Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at South by Southwest festival in 2019. Photo: Ståle Grut , from Flickr.
A group of progressive House Democrats have introduced a resolution aimed at stopping a $735 million weapons sale to Israel that the Biden administration approved two weeks ago.
“For decades, the U.S. has sold billions of dollars in weaponry to Israel without ever requiring them to respect basic Palestinian rights. In so doing, we have directly contributed to the death, displacement and disenfranchisement of millions,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) in a statement. “At a time when so many, including President Biden, support a ceasefire, we should not be sending ‘direct attack’ weaponry to Prime Minister Netanyahu to prolong this violence.”
The Massachusetts facility has been accused of overcrowding and overall inhumane conditions. Detainees at the facility in Georgia reported being subjected to.
U.S. ends use of 2 immigration jails accused of mistreatment
Federal investigators are looking into allegations that women were subjected to unwanted medical procedures at the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.
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In this March 1 photo, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas speaks during a press briefing at the White House in Washington. [ ANDREW HARNIK ]
Updated 3 hours ago
WASHINGTON â A detention facility in Georgia where women claim they were subjected to unwanted medical procedures and a Massachusetts jail that has drawn complaints of inhumane conditions will no longer be used to detain immigrants, the Biden administration said Thursday.
The Department of Homeland Security said it would terminate contracts with the local government agency that runs the detention center in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and with the private operator of the Irwin County Detention Center in Georgia.
The Massachusetts facility has been accused of overcrowding and overall inhumane conditions. Detainees at the facility in Georgia reported being subjected to.
“Allow me to state one foundational principle,” Mayorkas said, “We will not tolerate the mistreatment of individuals in civil immigration detention or substandard conditions of detention.”
Mayorkas said ending the use of the facilities is part of an effort to make “lasting improvements to a detention system that advocates have long argued detains people for civil immigration offenses for too long and in inappropriately harsh conditions.
It also reflects a broader effort to roll back the anti-immigrant policies that characterized U.S. policy under President Donald Trump.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a part of DHS, holds about 19,000 noncitizens for removal at about 200 facilities around the country, down about a quarter from a year earlier. About 73 percent of those in custody have no criminal record and many others have only minor offenses, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data-gathering organization at Syracuse University.