Leading House Democrats have called on the United Nations (U.N.) High Commissioner for Human Rights to open an investigation into a “clear pattern of alleged human rights violations” committed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) against detained immigrants, writing that while the House in particular has launched investigations into numerous abuses, “the variety of rights issues in question, the sheer number of complaints, and the serious nature of the allegations necessitates an international response.”
“All countries, regardless of size, power, or international standing must respect the human rights of all people and the United States is no exception,” legislators including Rep. Veronica Escobar, who represents the southern border region, told U.N. commissioner Michelle Bachelet. “Our government cannot be allowed to commit human rights atrocities or escape investigation, oversight, or criticism based on its powerful geopolitical position, as it so often has.”
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The letter to Bachelet, the former Chilean president who along with her mother was once interrogated and tortured by the government of dictator Augusto Pinochet, identifies “egregious human rights abuses perpetrated” by the U.S. government’s federal enforcement agencies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and its private contractors.
Legislators in particular detail “extremely disturbing allegations of medical neglect, malpractice, and abuse” at the privately operated Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia, where detained women have said they were operated on without their consent. “One detained immigrant,” legislators including leaders Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Pocan, Alan Lowenthal, and Mary Gay Scanlon write, “likened the facility to an ‘experimental concentration camp.’”
“When considered in the context of the United States’ long and shameful history of forcibly sterilizing incarcerated women and the numerous allegations of human rights abuses already leveled against DHS, the necessity of an independent investigation is clear,” they continue. Legislators also urgently noted conditions inside immigration detention facilities that have actively contributed to the deaths of immigrants while in ICE’s custody.
“A 2018 analysis of a sparse public record found evidence that half of over 50 deaths since 2010 were linked to subpar medical care,” they wrote. “Reported deaths in ICE custody this fiscal year are at a record high with 21 fatalities since October 2019—at least seven linked to Covid-19. Abject neglect and cruel conditions at Department border facilities that are overcrowded, where those held wear dirty clothes, babies have no diapers, and detained immigrants lack access to showers, soap, or toothbrushes. Additional reports indicate that detained immigrants are being kept in extremely cold temperatures, with the lights on 24 hours per day, and with little to no access to food or medical care.”
The Trump administration has known exactly what it’s doing to families it detains, despite a recent claim from impeached president Donald Trump that children he kidnapped from their parents at the southern border are “so well taken care of.” When officials were asked under oath in 2018 if they’d leave their own kids in one of these facilities, they refused to directly answer. Because they wouldn’t.
“Since December 2018, at least six children have died after exposure to these conditions in DHS border custody,” legislators continued in their letter to Bachelet, with a pediatrician telling Congress earlier this year that two of those deaths were entirely preventable. “The health care and law enforcement systems that should have protected him, failed him,” Harvard Medical School professor Fiona Danaher wrote to the father of one of those children. “I will do everything I can to advocate to Congress that the care provided to children at the US border must be improved, so that no other child meets a fate like Felipe’s.”
The American government’s abuses against asylum-seeking children in particular continues to shock the public to this very moment, with hundreds orphaned by the state because their deported parents can’t be found. Advocates who have been tasked by the court to reunite these separated families say that the Trump administration is only just now offering some help, but only because of public backlash in response to the ongoing separations.
“While we pledge to do all that we can to investigate any and all allegations of human rights abuses domestically, the variety of rights issues in question, the sheer number of complaints, and the serious nature of the allegations necessitates an international response,” legislators tell Bachelet. “As the foremost U.N. official charged with protecting human rights, we call on you to lead that response.”
