Violence & Racism Against Black Immigrants
In August 2020, we filed a federal complaint with the Office for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and DHS’ Office of the Inspector General detailing how prison officials used unnecessary lethal force to place Black immigrants in chokeholds and threaten them with solitary confinement at gunpoint at the Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center in Pine Prairie, Louisiana.
Freedom for Immigrants along with the Cameroonian American Council (CAC), ISLA Immigration Services and Legal Advocacy, and Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) called for the immediate release of the men from solitary confinement and a federal investigation.
““Immigrants detained in ICE prisons across the country are organizing to protest their indefinite detention and inhumane detention conditions. These brave acts of organizing are regularly met with violence. “”
About the complaint:
On Monday, August 10, 2020, a group of approximately 45 Black, majority Cameroonian asylum-seekers, went on hunger strike. This hunger strike was a renewal of an earlier peaceful hunger strike that had begun in March 2020, but was brutally quashed by Pine Prairie authorities. On August 24, 2020, all 45 African hunger strikers were rounded up by officials in full military gear and taken to solitary confinement.
The prison officials began by restraining three men, climbing on top of them and attempting to place them in chokeholds. One man on hunger strike who had his hands up described being thrown to the ground with six officers on top of him. He felt he was going to be suffocated and had bruises all over his body. Officers pointed a gun at another one of the men who was protesting and resisting the chokeholds. At this point, all the men were fearing for their lives.
ICE and its contractor’s violence and threats in this instance replicate the violence levied against prior peaceful protesters in weeks and years past. See Freedom for Immigrants’ report on hunger strikes and Freedom for Immigrants report on abuse motivated by hate and bias.