On the issue of genocide trials:

ICE is Using Torture Against Cameroonian Immigrants to Coerce Deportation, According to New Complaint Filed by Immigrant Rights Groups (Southern Poverty Law Center)

Cameroon American Council, Freedom for Immigrants, Louisiana Advocates for Immigrants in Detention, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Detention Watch Network (DWN), Natchez Network, Haitian Bridge Alliance, and Families for Freedom together filed a multi-individual complaint with the Department for Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) and DHS Office of Inspector General (OIG), condemning the agency for deploying excessive force to coerce Cameroonian asylum seekers into signing their own deportation papers.

According to the complaint, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) coerced eight Cameroonian men detained at the privately operated Adams County Correctional Center in Natchez, Mississippi on September 27 and 28. The complaint describes the coercive tactics, including threats of violence and direct physical abuse to obtain submission, forced taking of fingerprints while individuals are in restraint, and the use of pepper spray against those who decline to sign their deportation papers.

“An ICE agent came to see me Sunday, September 27, 2020 to try to get me to sign a deportation document,” reports a Cameroonian asylum seeker, identified as D.F. in the complaint. “I said I didn’t want to sign a deportation order. I said I am afraid to go back to my country. He promised me he would torture me. Monday, September 28, 2020, he came again while I was outside to try to force me to sign, I refused to sign. He pressed my neck into the floor. I said, Please, I can’t breathe.’ I lost my blood circulation. Then they took me inside with my hands at my back where there were no cameras.”

Advocates allege that these acts of abuse are in violation of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, which the US has ratified, as well as ICE’s own standards.

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