Food bugs, sickness haunt detained immigrants

DILLEY, United States (AFP) — A detention center in rural Texas has become a harsh symbol of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with disease breaking out among the throng of people held, including some families who entered the United States legally.

The Dilley Immigration Processing Center sits in a small town of just 3,200 people, just about 135 kilometers from the Mexico border, but has become a grim global melting pot.

Many detainees were picked up as their asylum claims were being processed or as they were checking in with authorities on their cases, lawyers told Agence France-Presse (AFP), as Trump massively expands the scope of who can be targeted for detention and deportation.

“I cry all the time. My son tries to wipe the tear from my eyes,” said W, a Haitian woman who along with her son crossed the border legally to seek asylum, under a program run by Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden.

Historically, asylum seekers have generally been allowed to live and work in the US while their claims work their way through the court system.

But W and her son were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and sent to Dilley in October, where W says authorities have tried to force her to sign a deportation order.

Her testimony, like that of others in this report, was taken by the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES), a legal advocacy group, and shown to AFP. Many names have been fully or partially withheld.

Protests have erupted over bugs being found in the detention center’s food, W said, while lights are kept on 24 hours a day, making it difficult to sleep.

On Monday, Texas health authorities warned of two measles cases at the facility, prompting ICE to quarantine some people held there.

“These families have become a political pawn,” Javier Hidalgo, legal director at RAICES, told AFP.

“They were in a process. They had future court dates... there’s no purpose to (detention) other than trying to convince them to give up their legal cases.”

CoreCivic, the private company that the government contracts to run the facility, told AFP “the health and safety of those entrusted to our care is the (company’s) top priority.”

The Dilley center is the same facility that held Liam Conejo Ramos, the five-year-old Ecuadoran boy who lawyers allege was detained as bait to lure his mother to agents.