When I can summon the energy to do so, I worry that the current unpleasantness threatens to exhaust my capacity for outrage.
However, I am now able to report that some news still shocks and surprises, such as this report from the ACLU, Citizens on Hold: A Look at ICE’s Flawed Detainer System in Miami-Dade County. It is not pretty reading.
Miami-Dade County’s records show that between February 2017 and February 2019, ICE sent the jail 420 detainer requests for people listed as U.S. citizens, only to later cancel 83 of those requests—evidently because the agency determined, after the fact, that its targets were in fact U.S. citizens. The remaining individuals’ detainers were not canceled, and so they continued to be held for ICE to deport them.
The ACLU reports that false detainer requests are fairly common across the country, but that we here in Miami are the epicenter.
Immigrant-rights groups say ICE’s databases are filled with outdated information. (And the ACLU says ICE’s data bases often fails to reflect that people become naturalized citizens.) And, ACLU notes a CNN investigation that showed ICE agents routinely forging their bosses’ signatures on critical detention warrants to skip mandatory document reviews.
Meanwhile, the State Legislature is considering a bill that would require local cops to honor ICE requests.
(Spotted via New Times, ICE Issued False Deportation Requests for 420 U.S. Citizens in Miami-Dade, ACLU Reports.)
