The federal watchdog system at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that oversees complaints about civil rights violations in immigration detention has been slashed so severely that experts warn it could enable grave abuses with impunity. The Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL) has been cut from a staff of 150 to just nine, despite having about 550 active investigations into serious civil rights violations by DHS officials and contractors, including inside immigration detention centres.
Former oversight officials have sounded the alarm, with a group of fired watchdogs filing a whistleblower complaint to Congress and a coalition of human rights organisations suing the administration for their reinstatement. Cases that were active when Donald Trump returned to office include an investigation into Border Patrol agents in Arizona who allegedly forcibly removed a detained man from a cell, handcuffed him and injected him with ketamine in 2023. Another probe examined guards at a privately owned Louisiana detention centre who pepper-sprayed around 200 immigrants staging a hunger strike, then locked them in the unit and cut power and water for hours.
In a Florida jail, a 33-year-old immigrant woman with mental health problems was allegedly stripped naked, strapped to a restraint chair and mocked by male guards, leaving her with contusions. The CRCL had also launched an investigation into the arrest and detention of Palestinian student and Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil by ICE agents for his pro-Palestinian activism. Dana Gold, senior director of the Government Accountability Project, said without a robust oversight system “there’s just a blank cheque for impunity”.
Anthony Enriquez of the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights group, which is representing the suing coalition, said: “They want to be able to abuse people with impunity… in order to accomplish a mass deportation agenda.” The DHS has insisted there are “no sub-prime” conditions in immigration custody, but experts warn the dismantling of guardrails could pave the way for systematic mistreatment.
