Sacramento, July 17 (RHC)-- In the United States, nine immigrant women who were arrested by ICE agents during the summer of 2017 say in a new lawsuit they were shackled and held in a hot, windowless van for hours, leaving them fainting, vomiting, struggling to breathe and expecting to die. 

A lawsuit has now been filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of the women in Northern California says the women were also denied food and water for about 12 hours during the summer heat last July 17th. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. military and CIA contractor MVM has admitted it detained migrant children overnight inside a vacant Phoenix office building with dark windows, no kitchen and only a few toilets.  An investigation by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting uncovered what some are calling a “black site” for migrant children, after one local resident filmed children in sweat-suits being led into the building. 

The building was leased in March by MVM, a military contractor that Reveal reports has received nearly $250 million in contracts to transport immigrant children since 2014.  A spokesperson for MVM, Inc. told Reveal that the company had indeed held children in the building overnight, calling the stays a “regrettable exception” to the company’s policy to find hotel rooms instead. 

In other news, the Trump administration is arguing it has the authority to indefinitely hold people in the Guantánamo Bay prison camp without charging them with a crime—even for 100 years.  The claim by a Justice Department lawyer came in federal court in Washington, D.C., as a judge considers a habeas corpus petition brought by 11 Guantánamo prisoners who argue their perpetual detention is arbitrary and unlawful.