Sikh asylum seekers allegedly tortured |
Several Sikh asylum seekers who went on a hunger strike at the Folkston, Georgia ICE Processing Center to protest their indefinite detention, were allegedly tortured by ICE officers. Javeria Jamil, Pakistani American director of legal services at Asian Americans Advancing Justice Atlanta, told India-West that the Sikh protestors, who were forced to quit their strike in mid-July, were held in solitary confinement with the air conditioning cranked up to create unbearably cold temperatures. The Sikh detainees did not receive warm clothing to counter the effects of the frigid temperature, said Jamil. They were being tortured by ICE officers, she alleged. Officials at the Folkston detention center had not returned several calls for comment by press time. All of these men are running away from persecution in India; they have this idea of coming to the U.S. to be free and to escape persecution. They come here and are told ‘you’re not welcome, said Jamil, noting that most of the men who went on the hunger strike have been in ICE detention since December 2017. The men, most in their 20s and 30s, have had to leave family behind in India. Many have traversed the long journey from Mexico by foot to arrive at the U.S. border.None of the men has received a bond hearing in the eight months they have been detained.
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