August, 06 2015, 03:45pm EDT
ACLU Warns ICE about Treatment of Hunger-Striking Detainees at South Florida Immigration Detention Facility
22 men at Krome Service Processing Center in West Miami-Dade County have been on hunger strike since July 25 after being misled about bond hearings
MIAMI, FL
In a letter sent today to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida raised serious concerns regarding the treatment of 22 Sikh men who are on hunger strike at a South Florida immigration detention facility.
The 22 detainees, asylum-seekers from India, went on hunger strike when they learned that the judge who would hear their bond appeal, Judge Rex Ford at the Broward Transitional Center (BTC), does not grant bonds to individuals in their circumstances, even though other detainees in identical circumstances in the same jurisdiction are granted bond.
The men were then transferred to Krome Service Processing Center. Based on promises by ICE officials that they would receive a bond hearing at Krome, they ended the hunger strike. However, when the day of many of their bond hearings at Krome arrived, their cases were transferred back to BTC for removal hearings. Beginning on July 25, the men went back on hunger strike. Several of them have now been hospitalized and are being threatened with force-feeding and the use of the Baker Act.
"These men believe they have been willfully misled about their rights, and it seems like ICE officials have made things worse," stated ACLU of Florida Staff Attorney Shalini Agarwal. "The situation is urgent because of these men's rapidly deteriorating health. We are working to get to the bottom of this, especially in light of ICE allegedly responding unlawfully toward hunger-striking detainees in other immigration detention facilities."
The ACLU of Florida also intends to file a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties later today. From the letter sent to the ICE field office:
"The ACLU of Florida has serious concerns about these events, as the alleged actions by ICE suggest that the agency has jeopardized these men's health by making false promises of a meaningful bond hearing. We are especially concerned because we have heard about other situations around the country in which ICE and ICE-contracted facilities are alleged to have responded unlawfully to hunger strikes by immigration detainees, in some instances retaliating against the detainees by placing them in solitary confinement, and in other situations inviting consular officials of the country from which they are seeking asylum to exert pressure on the detainees.
"We are gravely concerned by the facts alleged and write to get your account of what has happened."
A copy of the letter is available here: https://aclufl.org/resources/letter-ice-hunger-strike-detainees-krome/
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Retired General Says Hegseth Boat Strike on Shipwrecked Sailors Was a 'War Crime'
"Secretary Hegseth is basically convening everyone to think... this is the kind of thing that happens in war," said retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling. "It's not."
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A retired general suggested Monday that the Trump administration’s strike on shipwrecked survivors on September 2 may have been a war crime.
In the face of mounting scrutiny, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has continued to defend what has been described as a "double-tap" strike off the coast of Trinidad, alleging that the two survivors were drug traffickers bound for America who could have still theoretically harmed it in some way despite clinging to the wreckage for their lives following the first strike.
NBC reported this weekend that Adm. Frank "Mitch" Bradley, who oversaw the strikes, told lawmakers that Hegseth had given direct orders for all 11 men aboard the vessel to be killed because "they were on an internal list of narco-terrorists who US intelligence and military officials determined could be lethally targeted.”
Last week, when reports first emerged of a second strike, Hegseth denied that it had taken place, calling it “fake news” before the White House later confirmed and defended the killing of the survivors.
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"It is, in fact, in my view, a war crime," Hertling said.
"Imagine yourself falling off a cruise ship and being asked to hang on to a piece of wood after you've just been struck with a large kinetic round that has killed nine of your 11 copilots on this boat," Hertling said. "It doesn't matter what they're doing at that point."
Hertling suggested that the frequent use of the term "double-tap" to refer to the strike was a misnomer, as was Hegseth's invocation of the phrase "fog of war" to defend the military's actions.
“That’s a term that special operators use when there are two successive rounds at a target to eliminate it, and to get rid of someone who is attacking them,” the general explained regarding the claims of a "double-tap" strike. “This was a restrike, with time between the first strike and the second. That gives you time to figure out what you’re going to do and clear that so-called ‘fog of war.'”
He cited the definition from Carl von Clausewitz, the 18th-century Prussian general and military theorist who coined the term to describe the “uncertainty” of battle.
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As of yet, the administration has presented no evidence that the men were calling for backup, and videos of the incident viewed by members of Congress during a closed-door hearing reportedly suggest they lacked any means of communication. Bradley, meanwhile, acknowledged in his Senate testimony that the survivors did not appear to have any radio or communication devices.
Further undermining the Trump administration's argument that the boat posed an immediate threat, Bradley also reportedly told Congress that the ship was not even bound for the US, but for the South American nation of Suriname.
Hertling emphasized that the two men were shipwrecked on "a piece of debris floating in the middle of the Caribbean," adding that "these individuals are not going to go anywhere, which will become clear with the film," though Hertling acknowledged that he had not personally seen it.
In recent days, leading Democrats, as well as some Republicans in Congress, have called for the release of the video, which House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Ranking Member Jim Himes (D-Conn.) described last week as “one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service.” Himes said that while the video showed the men were carrying drugs, “they were not in a position to continue their mission in any way.”
The strike was the first in a months-long campaign of extrajudicial bombings by the Trump administration on boats that they have claimed without evidence have contained drug traffickers bound for the US. At least 87 people have been killed in the two dozen strikes since September. Some of those killed in the strikes were later reported to have been ordinary fishermen, and others who had nothing to do with the drug trade.
While focus has been centered on the details of the September 2 strike in recent days and Hegseth's role, experts have emphasized that the entire boat-bombing campaign is illegal.
"The initial attack was illegal too,” said Kenneth Roth, the former longtime director of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, on social media last week. "Whether Hegseth ordered survivors killed after a US attack on a supposed drug boat is not the heart of the matter. It is blatantly illegal to order criminal suspects to be murdered rather than detained. There is no 'armed conflict' despite Trump's claim."
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DAVID ELLISON: Ah -- we've had great conversations with the president about this but I don't want to speak for him in any way, shape, or form pic.twitter.com/FdwBzfP3eO
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 8, 2025
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