“A system of mass detention and expulsion, fueled by racist, xenophobic and false discourse.” The NGO Amnesty International unveiled, Thursday, September 24, an incendiary report on the actions of the immigration and customs control police (ICE) since Donald Trump’s return to power on January 20, 2025.
An investigation based on the analysis of four large-scale militarized operations, carried out between March and June in the cities of Chicago, Minneapolis-Saint Paul, New Orleans and Washington, and which draws a chilling observation.
The organization documents “widespread human rights violations”, reflecting a policy aimed at “detaining and expelling from US territory the greatest possible number of migrants, asylum seekers or refugees, and instilling fear among all immigrant populations”.
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Racial profiling and bullying
Among the highlights of the report is the systematic targeting of people “perceived as migrants” on the basis of their “skin color, ethnic origin or nationality”. The NGO denounces “excessive” use of force on the part of federal agents, citing the unjustified destruction of other people’s property, raids carried out with guns drawn on homes or even violent extractions of vehicles and tackling to the ground of people offering no resistance.
“The incidents recounted in this report highlight a recurring pattern of unnecessary and excessive use of force”, in violation “of international human rights standards, as well as the policies of the Ministry of Homeland Security itself”, points out Amnesty.
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“Inhumane” detention conditions
The NGO also denounces serious abuses in terms of detention conditions, in sometimes inappropriate premises such as local ICE branches, intended mainly for the reception or transfer of people in an irregular situation.
“People were detained there for prolonged periods, well beyond the current limit of 72 hours set by ICE”, in premises sometimes “not even equipped for night detention”, underlines the report, which mentions problems of “overcrowding” and “unsanitary conditions”.
Amnesty also reports that detainees have been denied access to their lawyers and families, to whom ICE has sometimes been unwilling to confirm their loved ones’ detention or where they are being held.
Detainees were also pushed to accept “voluntary” departure to their country of origin or to third countries. Expulsions carried out within the framework of secret agreements concluded between the United States and at least 35 countries, documented by the international investigation by Forbidden Stories, in collaboration with France 24 and RFI, unveiled a few days before the publication of this report.
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A “danger for all”
For Nadia Daar, director of Amnesty International USA, “rights violations” by ICE are not new but they “have crossed a threshold in terms of danger”. “The fact that masked and armed federal agents attack people in the street with complete impunity does not make our neighborhoods safer: it puts everyone in danger,” she denounces.
“ICE is inherently flawed and cannot be reformed. If the U.S. government does not have an immigration enforcement system that respects international human rights law and related standards, then ICE must be abolished,” she concludes.
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