The Department of Homeland Security of the United States (DHS, for its initials in English) denied this Sunday that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) commits torture or denies healthcare in its centers, after the dissemination of a report by the newspaper 'The New York Times' with testimonies from several detained migrants who report assaults and mistreatment, information that the department itself has labeled as "fake news".
"No one is being tortured, nor is medical attention being denied, nor are they being beaten in ICE detention centers," the department assured in a social media post in which it labeled the report as "fake news," adding that "the media are desperate for these false accusations to be true".
In response to the accusations, Homeland Security has reported an increase in attacks against its agents, which it directly links to the dissemination of journalistic information about the treatment of migrants in ICE custody. "This kind of garbage that the media spreads is fueling an increase of more than 1,300% in assaults against our agents," replied the department led by Markwayne Mullin.
With these statements, the Department responds to the accusations collected in the report by 'The New York Times', which includes interviews with ten migrants expelled from the United States on the first deportation flight to Liberia, a country to which the Donald Trump Administration plans to transfer a total of 1,200 people detained by ICE.
According to the mentioned newspaper, the ten interviewees claimed to have suffered or witnessed what they describe as abusive or violent treatment by ICE officials, both during the deportation process and while they remained in custody in U.S. territory.
The agreement with Liberia is among the most relevant agreements signed in recent months by the Trump Administration to transfer irregular migrants to third countries, in many cases very far from the American continent and, in several instances, located in Africa, without taking into account the existence of personal ties between the deported individuals and the destination states.
U.S. authorities maintain, for their part, that only those deported who cannot return to their places of origin or who refuse to do so are sent to third countries.