Mother Jones: Warren, Booker, and Sanders Push DHS to Investigate Allegations That Officers Threatened Asylum Seekers With COVID-19 Exposure

A group of US senators is urging the Department of Homeland Security to investigate allegations that guards at immigration detention centers beat asylum seekers into submitting to their own deportations. “The allegations of violence and brutality against vulnerable refugees seeking safety here in the United States are unlawful and disturbing,” they write in the letter. 

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) sent the letter Thursday to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE’s Acting Director Tae Johnson. 

The senators’ concerns stem in part from a recent story by the Intercept that uncovered how guards at two ICE detention centers threatened asylum seekers with exposure to COVID-19 if they didn’t submit to a “voluntary” deportation.

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Read the full article here.

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