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Tag: ice detention center

  • Howard Co. revokes building permit, introduces legislation to block proposed ICE detention center – WTOP News

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    After an inspection and the publication of leasing advertisements for the proposed detention center in Elkridge, Howard County determined that the building would be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and revoked the building permit.

    Howard County, Maryland, has revoked the building permit for a private detention center that County Executive Calvin Ball said was going to be used by U.S. Immigration and Customs. And the county council has introduced emergency legislation to stop the project.

    After a recent inspection and leasing advertisements for the proposed detention center, located at 6522 Meadowridge Road in Elkridge, the county determined “this privately owned building is intended for occupancy by ICE,” said Ball in a Monday news conference.

    “The retrofitting of a private office buildings for detention use without transparency, without input, without clear oversight, is deeply troubling,” Ball said. “In this case, the proposed detention center sits in an existing office park in close proximity to health care providers, schools, parks and neighborhoods.”

    According to Ball, the county wasn’t aware of specific lease agreements or contracts between the building owner and any federal agency.

    The county’s director of inspections, licenses and permits and permits revoked the building permit, Ball said.

    Later, Monday, the Howard County Council introduced two pieces of emergency legislation aimed at preventing private entities, rather than government agencies, from operating detention centers in the county.

    The council voted to hold an emergency public hearing Wednesday, which could stretch into Thursday, followed by a vote on the bills by the five-person council.

    “Since there are four cosponsors on the bill, it is about 99.99% likely to pass,” Council Chair Opel Jones told the audience, which responded with a standing ovation.

    Jones asked audience members to “pack the house” for the public hearing, before encouraging participants to be concise in their statements, “so we can get right to the point, and vote this bill in.”

    Howard County’s actions comes several days after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security purchased a warehouse near Hagerstown, Maryland, raising concerns that it would be retrofitted as an ICE detention center.

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    Neal Augenstein

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  • L.A. teen is moved to ICE detention center out of state without parents’ knowledge

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    Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz’s family was stunned and heartbroken when the 18-year-old was grabbed by immigration agents while walking his dog in Van Nuys just days before he was set to start his senior year at Reseda Charter High School.

    This week, his family was caught off-guard once again when they learned that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had transferred him to Arizona without notifying any relatives, according to the office of U.S. Rep. Luz Rivas (D-North Hollywood), which spoke to his family and reviewed ICE detention records.

    Guerrero-Cruz was moved out of the Adelanto Detention Facility in San Bernardino County late Monday night and taken to a holding facility in Arizona in the middle of the desert, according to the congresswoman’s office.

    On Tuesday night, he was scheduled to be transferred to Louisiana, a major hub for deportation flights, but at the last minute he was taken off the plane and sent back to Adelanto, where he is currently being held.

    “Benjamin and his family deserve answers behind ICE’s inconsistent and chaotic decision-making process, including why Benjamin was initially transferred to Arizona, why he was slated to be transferred to Louisiana afterward, and why his family wasn’t notified of his whereabouts by ICE throughout this process,” Rivas said in a statement.

    On Tuesday, Rivas introduced a bill that would require ICE to notify an immediate family member of a detainee within 24 hours of a detainee’s transfer. Currently, ICE is required to notify a family member only in the case of a detainee’s death.

    “Benjamin’s story of being detained and sent across state lines without warning or notification is like many other detainees in Los Angeles and across the country,” Rivas said. “Many immigrant families in my district do not know the whereabouts of their loved ones after they are detained by ICE.”

    The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The agency previously stated that Guerrero-Cruz was awaiting deportation to Chile after overstaying his visa, which required him to depart the United States on March 15, 2023.

    Benjamin Guerrero-Cruz, shown at school, is an avid soccer player and loving older brother, according to his family.

    (Rita Silva)

    Guerrero-Cruz was arrested Aug. 8 and held in downtown L.A. for a week, during which time he was briefly taken on an unexplained trip to a detention center in Santa Ana before being transferred to Adelanto on Aug. 15, according to a former teacher who visited him in custody.

    His experience of being pingponged around different facilities is common among those being detained in what the Trump administration is billing as the largest deportation effort in American history.

    This trend is also reflected in ICE’s flight data. The agency conducted 2,022 domestic transfer flights from May through July — representing a 90% increase from the same period last year, according to a widely cited database of flights created by immigrant rights advocate Tom Cartwright.

    Cartwright posited in his July report that this uptick could be related to a “need to optimize bed space as detention numbers have ballooned from 39,152 on 29 December to 56,945 on 26 July.”

    Jorge-Mario Cabrera, spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights L.A., called the Trump administration’s detention policies cruel, saying it appears that they are detaining people for as long as possible and “moving them from place to place for no reason other than because they can.”

    “The fact that these dumbfounding transfers in the middle of the night cause chaos, confusion, and minimizes access to legal representation does not seem to bother them one bit,” he said in a statement.

    Susham M. Modi, an immigration attorney based in Houston, said he had witnessed an uptick in the frequency of transfers among those recently detained by ICE.

    “[Detainees are] also being often transferred to where there’s less lawyers,” he said. “I’ve seen consults where they’ve been transferred to Oklahoma, where it is very hard to find an attorney that might do, for example, federal court litigation.”

    Although families can use ICE’s Online Detainee Locator to search for loved ones, it isn’t always up to date, and some families do not know how to use it, Modi said. When detainees are transferred, they often can’t make outgoing calls from the detention facility until someone has deposited money into their account — another hurdle for keeping family members updated on their whereabouts, he added.

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    Clara Harter

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