C First Look Media. All rights reservedTerms of use
MESA, AZ - OCTOBER 15: An undocumented immigrant boards an Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE), charter jet early on October 15, 2015 in Mesa,
Arizona. The immigrants were to be flown to other states for follow-on ICE
deportation flights to the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. ICE builds
deportation cases against thousands of undocumented immigrants, many of
whom, they say, have criminal records. The number of ICE detentions and
deportations has dropped in the last two years since some states adopted
laws limiting how state law enforcement agencies cooperate with federal
immigration authorities. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Excessive Force
ICE Shackled 92 Somalis for 40 Hours on a Failed Deportation Flight. That
Was Just the Start of the Abuse.
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Maryam Saleh
March 4 2018, 8:48 a.m.
For a brief moment in December 2017, the international spotlight shined on
the case of 92 deportees who were on an Immigration and Customs
Enforcement-chartered flight to Somalia. Most such flights unload their
human cargo once they land, but this flight, for logistical reasons,
returned home - and brought witnesses back with it.
The Somalis told of abuse on the flight, saying they were shackled with
chains on their wrists, waists, and legs for more than 40 hours; forced to
urinate in bottles or on themselves; and that ICE officers beat and
threatened some passengers. (ICE has denied that it mistreated detainees on
the flight.)
But even after the spotlight dimmed, the abuse continued. The Somalis are
still being held at the Krome Detention Center and the Glades County
Detention Center in Florida, as their lawyers try to fight their
deportations. At Glades, where half the group is being held, they have
complained of a litany of abuses, including violent assaults by guards,
denial of medical care, lack of access to their lawyers, and racism.
"The guards and the administration up there at Glades, they think they're
immune. To me, it's so brazen to be doing this. They know there's a federal
case. They know we're up there all the time. They know there are
investigators up there," said Lisa Lehner, an attorney at Americans for
Immigrant Justice, one of the groups representing the Somalis. "They called
them 'niggers.' They called them 'boy.' They've said things like, 'We're
sending you boys back to the jungle.'" An ICE spokesperson in Miami declined
to answer questions about the complaints coming from Glades, citing pending
litigation.
The treatment of the 92 Somalis, both on board the ICE-chartered plane and
at the Glades detention center, is not a case of a few operators gone rogue
and exposes the very limited avenues for accountability available to those
who are abused in ICE custody, as well as the particular vulnerability of
those who experience aggression on their way out of the United States.
Rebecca Merton, a program coordinator at Community Initiatives for Visiting
Immigrants in Confinement, or CIVIC, said that there is a logic to the
mayhem: The abusive conditions eventually wear down the will of detainees to
stay and fight their deportation orders in court. "One way that ICE, and
particularly [Enforcement and Removal Operations, an ICE sub-office],
achieves its goal of mass deportation is by subjecting people to indefinite
detention in terrible conditions without any source of hope, or sometimes,
outside contact," said Merton.
MESA, AZ - FEBRUARY 28: A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),
security contractor carries chains for Honduran immigration detainees before
their deportation flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras on February 28, 2013 in
Mesa, Arizona. ICE operates 4-5 flights per week from Mesa to Central
America, deporting hundreds of undocumented immigrants detained in western
states of the U.S. With the possibility of federal budget sequestration, ICE
released 303 immigration detainees in the last week from detention centers
throughout Arizona. More than 2,000 immigration detainees remain in ICE
custody in the state. Most detainees typically remain in custody for several
weeks before they are deported to their home country, while others remain
for longer periods while their immigration cases work through the courts.
(Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), security contractor
carries chains for Honduran immigration detainees before their deportation
flight to San Pedro Sula, Honduras on February 28, 2013 in Mesa, Arizona.
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Two weeks after the failed deportation flight, the 92 Somalis sued ICE for
"inhumane conditions and egregious abuse" on the flight and asked the court
to halt their deportations.
"As the plane sat on the runway, the 92 detainees remained bound, their
handcuffs secured to their waists, and their feet shackled together," the
complaint - filed by a team of lawyers from the Immigration Clinic at the
University of Miami Law School, Americans for Immigrant Justice, the James
H. Binger Center for New Americans at the University of Minnesota Law
School, and Legal Aid Service of Broward County - reads.
"When the plane's toilets overfilled with human waste, some of the detainees
were left to urinate into bottles or on themselves. ICE agents wrapped some
who protested, or just stood up to ask a question, in full-body restraints.
ICE agents kicked, struck, or dragged detainees down the aisle of the plane,
and subjected some to verbal abuse and threats."
ICE Air Operations is a division of the agency responsible for deportation
flights. "ICE Air Operations personnel follow best practices when it comes
to the security, safety and welfare of the aliens returned to their
countries of origin," its website reads. "There are a variety of
[Enforcement and Removal Operations] personnel on board who ensure the
health and safety of the aliens and officers during removal flights."
But that's not what happened on December 7, when the plane stopped in
Senegal to refuel, then sat on a runway there for 23 hours before being
re-routed to Miami. ICE explained the delay in a statement it issued in
December. "The relief crew was unable to get sufficient crew rest due to
issues with their hotel in Dakar," so the aircraft remained parked so that
the crew could rest. "The allegations of ICE mistreatment onboard the Somali
flight are categorically false. No one was injured during the flight, and
there were no incidents or altercations that would have caused any injuries
on the flight."
Lehner said some of her clients reported that officers on board the airplane
apologized to the immigrants when they realized the flight would be
returning to the United States. It was not clear whether those who
apologized were ICE officers or private contractors, she said.
A number of major media outlets, including the New York Times, reported on
the failed deportation flight; the news was later picked up by Somali media.
The Somalis argued in the lawsuit that, if they were to be returned to
Somalia, they would be "killed or harmed due to changed circumstances in
Somalia created by the media coverage and notoriety of the aborted and
abusive December 7 flight." (A team of pro bono lawyers is helping the
Somalis try to reopen their past immigration cases in pursuit of immigration
relief. An immigration court has agreed to reopen at least one of their
cases so far.)
Though ICE had been planning to take another shot at deporting the 92 people
- most of them men, many of them longtime residents of the United States who
fled horrors in Somalia and have U.S. citizen family members - in December,
a judge at the Miami federal court halted their deportations at least until
January 2. That order has since been extended, as the court continues to
weigh preliminary issues related to the lawsuit.
The lawyers also filed an administrative complaint with the DHS Inspector
General and Civil Rights and Civil Liberties offices - one of few options
available to victims of excessive force seeking accountability. In addition
to laying out what happened on the deportation flight, the complaint
includes recommendations for amendments to ICE's shackling policy. Fatma
Marouf, a professor at the Texas A&M University Law School, wrote in the
complaint that medical studies indicate that "the extreme form of shackling
used on the 92 deportees could cause significant psychological harm."
In the weeks that followed, the Somalis being held at Glades have complained
of physical abuse by guards at the county jail that doubles as an
immigration detention center. The conditions at the jail - pepper spray as a
form of punishment and lack of access to medical care, to name a few - are
the subject of a separate administrative complaint, court filings, and a
letter to a congressional representative and state senator.
Khadar Ibrahim, who fled Somalia nearly three decades ago after his father
was murdered and his aunt was raped in a brutal civil war, said he was
roughed up both on the flight and at Glades. At one point on the deportation
flight, Ibrahim stood up to use the bathroom, and an ICE officer picked him
up from his waist and threw him to the ground headfirst, according to court
documents. He experienced neck pain for weeks after.
Then, at Glades, he watched a fight unfold between two detainees over access
to a phone on Christmas Day. He watched from his dormitory as guards beat up
another detainee who tried to break up the fight, and when a guard used
pepper spray against one of the men involved in the fight, other detainees
in the dorm inhaled some of it too, according to an administrative
complaint. The next day, after two other eyewitnesses asked to speak to a
captain about what had happened, an officer identified as "Sergeant Mims" in
the complaint escorted Ibrahim and two other men to segregation cells. (ICE
declined to comment on the complaint.)
"On the way to segregation and while handcuffed, Sergeant Mims tackled me
from behind," Ibrahim wrote in a sworn statement. "I fell forward and hit my
head on the floor and it made my neck hurt very badly. We went to medical,
and I told the nurse my neck hurt. Sergeant Mims told her it was nothing and
she did not examine me. She did not ask me any questions, check my blood
pressure, or take my temperature. She only spoke to Sergeant Mims."
"Glades staff have used pepper spray, segregation, shackling and physical
abuse on our clients in a discriminatory display of excessive force," the
administrative complaint - filed with two Department of Homeland Security
offices - reads. "They have used racial slurs to berate them, including the
words 'nigger' and 'boy.' They have interfered with our clients' right to
make a grievance by threatening them and placing them in segregation when
they express their intention to file a grievance."
Paula Vivaldy cries as she and friend Bilatois Thermidor walk beside the
barbed wire fence at the U.S. Immigration Service's Krome Avenue Detention
Center where some 200 Haitians gathered to protest the treatment of Haitians
held there, Jan. 29, 1989. Inside the fence several dozen federal officers
in riot gear stand at the ready for any trouble. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Paula Vivaldy cries as she and her friend Bilatois Thermidor walk beside
the barbed wire fence at the U.S. Immigration Service's Krome Avenue
Detention Center where some 200 Haitians gathered to protest the treatment
of Haitians held there, Jan. 29, 1989.
Photo: Kathy Willens/AP
ICE has long come under fire for conditions at its detention facilities
across the country. Krome, the Miami detention center where half of the
Somali group is being held, was haunted by reports of beatings and rapes in
the 1980s and 1990s, but complaints of abuse largely subsided after the
facility was upgraded in the mid-aughts. "Some complaints still occasionally
surface - but Krome officials say they are investigated quickly," the Miami
Herald reported in 2015. "It's very, very different from its former self,"
Cheryl Little, executive director of Americans for Immigrant Justice, told
the Miami New Times three years ago.
Glades also has its fair share of problems. Lawyers from the Immigration
Clinic of the University of Miami Law School, after touring the center in
2011, 2012, 2013, and 2016, sent letters to the leadership of Glades and
Krome, raising concerns about detention conditions. For example, two years
ago, the clinic identified a number of issues, including "abusive and
inappropriate officer interactions with detainees; medical attention; [and]
attorney access to detainees and lack of attorney-client confidentiality and
privacy."
Other immigration detention centers - many of them operated by private
prison corporations - are also plagued by abuses. In December, a Department
of Homeland Security watchdog reported that, at four of five detention
facilities it inspected, it found conditions "that undermine the protection
of detainees' rights, their humane treatment, and the provision of a safe
and healthy environment." The report, issued by the DHS Office of the
Inspector General, said that medical care may have been delayed and that
there was a lack of cleanliness at several facilities. "Documentation of
daily medical visits and meal records for detainees being held in
segregation was also missing or incomplete," the inspector general found.
"Some of these issues may simply be a matter of inadequate documentation,
but they could also indicate more serious problems with potential misuse of
segregation."
Immigrant detainees have also reported physical abuse at a number of
detention centers. A 2016 report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the
National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, and the Adelante
Alabama Worker Center found inadequate medical care and widespread abuses at
six immigration detention centers in the South. "Detained immigrants
described being subjected to physical abuse, retaliation and excessive use
of segregation and lockdown by detention center staff and ICE officers,"
according to the report. "There is also a general lack of protection from
violence within the facilities."
"It's not a couple of facilities that aren't meeting ICE standards, or a
couple of guards who are racist and abusive," said Merton. "The entire
system is treating people the way the Trump administration wants them to."
While CIVIC, which believes in abolishing the immigration detention system,
condemned abuses in the system long before Donald Trump was elected on a
vehemently anti-immigrant agenda, Merton said the last administration was
much more responsive to complaints. "If there was enough public pressure,
the Obama administration might have done something about individual cases or
made policy changes at a particular facility," Merton explained. "Under the
Trump administration, it's like they really don't care that their brutality
is being put on full display. It seems at times they want the reports to
come out to instill fear in immigrant communities."
Clara Long, who researches immigration policy at Human Rights Watch, told
The Intercept that she has received complaints about ICE officers using
excessive force when getting people to sign deportation orders, "like
pulling people's arm, pushing them to sign, that kind of coercion." (The
signing of deportation documents usually happens at ICE field offices, not
detention centers.)
Another context in which immigrants report excessive force, Long said, is
when they're being loaded onto deportation flights, especially for people
who are being forcibly deported. When ICE tried to deport the 92 Somalis in
December, it was supposed to be a one-way flight. But after the immigrants
unexpectedly were brought back to the United States, they were able to file
an administrative complaint. Most deportees don't have the chance to do even
that.
"One problem is making sure that people have the opportunity to make a
complaint, so when you're talking about a system that's churning out people
rapidly," Long said, "if someone is not coming back and is experiencing some
sort of an excessive use of force while being while on a deportation flight,
there's a huge barrier to be able to make a complaint."
WASHINGTON - JUNE 25: U.S. President Barack Obama (C) delivers remarks after
a meeting with a bipartisan group of Senators and members of Congress in the
State Dining Room at the White House June 25, 2009 in Washington, DC. Obama
hosted the bipartisan group of Senate and House members to begin a dialogue
on immigration with the hope of starting the debate later this year. (Photo
by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Former U.S. President Barack Obama delivers remarks after a meeting with a
bipartisan group of Senators and members of Congress in the State Dining
Room at the White House June 25, 2009 in Washington, DC.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In 2009, the Obama administration announced a long-term plan to overhaul the
immigration detention system. Under the reforms, ICE moved away from its
decentralized network of jails to a system of federal oversight. One
significant change was the creation of the Office of Detention Policy and
Planning, which was meant to "plan and design a civil detention system
tailored to ICE's needs."
"In 2009, the administration identified a series of reforms that it wanted
to be implemented immediately, and then over time we identified additional
areas where improvement was necessary," said Kevin Landy, a former ICE
assistant director who headed the office, which had a staff of five, from
2010 to 2017.
Under the Trump administration, the office has ceased to function as an
independent unit within ICE. Instead, its staff and work have been "absorbed
into existing detention management components and will continue as a part of
ICE's daily operations," ICE spokesperson Sarah Rodriguez said. What once
was a standalone office that reported to the ICE director is now effectively
a part of Enforcement and Removal Operations, the wing of ICE that carries
out deportations and is responsible for detaining and transporting
immigrants in ICE custody. Many of the office's key policy changes, such as
the policy directing the use of segregation, remain in effect, Rodriguez
noted.
One of the biggest steps the office took under the Obama administration was
the promulgation of what are known as the 2011 Performance-Based National
Detention Standards, or PBNDS, a revision of the 2008 PBNDS and the 2000
National Detention Standards, or NDS. Generally speaking, the PBNDS are in
force at "dedicated" facilities - centers that house only ICE detainees,
while the NDS continue to apply at shared-use county jails, like Glades.
A 2016 report from the National Immigration Justice Center found that the
"patchwork application of three different sets of detention standards
results in confusion about which standards are applicable during
inspections, and uneven protections for detained immigrants."
The detention standards contain guidance on everything from food in
detention centers to visitation to religious practices to use of force by
detention facility staff. They include standards both for detainee
discipline and grievances, and give detainees the option of filing
complaints internally or with an ICE field office. Detainees can also file
civil lawsuits or complain directly to the DHS Inspector General and Civil
Rights and Civil Liberties offices, and, in theory, to law enforcement. The
ICE Office of Professional Responsibility is another body that oversees
detention centers and ensures that detention standards are abided by.
How well that is ensured is an open question. "It's problematic when an
agency is tasked with investigating the abuses that occur under its own
supervision," said Merton, noting that an April 2017 complaint CIVIC filed
with the DHS Office for Civil Rights and Liberties has gone unacknowledged.
"ICE audits tend to be perfunctory at best. It's just checking off a list
without listening to what people in these facilities are saying."
ADELANTO, CA - NOVEMBER 15: Guards prepare to escort an immigrant detainee
from his 'segregation cell' back into the general population at the Adelanto
Detention Facility on November 15, 2013 in Adelanto, California. Most
detainees in segregation cells are sent there for fighting with other
immigrants, according to guards. The facility, the largest and newest
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), detention center in California,
houses an average of 1,100 immigrants in custody pending a decision in their
immigration cases or awaiting deportation. The average stay for a detainee
is 29 days. The facility is managed by the private GEO Group. ICE detains an
average of 33,000 undocumented immigrants in more than 400 facilities
nationwide. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Guards prepare to escort an immigrant detainee from his 'segregation cell'
back into the general population at the Adelanto Detention Facility on
November 15, 2013 in Adelanto, California.
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
On the evening of February 9, some of the toilets in the isolation cells at
Glades were clogged and spewing sewage on the floor, making them impossible
to use. The Somali men in segregation complained, and one of them, Agane
Warsame, asked for a mop to clean his cell. In response, officers "sprayed
pepper spray through the slots of their cells, making them unable to
breathe," according to court records. "The officers called the men 'niggers'
and told them to 'go back to the jungle.' Glades officers inflicted beatings
on Agane Warsame" and possibly one other man, according to court records.
ICE refuted this account in court records, and said the "claims of excessive
force are meritless."
The filth caused by the overflowing toilets, unbearable for anyone, poses a
special problem for the Somali men, most of whom are Muslim, noted Lehner,
the attorney from Americans for Immigrant Justice. "This also raises the
issue of the facility's lack of respect for the Somalis' religious faith.
They are unable to pray when their cells are filthy," she said, also noting
that the facility has refused to provide the inmates with
religious-compliant meals. (One Jewish Somali man told his lawyers that he
had repeatedly asked for kosher meals and was subsequently placed in
isolation, Lehner said.)
Asked to comment on the detainees' claims, Nestor Yglesias, an ICE
spokesperson in Miami, sent a link to the detention standards and wrote,
"This link addresses how ICE operates every center." In court filings, ICE
said Warsame was being disruptive by yelling and kicking on the door of his
cell while asking for a mop, spurring other detainees to exhibit "disorderly
behavior." Warsame was taken out of his cell "to limit his disruptive
participation in the ongoing disturbance within the segregation unit, and he
was pepper sprayed outside of his cell, after he became "actively
aggressive" and cursed and spit at a guard, according to ICE.
Warsame's lawyers, after hearing about the altercation, rushed to Glades to
investigate. They found him "so injured he cannot walk" and in a wheelchair,
with a possibly broken hip, according to court records. An incident report
from the detention center included details about the malfunctioning toilets
and the pepper spray, but omitted mention of "the documented physical abuse
of Mr. Warsame officers," his attorneys wrote in an emergency motion to the
court.
Following the incident, Warsame's lawyers asked the court to order a
transfer of the Somali detainees out of Glades. "We were really scared for
people's lives," Lehner, who filed the motion, said. That effort was
unsuccessful.
Under the 2000 National Detention Standards, ICE officer are "under no
circumstances" allowed to use force to punish a detainee and can only use
the amount of force necessary "to gain control of the detainee." Under those
standards, medical personnel must examine a detainee after any use of force
and immediately treat injuries. Officers can use nonlethal weapons, such as
pepper spray, if a detainee is armed or barricaded, cannot be approached
without endangering himself or others, or if a delay in using force to
control the situation would seriously endanger the detainee or others.
"The use of pepper spray also has to be discussed in advance with medical
staff, unless that's not possible," said Landy. "In my opinion, pepper spray
should only be used against a detainee already confined in a segregated cell
only in very rare circumstances."
At least eight detainees had previously said they experienced abuse at
Glades, according to an 88-page complaint the lawyers who are representing
the Somalis in their federal lawsuit filed on January 8. The detainees had
been subjected to physical abuse, excessive force followed by denial of
medical attention, and inadequate medical care, according to the complaint.
The Miami-based lawyers, who make the 100-mile trek to Glades as needed,
including when their clients report threats to their safety, have been
keeping a meticulous log of injuries sustained in detention and the type of
medical care that followed.
Warsame said that after he had asked about another detainee who "guards had
touched for no reason," he was found guilty of "inciting a demonstration"
and punished with 30 days in a segregation unit. On January 3, Warsame was
allowed to take a shower. When a guard took him back to his cell, Warsame
stuck his wrist out of a slot in the door so that the guard would remove his
handcuffs. "A guard twisted Warsame's hand so that the handcuff cut into the
skin on his wrist, leaving it bleeding and swollen," according to the
complaint. "The next day, a nurse looked at him, but refused to treat the
cuts on his wrist."
PHOENIX - APRIL 28: An undocumented Mexican immigrant reads a form detailing
his rights while waiting to be deported from the Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), center on April 28, 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona. Across
Arizona, city police and county sheriffs' departments turn over detained
immigrants to ICE, which deports them to their home countries, most to
Mexico. Last year the federal agency deported some 81,000 illegal immigrants
from the state of Arizona alone, and with the passage of the state's new
tough immigration enforcement law, the number of deportations could rise
significantly. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
An undocumented immigrant reads a form detailing his rights while waiting
to be deported from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), center on
April 28, 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona.
Photo: John Moore/Getty Images
Every detainee admitted to an immigration detention center is given a copy
of ICE's detainee handbook, a 28-page document with information on topics
such as meals, dress code, and visitation. Also included, about halfway
through the handbook, is information about filing grievances. It tells
detainees what their options at the detention facility are - verbal or
written complaints, emergency grievances, and appeals - as well as how to
contact outside offices, such as that of the inspector general. The Office
of Professional Responsibility's 2017 review of detention facilities found
"a higher instance of situations in which local facility handbooks and
postings were missing mandatory information," including regarding grievance
procedures.
The guidance on filing grievances mirrors the policies laid out in the
agency's detention standards. Under the 2000 NDS, a detainee must be allowed
"to submit a formal, written grievance to the facility's grievance
committee. The detainee may take this step because he/she is not satisfied
with the outcome of the informal process, or because he/she decides to forgo
the informal procedures."
"Some facilities have a policy where they encourage verbal over written
grievances," said Merton, referring to a policy in the NDS that says
facilities should try to resolve grievances at the lowest level before
escalating to a formal complaint. "They basically prevent a paper trail by
telling folks to just tell a deputy about it. Because there's no oversight,
these people are in a really vulnerable position where their grievances are
not being recorded, and they may not have any contact with the outside
world."
At Glades, several Somali detainees said their right to file grievances has
been impeded. Glades employees "have interfered with our clients' right to
make a grievance by threatening them and placing them in segregation when
they express their intention to file a grievance," according to the
administrative complaint.
Warsame said when he asked to file a formal grievance, "the sergeant
refused, cursing at him, and saying 'You Somalis are demanding things. .
This is how we do things in Glade County,'" according to the complaint,
which ICE declined to comment on. Afterward, he was sent to a segregation
unit.
"It would be highly inappropriate" for facility staff to retaliate against a
detainee for filing a grievance, Landy said. If ICE were to investigate the
Somalis' complaints and find them to be credible, he added, there are, in
theory, a few routes the agency could take. "They could ask a detention
facility to discipline or fire the staff responsible. Depending on the
contract provisions in effect at the facility, ICE could seek to impose
monetary sanctions and more likely, they could address it informally through
communications with the facility and a request for implementation of
remedial measures."
The Office of the Inspector General is investigating conditions at Glades,
following the complaint from the Somalis, Lehner said. Investigators have
made several trips to the facility, most recently on March 1, when they
interviewed three of the detainees with complaints, she said. The office did
not respond to a request for comment
Some of the detainees have reported guards saying things to them like, "The
reason we're taking it out on you is that it's the lawyers fault, it's the
Miami lawyers' fault," Lehner said. She reported this to Juan Acosta, the
assistant field office director for the ICE Miami Field Office, who told her
immediately that it could not be true. (Yglesias, the ICE spokesperson in
Miami, declined to comment on this account.)
"The thing that's so appalling about that is that every single time we meet
with them, they tell us how horrible it is," Lehner added, "and we tell
them, 'Whatever you do, don't act out, because if you do, they'll take it
out on you and they'll take it out on us.'"
As the investigative process goes on, the Somalis remain in detention,
hoping for one more opportunity to fight their deportations before an
immigration judge. If they are unsuccessful in getting their immigration
cases reopened - or if they're ultimately met with denials - they will be
sent back to Somalia, another long journey in ICE custody, with an even less
certain ending on the ground.
Top photo: An undocumented immigrant boards an Immigration and Customs
Enforcement charter jet early on Oct. 15, 2015, in Mesa, Ariz.
