of the Inspector General and ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility investigate all allegations of abuse or other misconduct,” the spokesperson added. “Were any such allegation to be substantiated appropriate action would be taken.”
All of the migrants, most of whom have chosen to remain anonymous, are either currently detained at Krome or had previously been at the federal detention center. In addition to Haiti, the other four immigrants are from Sierra Leone and the Caribbean island nations of St. Lucia, Jamaica and the Bahamas.
Complaints from immigrants in detention are not new and in the past others have also filed civil claims, though not necessarily focused on race or discrimination.
In February, a Haitian detainee in ICE custody, Herby “Herb” Yves Pierre-Gilles, filed a complaint with two federal agencies claiming that he was severely beaten and put in a chokehold after being slammed to the ground by prison guards at Krome.
The latest complaint on behalf of the nine Black immigrants was submitted to the Department of Homeland Security Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties on Thursday by advocates with the UndocuBlack Network, Haitian Bridge Alliance, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild and Freedom for Immigrants.
“We are especially concerned that these instances of abuse fit within a long pattern of abuse and anti-Black racism that Black immigrants experience within ICE custody,” advocates said in the complaint. “The abuse which these individuals have been subject to falls within a clear pattern of racialized brutalization and discrimination against those in ICE custody, a practice which ICE leadership has effectively condoned.”
Advocates said some of the groups that signed the complaint had submitted a similar letter to DHS in March 2021, alleging discriminatory practices and deliberate indifference related to the prenatal, maternal, gynecological and pediatric needs of detained Black women and young children at the Karnes County Family Residential Center in Texas. They received little response, the advocates said.
The complaint is based on dozens of interviews, letters and calls to the Freedom for Immigrants National Immigration Detention Hotline, and includes testimonies collected in August and September. In some of the complaints, detainees report that they have been placed with COVID-19-positive individuals, and that the crowded facility prevents any kind of social distancing.
In addition to COVID-19 negligence and unlivable conditions at Krome, detainees allege racist practices and discriminatory treatment, denial of medical care, sexual assault, retaliation, coercive and unlawful use of force to obtain signatures on paperwork and religious discrimination.
Advocates say that according to mandate for the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, allegations of discrimination based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability which occur in ICE custody must be investigated.
“There’s strong indication that a pattern and practice of racially based abuse of immigrants at Krome, and under the Miami Field Office at large, is taking place,” the complaint says.
This story was originally published October 7, 2021 at 6:41 PM.
