A Bronx cab driver was deported to Ghana regardless of an ongoing criminal investigation into his claim that he was raped and beaten by officers at the Essex County Correctional Facility. Faruk Karimu was arrested and taken to Essex during a check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers this summer. Ten days later, he says he was taken to solitary confinement where two officers assaulted and raped him. After another two days, he was taken to a hospital and examined by medical staff, who found he had anal bleeding from the assault.
Karimu reported the incidentto the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General, which had recently cited the Essex County facility for unsafe conditions. In late July, two months after the alleged attack, Karimu retained attorneys who then obtained his medical records. The day they got his records, he was woken up and taken to the Newark, New Jersey airport, flown to Louisiana and Texas detention facilities and finally dropped off in Ghana on Wednesday.
Karimu was deported due to a 2010 federal drug conviction, an ICE spokesperson said . He was allowed to stay in the U.S. after he left prison, but that was revoked in May when he was detained. “We got involved and they just literally disappeared him,” said Sarah Gillman of Rapid Defense Network. “It is rather curious that he was detained May 17 and for nearly three months nothing occurred, and then when we got involved, everything occurred.” WNYC
Hello, this is Max Siegelbaum and Mazin Sidahmed with today’s edition of Early Arrival. You can email us at max.siegelbaum@documentedny.com or mazin.sidahmed@documentedny.com.
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Local
New Jersey and Other States Sue Over Public Charge
New Jersey and 12 other states have sued the federal government to challenge its new public charge policy that will make it harder for immigrants who could use social welfare programs to gain lawful status in the U.S. The states say the rule change is a “radical overhaul” of immigration law and gives wealthy immigrants preferential treatment. “No family should ever have to choose between staying in America and having access to health care, food and housing,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) in a statement announcing the suit. New York is not one of the plaintiffs in the suit. North Jersey Record
New York Health Officials Say Public Charge Might Affect All New Yorkers
After the Trump administration announced the public charge rule was moving forward, New York officials began scrambling to prepare a response. “The rule itself is extremely confusing, and I worry greatly that patients will avoid needed medical care for fear that receiving that care would be seen as a ‘public charge,'” said Dr. Mitchell Katz, president and CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals. Officials are worried people will forego visiting the doctor, which may lead to the spread of infectious diseases. And since the rule was announced, enrollment in the city’s food stamp program SNAP, has dropped 8 percent. NY 1
Muslim Immigrants File Complaints Against NYPD
Three Muslim New Yorkers have accused the NYPD of execessive force and neglecting crimes against them in complaints filed with the Civilan Complaint Review Board. A Brooklyn woman said police threw her to the ground and kneeled on top of her at a Harlem traffic stop. Another woman, Fatoumata Camara, who is of Guinean descent, was robbed by a group of teens in the Bronx. She said NYPD officers refused to pursue the case because she couldn’t identify her attackers. A similar complaint came from a 16-year-old Bengali American, who was randomly punched in the face and hospitalized for three days. The Council on American-Islamic Relations’ New York chapter filed the complaint and are alleging biased policing. Politico New York
National
Documents in Mississippi ICE Raid Unsealed
ICE officers said all five companies caught up in the largest worksite operation in decades knowingly hired undocumented workers, according to videotaped statements from the managers. The information against Koch Foods, Peco Foods, PH Food, A&B and Pearl River Food comes in newly unsealed search warrants. The documents also detail surveillance tactics ICE used to conduct the raids, including confidential informants who worked at the plant. The weekend raids of the seven poultry plants in Mississippi resulted in the arrests of 680 individuals, but the companies who hired them have not been charged. The Washington Post
Data Shows ‘Criminal’ Deportees Under Obama Mostly Just Crossed the Border Illegally
A common refrain during Barack Obama’s presidency was that the main targets of his immigration enforcement efforts were gang members and violent felons. Yet according to information released to HuffPost through a FOIA request, more than half of the deportees flagged as criminal only committed the crime of entering the United States illegally. “They’ve been turning mere immigration law violators into criminal aliens for years in order to inflate the amount of individuals that have been removed under criminal grounds,” immigration attorney Matthew Kolken told HuffPost. Traffic violations accounted for the second-highest number of criminal convictions. HuffPost
Immigration Bond Company Sued Again
The immigration bond company Nexus Services Inc. is back in the spotlight again after six people from Central America sued the business for more than $1.5 million. The lawsuit claims Nexus, which pays for immigration bonds and charges detainees a monthly fee to wear an ankle monitor in return, has been “embracing immigrants only to feed off of them like a parasite.” It mirrors several other suits against Nexus, including one by New York’s attorney general. The suits all accuse the company of coercing immigrants into long-term contracts where they end up spending more money than just paying for the bonds in the first place. Staunton News Leader
Most ICE Detainees are in Rural Prisons
More than half of immigrants in ICE detention are housed in remote rural prisons, an NPR analysis found. Around 52% of detainees are held rurally, and the number is increasing. They usually face more difficulty accessing a lawyer and are more likely to be deported. They also find it more difficult for family members to visit. Only 14% of detainees have any legal representation, according to a 2015 University of Pennsylvania Law Review study, but those in urban areas are four times as likely to have a lawyer. NPR
Guards Drive Truck into Protestors Outside ICE Facility
Several protestors were injured outside an ICE detention facility in Rhode Island on Wednesday after a truck tried to drive through the group of roughly 600. Corrections officers later pepper sprayed the protestors. The protest, outside the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls, Rhode Island, was led by members of the “Never Again” movement which compares the imprisoment of immigrants to treatment of Jews during the holocaust. Corrections officer Capt. Thomas Woodworth was placed on leave for driving a truck into the protestors. In a video, a pickup truck can be seen driving into seated protestors, stopping and then accelerating into them again. WLNE
Washington — Court Rules Children Should Receive Toothbrushes in Detention, Biden Playing Cleanup Over Immgiration Comments
A federal appeals court ruled against the Trump administration on Thursday and compelled the government to provide detained migrant children with toothbrushes, sleeping mats and other basic hygiene supplies. The case had made headlines after a video circulated of a Justice Department lawyer trying to explain to judges why these supplies did not meet the requirement for safe and sanitary conditions. News reports about the conditions children faced at the Clint, Texas child detention facility had also surfaced shortly before. The New York Times
Former Vice President Joe Biden is reportedly apologizing to Latinx leaders and immigration activists over his language during the July 31 Democratic debate. The presidential candidate said during the debate that undocumented immigrants need to “get in line” to pursue citizenship,and that the country has been right to “cherry pick” highly skilled immigrants. Biden has since held closed-door meetings with Latinx leaders to help assuage their concerns over his hardline immigration talking points. Politico
