Feds investigate violent ‘incident’ at Broward immigration detention center
A migrant detention center in Broward County is the target of an ongoing investigation by federal officials following “an incident” that occurred this week and led to a detainee being injured and a sit-in by his fellow detainees the following day.
“On Monday April 17 there was an incident at [the Broward Transitional Center] which is currently being reviewed by the agency. We would not be able to comment on the incident until said review has been completed,” a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman said in a statement emailed to the Miami Herald.
Several detainees inside the center, which houses migrants slated for deportation, shared with an advocate and a lawyer that the “incident” in question involved “a large group” of Dominican detainees who attacked a small group of Haitians. At least one Haitian detainee, Jeffrey Bien-Aime, reported he was injured in the melee.
In a voice note shared with the Miami Herald, Bien-Aime said he was hit in one of his eyes when he “was attacked by 50 to 60 Dominicans.” He said some officers attempted to protect him, “but they were unable to protect me completely.”
“That’s when one of the Dominicans had a padlock inside of a box and swung for my head and I got hit in the eye,” Bien-Aime said. “At the moment, my vision is blurred on the right side. I got hit in the right eye.”
The detainee, who accused federal authorities of neglecting Black migrants inside the facility in Pompano Beach, said while nurses attempted to call an ambulance to have him transported to a local hospital after he became nauseous and started spitting up blood, “the powers that be, the supervisors, wouldn’t approve it until their transport came in to take me.”
“We are constantly outnumbered, our needs are constantly ignored,” said Bien-Aime, who had been living in the United States for 10 years when he was detained and placed in deportation proceedings. “We are constantly being called derogatory names for Blacks. The Dominicans, Spanish inmates are constantly making statements about how they just want to kill us. We make complaints and nothing is done. Something needs to be done because it’s obvious they cannot protect us.”
Another detainee who described the incident as both “a scuffle” and a “riot,” said it was sparked by an officer trying to handcuff a Dominican detainee. Someone then threw a punch, which led to another Dominican detainee jumping in to try and help.
“That got to a big, big riot,” the detainee said.
The following day some detainees staged a sit-in to protest the incident on Monday. In response, they said, some were moved from the Broward Transitional Center. A Herald photographer, visiting the facility on Tuesday, observed an unusually large number of guards inside the gates and parking lot, and white buses going in and out of the center.
The ICE spokesman declined to confirm the detainees’ allegations.
When pressed, the spokesman also would not comment on details provided by some of the affected migrants, including that the incident was racially charged, that some of the Black detainees had been removed and that agents were brought in from other facilities to help quell the situation.
“I have provided all that I can provide at the moment,” the spokesman replied.
This is not the first time that migrants in a U.S. immigration lock-up have logged complaints about their treatment inside a South Florida immigration detention center.
In 2021, nine Black immigrants, among them five Haitians, filed a civil complaint with the Biden administration over what they said is a disturbing pattern of racism and abuse at the Krome North Service Processing Center in South Miami-Dade County while in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Advocates and the detainees demanded their release from the ICE detention center and a federal investigation into the allegations.
Among the accusations: that guards at Krome use threats, coercion and physical violence to obtain signatures on deportation paperwork from Black immigrants; poor hygiene at Krome and negligence of COVID-19 protocols, and a pattern of racial discrimination and disparity in decisions on who gets released.
The injured detainee at the Broward Transitional Center said that after the fight, he and other Haitian detainees were placed in lock-up and told it was for their own safety. They were also promised that they would be released, but as of Thursday were still detained and no one had come to talk to them about what had unfolded on Monday.
