ICE sued over cruel and inhumane restraints used on African asylum seekers

New York, October 16 (RHC)-- A coalition of immigrant and racial justice organizations have filed a civil rights lawsuit denouncing Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s brutal assaults against African asylum seekers. 

The complaint details incidents that took place before or during deportation flights to Cameroon in October and November of last year.  ICE officers are accused of placing asylum seekers in five-point shackles and further immobilizing them in a device called “the WRAP” for hours.

An activist with they UndocuBlack Network and the Cameroon Advocacy Network, Breanne Palmer, said: “The WRAP is intended for use in extreme situations. It is designed to restrain people in a seated position. Instead, the WRAP was used against these Black migrants, who were already restrained, to lock them into painful stress positions, with one man forced into a full-face hood. This is torture, as the United Nations has made clear.”

One of the Cameroonian asylum seekers in the complaint said he has asthma and couldn’t breathe while he was placed in the WRAP.  He said: “I truly felt I was meeting my death in that moment.

Another asylum seeker suffers from a heart condition and reported experiencing chest pain after being restrained in the device.