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“The Worldwide Rescue Committee (IRC) of Arizona operates a reception website in Phoenix (‘the Welcome Middle’) that receives a big proportion of asylees who’re launched from Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) custody inside Arizona,” the ACLU of Arizona stated within the letter. “Within the final two months, IRC has documented nearly 50 instances of asylees arriving from Yuma who reported that their non secular headwear—particularly, turbans—had been confiscated by CBP.”
Authorities representatives have recognized about brokers confiscating non secular headwear; advocates raised the difficulty throughout authorities stakeholder conferences in Could and June. “CBP representatives claimed that the company confiscates turbans solely after they pose a safety threat and that brokers decline to retailer the turbans solely when they’re moist or broken,” the letter continued. “The stories acquired by IRC, nevertheless, point out in any other case.”
The ACLU of Arizona stated that solely in late July did the Tucson sector border chief attain out to IRC to say that he’d spoken to officers on the Yuma sector. “However IRC has but to see any proof of this. Certainly, as just lately as this week, IRC has acquired further stories of turban seizures by Yuma Border Patrol.”
“Federal courts have repeatedly held that denying an individual of religion the fitting to put on non secular headgear imposes a considerable burden on their non secular train,” the letter continued. “By confiscating and failing to return Sikh people’ turbans, CBP instantly interferes with their non secular observe and forces them to violate their non secular beliefs. As mentioned above, for a lot of Sikhs, the turban is a central facet of their non secular identification; exposing their ‘bare’ heads to others is taken into account sacrilegious and shameful.” That’s probably precisely why they have been seizing their sacred gadgets, with brokers already on the file as expressing deep disdain and hatred for migrants.
“Many people in search of asylum, notably those that are Sikh, have fled their house international locations resulting from non secular persecution and will really feel secure in practising their religion in the US,” the ACLU of Arizona continued.
Border brokers compelled migrants to discard gadgets they’ve arrived with, together with different non secular gadgets like rosaries, after which rotated and accused them of littering. The Guardian reported in Could that Border Patrol marked Earth Day on April 22 “by posting footage on Instagram of asylum seekers’ belongings with the message that it was ‘trash and litter left behind by unlawful immigration’. In Texas, Brian Hastings, border patrol chief for the Rio Grande Valley sector—one other busy hall for migrant arrival—final summer season tweeted ‘It’s piling up’ and labeled images of people’s property ‘burdensome trash.’”
However whereas Magnus has stated there will likely be a probe into the abuses towards Sikh asylum-seekers, The Washington Publish reported it’ll be an “inside investigation.” When officers performed an inside investigation into the abuses towards Haitian asylum-seekers at Del Rio final yr, they didn’t interview one single migrant.
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