BATON ROUGE, La. - Hundreds of asylum seekers at the ICE detention centers in Louisiana are being forced to pay for private transportation options to get to an airport or
Grim stories from asylum seekers caught up in Americaâs cranked-up deportation machine
They fled here from some of the worldâs most dangerous places â only to be forced back.
By Sarah TowleUpdated December 31, 2020, 1:00 p.m.
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Detained immigrants at the Winn Correctional Center in Winnfield, La., in 2019. Under the Trump administration, thousands of asylum seekers have been held in such facilities rather than being released to sponsors while they press their asylum cases.Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
A few dozen men and women shuffled up the stairs to the Boeing 767 lashed in five-point restraints: ankles bound in cuffs joined by thick chains, wrists manacled, and the whole rig secured to metal belts draped heavily about each waist. Frightened, depressed, and faint from lack of food and water, one of the men, a Cameroonian singer, tripped and fell. A cadre of armed guards immediately swarmed him.