About 52 Indians have been held in Oregon detention center of United States for being a part of a sizable contingent of illegal immigrants asylum seekers.
In Sheridan, Canada, a total of 123 Indians are the detainees being held at a facility.
The Democratic lawmakers from the Oregon state told media regarding the so-called barbarous status of the illegal immigrants who recently visited the detention center.
Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici wrote on her blog post saying, from India, the detainees comprise the largest group of being held in Sheridan.
“Through our Punjabi translator, we learned that these men were planning to request asylum because they faced severe religious persecution in India. Most are Sikh or Christian. Instead, they were incarcerated in a federal prison,” she said.
“They said they came to the United States for religious freedom, but they felt as if they were ‘going crazy’ because they are being confined in small cells for up to 22 hours a day,” the Congresswoman said.
She said the Indian detainees pointed out that the other non-immigrant prisoners get far more time out of cells. Most of the detainees at the federal facility are asking for asylum because they experienced violence or persecution in their home countries. Several had traveled to the border with a wife and a child or children, none knew where their family members are.
According to the local daily, among the total detainees, 52 have identified themselves as Sikhs or Christians from India. They supposed that they fled from their country because of religious persecution from the Hindu majority. The Indians told the delegation that their Hindi and Punjabi translators were the first outsiders they’ve been able to talk to since they were confined weeks ago.
Among 1,600 detainees, 123 Indians in Sheridan are being held in federal prisons by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across the U.S. as it implements Trump’s “Zero-tolerance policy” on immigration.
The Congressional delegation was told that that detainees are being held upwards for 23 hours a day with three men bunked in each cell.
The delegation was also told that incompatibility between BOP and ICE telephone systems was preventing ICE detainees at the BOP facility from accessing legal services.
According to lawmakers, the detainees described stress as they sit in cells day after day without knowing when they will get a hearing, or get a lawyer, or what comes next.
“Several men had been separated from their children and experienced the added stress of not knowing what happened to their families.
“Under Trump’s ‘zero-tolerance policy’, the men’s children were taken away at the border – one man said an ICE official told him, ‘it’s not my choice; the decision came from above,’ and the fathers still don’t have any information about their location, condition or well-being,” the lawmakers said.
By Sowmya Sangam
