Immigrant rights groups have submitted a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and the Office of the Inspector General alleging that a Haitian immigrant “was severely beaten, stripped and choked by guards” at Florida’s Krome Service Processing Center, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention camp that already has a history of mistreatment against detained people.
“This incident of abuse fits within a long pattern of disparate treatment of Black immigrants held in ICE custody at Krome,” Immigrant Action Alliance and Freedom for Immigrants said in a statement. They urged that Herby “Herb” Pierre-Gilles be protected from deportation—as well as any other retaliation by the federal immigration agency—while authorities investigate the allegations.
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According to the groups, the assault occurred while Pierre-Gilles was receiving mental health treatment at the facility. “The suit said Pierre-Gilles was in a mental health cell when an officer kneed him in the face, causing his lips to burst in two places,” Miami Herald reported. Pierre-Gilles’s clothes including underwear were then ripped off him before he was slammed to the floor and choked by a guard, the report horrifically continued.
Krome’s guards work for private contractor Akima Global Services. “Mr. Pierre-Gilles states three cameras would have caught this violent beating and choke hold on video,” the complaint said according to Miami Herald. “The Krome Processing Center ICE officers’ pattern and practice of physical violence and abusive treatment is unlawful and unacceptable,” the groups said. “Amongst other crimes, ICE officers’ and AGS guards’ use of excessive force may qualify as assault and battery under Florida penal code.”
Krome—like many ICE detention camps across the nation—already has a history of mistreating detained people. Months into the novel coronavirus pandemic, a federal judge had to force ICE to do the bare minimum to protect detainees at Krome, and distribute soap, cleaning supplies, and masks. ICE put its intentional disregard for human lives on full display even during court proceedings. When detainee Deivys Perez Valladares testified in a virtual hearing, he said the guard standing next to him hadn’t bothered with putting on a mask.
But as the groups importantly make clear, this abuse against Pierre-Gilles is part of a pattern of anti-Black violence by ICE that goes back years and continues to this very day.
“A 2019 report on South Florida detention facilities identifies the racial slurs and disproportionate use of force directed at Black immigrants by ICE officers,” the groups said. “The violence that Black immigrants face in ICE custody also extends beyond Florida immigration detention centers. Since Oct. 2020, concerned parties have lodged at least 4 civil rights complaints calling for investigation of ICE officers’ and private prison guards’ illegal use of threats, coercion and direct force against Black immigrants detained.”
Within the past several days, ICE has also targeted Black asylum-seekers for deportation, momentarily pausing deportation flights of Black immigrants following outcry from advocates, but then again resuming them this week. The Guardian reported that ICE deported at least 72 people to Haiti, including nearly two dozen children. In a letter that day to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, outraged members of the Congressional Black Caucus slammed the deportation flights, writing they’re “gravely concerned that ICE is disparately targeting Black asylum-seekers and immigrants for detention, torture, and deportations.”
The Guardian had also reported that among people on the deportation flights that had been stopped were Black asylum-seekers who could be witnesses in horrific allegations of torture by agents, including the forcible signing of deportation documents. When ICE has a documented history of retaliating against immigrants who speak out about abuses, it’s essential Pierre-Gilles and others also be protected during an investigation.
“We stand in solidarity with Mr. Pierre-Gilles in his demands for accountability and justice following this brutal attack,” Immigrant Action Alliance executive director Wendy King said. “The abuse against Black immigrants detained is sadly something we have seen for years at Krome when monitoring human rights abuses of those detained. It must be stopped immediately. We will continue to fight for his release, as well as the release of all people held in immigrant prisons.”
“I will not stop seeking the justice I feel that I deserve so that no other detained person will ever have to suffer the pain and experience this traumatic event that I unfortunately had to go through,” Pierre-Gilles said. “There are problems that exist within the Department of Homeland Security and one of the biggest issues that are usually swept under the rug and hardly ever brought to the public’s attention is the physical abuse and mistreatment us immigrants received by the hands of the same government officials who took oaths to protect us. I pray and hope that my situation will be brought to the public’s attention so that a change can be made for the better.”
