NewzHuman rights advocates have asked a United Nations panel to intervene in a new U.S. government practice that they say amounts to the “enforced disappearance” of noncitizens Human rights groups are urging a UN panel to act against a U.S.
government policy that conceals the locations of detainees, impeding legal and familial support. ICE has updated its system removing detainee names, a move criticized as facilitating deportations. Human rights advocates asked a United Nations panel to intervene Wednesday to help end a new U.S.
government practice of withholding from families and lawyers the whereabouts of thousands of detainees facing deportation. Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed the names of detainees with final removal orders from its Online Detainee Locator System on Sept. 15 in an apparent effort to speed up their deportations.
The change, which ICE did not announce and has not explained, applies to more than 16,000 of the nearly 69,000 detainees who are in ICE custody.The move has interfered with detainees' ability to challenge looming deportations by impeding access to their lawyers while devastating families who lost track of their loved ones, immigration lawyers say.A coalition of more than 30 groups who advocate for noncitizens in the U.S. petitioned the U.N.’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances to declare the policy a violation of international law and to push for its end.“A system with no transparency is a system with no accountability, and that should terrify all of us,” said Sarah Decker, an attorney at the Robert & Ethel Kennedy Human Rights Center, one of the petition's signatories. “Disappearing people into a network of remote detention sites, hiding their whereabouts, and cutting off their access to outside help is the definition of an enforced disappearance."Separately, on Wednesday, more than 45 House Democrats led by Reps.
Luz Rivas and Veronica Escobar urged ICE to restore the names to the locator, calling the practice of concealing them “contrary to foundational principles of the American legal system.”ICE's parent agency denied Wednesday that its practices amount to disappearing people, saying all detainees “have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”“The appropriate process due to an illegal alien with final deportation orders is removal, plain and simple,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement. “That said, DHS has a stringent law enforcement assessment in place that abides by due process under the U.S. Constitution.”Detainees can typically call relatives if they have money in their commissary accounts, while calls to their legal representatives are supposed to be free.Approximately 1.4 million people living in the U.S.
are subject to final orders of removal.
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