ICE’s daily work

The current administration of the US has used the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency as a key piece to fulfill its immigration ideals.

Broadly speaking, ICE is the branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in charge of protecting the borders, supervising immigration detention centers, conducting operations to capture undocumented immigrants who managed to cross borders without prior authorization, inter alia.

Because one of the main ideals of the current administration is to reduce illegal immigration, ICE has played an essential role in the US since President Donald Trump took office in 2017.

However, due to its exponential growth and its massive intervention in the immigration sector, ICE has also been involved in multiple controversies in recent years, especially since the arrival of the global Coronavirus pandemic to the North American territory.

Keep up to date with the latest immigration news.

The most alarming news about ICE

1. Coronavirus at ICE facilities

As we mentioned earlier, ICE is responsible of overseeing immigration detention centers around the US. These centers house undocumented immigrants who normally have active deportation proceedings or who are detained trying to cross the country’s borders without legal documentation.

Due to strict policies of the Trump administration, these centers are usually overcrowded, which allowed them to become hotbeds of the Coronavirus. Therefore, dozens of people have been infected since the first case arrived at ICE facilities.

This federal entity has been involved in multiple investigations due to the lack of hygiene, health and protection protocols for detained immigrants.

2. Unaccompanied immigrant children in hotels

One of the most shocking controversies refers to ICE keeping immigrant minors in hotels during the health crisis before deporting them in a matter of days.

This news naturally unleashed a wave of disagreement among the American population and immigrant rights advocates, who claim that minors cannot be detained by ICE for more than 72 hours and that they must, as established in the Constitution of the US, have the opportunity to apply for political asylum or refuge.

3. ICE Citizen Academy

ICE proposed starting a “Citizens Academy” that aims to teach American citizens:

• Self defense techniques.
• Handling of firearms.
• Protocols to detain undocumented immigrants.

Hundreds of activists and critics declare that this academy could increase social division and discrimination in the US, and could fuel anti-immigration ideals.

4. Mass medical procedures

Recently, a nurse who worked at an ICE detention center located in Georgia, filed a legal complaint stating that ICE healthcare professionals are performing hysterectomies (removal of the uterus) on immigrant women who do not need this procedure.

This news also unleashed a wave of controversy, mainly because there are multiple testimonies from immigrant women who state that they received different “excuses” from ICE medical personnel to perform this procedure. However, many of them did not have any underlying health conditions indicating that they had to remove their uteri.

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