US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has come under fire of late for the way it treats immigrants placed under arrest; now, concerns have been raised by public officials appalled at the Texan practice of transporting detainees to other states and then simply abandoning them.
Immigrants apprehended crossing the Rio Grande Valley from Mexico simply get sent back again; however, immigrants from South or Central American countries get taken by ICE to Arizona, Maryland or New York and are then abandoned. Fox News says that the practice has become more commonplace due to the high costs involved in sending the immigrants back home and an increase in the amount of people arriving from South and Central America.
Even lawmakers from Arizona, a state that experiences a large amount of immigrants trying to cross the border every year, has decried US Immigration and Customs Enforcement for its practice of shipping and abandoning immigrants. Scott Smith, a Republican candidate in the upcoming race for governor, declared: “What an astonishing failure of leadership at every level inside the Beltway.”
Last weekend almost 400 immigrants from Central America, who had been apprehended by agents in Texas and processed through immigration, were sent by plane to Tucson in Arizona and then on to Phoenix to be greeted by volunteer nurses. The practice has been blasted by Barbara Mikulski, the Senate Appropriations Committee chairwoman. “This is a humanitarian crisis, and it requires a humanitarian response,” she said.