Indian migrant dies in Georgia ICE detention

According to experts interviewed by NBC News, extreme visa backlogs and the oppression of minority communities in India are among the factors behind the surge in Indian illegal immigration to the U.S.

Singh was a Sikh.

‘ICE detention is a South Asian issue’

Immigrant rights’ advocates say Singh’s death is an indictment of the immigrant detention system, which has previously given rise to various human rights complaints in Georgia, including widely shared reports of detained women undergoing unneeded gynecological procedures.

Folkston ICE Processing Center is a for-profit facility operated by the GEO Group, a Florida-based company.

“We express our condolences to Mr. Singh’s family members and loved ones. We take the safety and wellbeing of those entrusted to our care with the utmost seriousness,” a spokesman told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a statement. “At all of the ICE Processing Centers where GEO provides health care services, individuals are provided with around-the-clock access to medical care.”

Maura Finn is a senior lead attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center.

“We are horrified by the loss of Jaspal Singh while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the GEO Group,” she said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to his family and loved ones as they face this cruel injustice.”

“We urge the public and federal and state leaders to end the costly and unnecessary detention of immigrants in favor of a more welcoming, sensible and humane immigration process,” she added.

Although President Biden has yet to follow-up on a campaign promise to stop using private facilities for immigrant detention – a promise he reiterated in a Georgia rally in 2021 – his administration has put greater emphasis on digital surveillance programs to monitor migrants ahead of court dates.

For advocates, Singh’s identity as a Sikh triggered memories of past mistreatment of Sikhs by immigration authorities, including requests to remove their turbans, a sacred religious headwear. In 2018, a group of Indian Sikhs detained at Folkston held a hunger strike to protest detention conditions, and alleged they suffered retaliation by prison officials as a result.

“We are deeply concerned about the circumstances of Mr. Singh’s death in light of this history of FIPC violating the human rights of Indian nationals and Sikhs in particular,” said Meredyth Yoon, litigation director at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Atlanta.

Added Shelly Anand, executive director of the Sur Legal Collaborative, an immigrant and workers’ rights non-profit based in Atlanta: “ICE detention is a South Asian issue, and Jaspal Singh’s death exemplifies that those who are most vulnerable and marginalized within our community face the harshest and cruelest forms of immigration enforcement.”

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