Immigration activists demand freedom for Black Mauritanians at Adelanto ICE facility

A half-dozen immigration rights organizations are demanding the release of more than 100 predominately Black Mauritanian asylum seekers detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Desert View Annex in Adelanto amid allegations of due process and civil rights violations

The asylum seekers, who are fleeing enslavement, ethnic cleansing and lawlessness in their homeland, have been detained under a blanket ICE policy requiring a $5,000 bond per detainee, without regard for their ability to pay, the organizations said in a joint letter Wednesday, July 19, to ICE’s Los Angeles field office director, Thomas Giles

Endorsing the letter were the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, Haitian Bridge Alliance, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and Public Counsel.

“This blanket monetary condition is irrational, unfair, and violates ICE’s obligations under the parole statute and the Constitution,” the organizations said in the letter. The detainees, they said, likely will remain in custody for months and possibly years as they present their asylum claims in immigration courts.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment from the Southern California News Group.

The Desert View Annex, operated by the private GEO Group Inc., can house up to 750 male and female asylum seekers, who on average are detained for 120 days, with the longest stay lasting 1,378 days, according to a 2021 California Department of  Justice report.

Black Mauritanians are crossing borders to find refuge and “embracing the arms of compassion and justice,” said a statement from Zeinabou Sall, director of immigration and social services for the Mauritanian Network for Human Rights in the U.S.

“Instead of detaining these individuals, the United States must provide them with freedom and safety,” Sall said.

Although Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery in 1981, and criminalized the practice in 2007, it still exists.

Operating similar to the slavery system that existed in the U.S. before the Civil War, it remains widespread among elite White Arabs and Berbers who have enslaved Black Africans for centuries, according to the Arab Reform Initiative.

Of Mauritania’s 4.7 million citizens, about 90,000 were slaves in 2018, the Global Slavery Index estimated.

The plight of the Mauritanian asylum seekers at the Desert View Annex has been further exacerbated by ICE’s inability to provide interpretation in their native languages, including Pulaar Mauritanian or Soninke, according to immigration rights organizations. As a result, detention hearings have been delayed.

Immigration rights organizations quickly mobilized after learning of the plight of the Mauritanian asylum seekers a little more than a week ago, Alvaro M. Huerta, an attorney who is the director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center in Los Angeles, said Friday.

Huerta met Tuesday with two detainees who had been picked up by ICE officers at the Mexicali border crossing.

He said the detainees told them they had adequate translators during medical screenings at the Desert View Annex, but not during detention processing or hearings involving their asylum petitions. The lack of due process for the detainees is extremely troubling, Huerta said.

“Given the disparate treatment of Black migrants, who are often detained at higher rates and with higher bonds, it’s particularly egregious that the federal government seems to have made no individual bond determinations for over a hundred Black Mauritanians and has made little to no effort to provide the appropriate interpreters so that these individuals can understand their situation,” he said. “That is a fundamental violation of due process.”

Source: Orange County Register