Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers allegedly tortured Cameroonian asylum seekers to force them to sign their own deportation orders, in what lawyers and activists describe as a brutal scramble to fly African migrants out of the country in the run-up to the elections (article available here).
According to The Guardian, lawyers for Cameroonians immigrants detained in Mississippi say many of their clients have been choked, beaten, and pepper-sprayed by ICE agents using torture to force the detainees to sign their own deportation papers. Several were put in handcuffs and their fingerprints were taken forcibly in place of a signature on documents called stipulated orders of removal, by which the asylum seekers waive their rights to further immigration hearings and accept deportation.
Lawyers and human rights advocates said there had been a significant acceleration of deportations in recent weeks, a trend they see as linked to the looming elections and the possibility that ICE could soon be under new management.