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Following violent and indiscriminate sweeps of immigrant communities across the United States, the number of people in ICE detention has increased 75% since President Trump returned to the Oval Office. Yet, as the number of lawsuits against the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign skyrockets, the federal government has continued to jail people indefinitely. Although judges across the U.S. have handed down more than 4,400 rulings of illegal detentions of immigrants since October, very few of these rulings have been acted upon. Reuters reporter Brad Heath says the unprecedented "pile-up" of tens of thousands of cases is straining the capacity of the rapidly shrinking staff at the Department of Justice and further delaying the release of immigrants from ICE jails.
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We speak with Aliya Rahman, a U.S. citizen who was violently dragged from her car by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis last month and detained at the Whipple Federal Building, which has become the epicenter of the government's immigration crackdown in the city. Rahman says she repeatedly told agents she was disabled and had a brain injury, but they ignored her pleas for medical attention or other accommodation. "I was taken out of that place unconscious," says Rahman, who describes lasting injuries and trauma from her detention. Rahman was not charged with any crime. "What I saw in that detention center was truly horrific."
We also speak with attorney Alexa Van Brunt, director of the Illinois office of the MacArthur Justice Center, who says victims of ICE violence like Rahman can sue the federal government for violating their rights, "but they cannot sue the officers in their individual capacity."
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