US immigration and customs enforcement (Ice) canceled a deportation flight to west Africa because of allegations of brutality by Ice agents in the treatment of the deportees, the agency has said in a statement.
The statement emailed to the Guardian and the cancellation of the deportation flight, so that would-be deportees can be interviewed as witnesses, marks a dramatic change in tone by the agency, which has hitherto deflected and denied earlier allegations of human rights abuses.
The change suggests that the newly confirmed secretary for homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, may have begun to exert control over what some critics have described as a “rogue agency”.
A plane carrying Cameroonian, Angolan and Congolese asylum seekers was due to take off from Alexandria, Louisiana, at 3pm on Wednesday but was canceled with minutes to spare.
Two days before the flight, a coalition of immigration advocacy groups published affidavits by Cameroonian detainees saying they had been assaulted by Ice officers and forced to put their fingerprints on documents authorising their own deportation to a country where they believed they risked prison, torture or extrajudicial killing.
There have been multiple reports that Cameroonians deported by the Trump administration in October and November have been jailed, tortured or disappeared by a government fighting a brutal counter-insurgency against anglophone separatists in the west and south of the country.
Ice was accused of similar abuse in October but denied the claims and did not change its policy of accelerated deportation of African and Caribbean asylum seekers. On Thursday, an Ice spokesperson signalled a change in stance.
“Ice takes all allegations of detainee abuse with the utmost seriousness. Allegations of misconduct by Ice employees or contractors are reported to Ice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and are reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office of the inspector general (OIG),” the spokesperson said.
“Ice has the utmost confidence in the professionalism of our workforce and their adherence to agency policy,” the statement said. “However, Ice has decided to cancel the [3 February] flight to allow any potential victims or witnesses an opportunity to be interviewed, and will conduct an agency review of recent use-of-force reports related to individuals on this flight, and issue any additional guidance or training as deemed necessary.”
“Ice is firmly committed to the safety and welfare of all those in its custody,” the spokesperson said, claiming that the agency “provides safe, humane, and appropriate conditions of confinement for individuals detained in its custody”.
In an affidavit presented on Monday, one of the Cameroonians due to be on Wednesday’s flight, identified by the initials HT, described being brought into a room with darkened windows on 14 January at the Winn correctional center, where he was forced by Ice agents to put his fingerprint on a document in lieu of a signature, waiving his rights to further legal process before deportation.
“I tried to stand up because of the force that they were using on me, and they tripped me,” HT said. “I fell on the floor; I kept my hands under my body. I held my hands tight at waist level so they could not have them. Five of the Ice officers and one of the officers in green … joined them. They pressed me down and said that I needed to give them my finger for the fingerprint.
“As one was pressing on my neck with their hands, the other came in front of me, pulling my head from above, straightening my neck so they could easily suppress me,” HT said in his statement. “One climbed on to my back. I had a lot of trouble breathing. This happened for more than two minutes. I was gasping for air. I told them: ‘Please, I can’t breathe.’ I asked them to release me. They said that they didn’t care; what they need is my fingerprint.”