In a new report released today, Amnesty International documented widespread human rights violations committed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and other federal agencies during the Trump administration’s large-scale, militarized immigration enforcement operations in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New Orleans and Washington, DC.
The report, “We Had Whistles, They Had Guns”: Human Rights Violations in U.S. Immigration Enforcement Operations and the Case to Abolish ICE, demonstrates that the Trump administration is implementing a mass detention and deportation system, fueled by racist, xenophobic and false narratives, whose objective is to detain and deport as many migrants, asylum seekers and refugees from the United States as possible and spread fear throughout immigrant communities more broadly.
“Our report documents a chilling pattern of human rights violations across the U.S. intended to instill fear within migrant, asylum seeker and refugee communities,” said Nadia Daar, Executive Director, Amnesty International USA. “ICE’s record of violating human rights is nothing new, but our report shows many of these abuses have reached a perilous new level.”