U.S. Rep. , D-New Orleans, led a group of fellow Democrats on a tour of two of the nine being used to house thousands of immigrants the Trump administration wants to deport.
“We met , a lawful permanent resident and Columbia grad student detained after peaceful pro-Palestinian advocacy. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement denied his request to attend his son’s birth on Monday,†Carter said Wednesday morning, referring to ICE, which is carrying out the deportations.
The group looked at conditions in two privately owned facilities in Jena and Basile, then met with detainees Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts Ph.D. student detained after co-authoring an op-ed, and Wendy Brito, an asylum-seeking El Salvadorean stay-at-home mother of three from Marrero who was detained during a routine “check-in†that is part of the procedures for her to become an American citizen.
“All appeared physically well, but their detentions raise serious concerns about due process and First Amendment rights,†Carter said. “Emotionally and mentally, they’re a wreck. They just want to go home and they’re unsure why they’ve been detained.â€
Carter said Democrats, who are the minority, can’t effectuate change legislatively, but they can call attention to the situation. For instance, Carter was a Tuesday night.
The group also included U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who, as the ranking member of the House Homeland Security committee, has criticized Trump’s immigration policies, and U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey, U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley and U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, all from Massachusetts, where Öztürk lives.
Öztürk was taking a walk in Boston when a group of masked men grabbed her and pushed her into a car, . Carter said the 30-year-old graduate student from Turkey was not told why she was being detained or where she was going, and was repeatedly refused access to a lawyer. She had written a pro-Palestinian op-ed piece for the university paper.
Khalil, 30, is a Palestinian from Syria who holds a green card and is married to an American citizen. He attended a rally on Columbia University’s campus in New York City but professes to be anti-Hamas and was only interested in pushing for a peaceful resolution to the war between Hamas and Israel, Carter said.
“You don’t have to like what’s being said — but under our amazing Constitution, the First and Fifth Amendments protect us all. Free speech and due process are not partisan privileges. They are the foundation of our democracy and a shield against political persecution,†Carter said.
The detentions of Khalil and Öztürk were carried out under a rarely Secretary of State Marco Rubio to determine an individual as “deportable†if they have “reasonable grounds†to believe the individual would adversely affect U.S. foreign policy.
Both have also been cause célèbres among Democrats and civil libertarians.
Brito, who has lived in America for 17 years, was detained at her “check-in†meeting but was not allowed to phone her family or a lawyer. She was held incommunicado and Brito's husband didn't learn of her detention until the school called and said nobody had picked up their children, Carter said. She is still unsure what crime she has committed, Carter said.
Carter said he found it interesting that Khalil and Öztürk were transported more than a thousand miles, past several other detention facilities, to be deposited in Louisiana. Carter said that could be because Louisiana, unlike some other states, does not have a rule requiring detainees to be released after 72 hours.
Also, Louisiana is part of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, which is considered one of the nation’s most conservative federal appellate courts and where any litigation involving a deportee would end up.
Markey, during a press conference Tuesday, made a similar point, arguing that the Trump administration would receive more favorable treatment for their deportation arguments before the 5th Circuit.
“The very point of what they’re doing is to make these people examples of those who the Trump administration wants to make examples of,†he said.
Nine facilities in Louisiana are used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain about 9,000 immigrants awaiting deportation, said Alanah Odoms Hebert, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. Most of the facilities are privately owned and for-profit. She said on social media that the tour was to call attention to the situation and allow access to attorneys and due process.
