Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick is on the record regarding ICE, saying:
I support ICE officers and other federal law enforcement personnel who risk their lives daily to protect our communities and uphold the rule of law.
I'm wondering if this "devoted husband and father of six bright young women" is fully aware of what ICE officers are doing to some women in this country - particularly in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
From The Minneapolis Star Tribune:
The young Muslim woman was shackled at the ankles. For 24 hours, she was locked inside a bathroom with three men at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, she said. They were given no bedding or pillows. Meals consisted of one sandwich a day.
The sink faucet did not work, but the single toilet did. When the men pulled down their pants to use it, the woman hid her face.
For context, this unnamed woman is a legal refugee waiting on a green card.
There's more:
After the young Muslim woman spent nearly 24 hours locked in the bathroom with the three men, agents moved her to a different locked bathroom in the building’s basement, she said.
When she had her period, agents told her to use toilet paper. When she felt dizzy and vomited twice, agents did not grant her request for medical care. When they gave her a sandwich, she didn’t eat it, fearing it contained pork.
And then after all that, this is what happened:
On the fifth day, agents drove her and two other recently released detainees to a light-rail station near Whipple. They took off her handcuffs and told her to call an Uber, even though she didn’t have a phone. She borrowed one from another detainee.
As they released her into the cold, she recalls their simple words: “You are good to go.”
The Star Tribune also reports about two other women:
The lead plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit said she was knocked into a snowbank by ICE in December while observing ICE arrests from a sidewalk in her neighborhood. The woman, Susan Tincher, a longtime resident of Minneapolis’ Near North neighborhood, was detained at Whipple, where she said federal agents cut off her wedding ring and parts of her clothes. She believes her treatment was retaliation for protesting ICE activity.
She was released without charges.
One detainee described to the Star Tribune seeing a Somali grandmother be denied access to her diabetes medication. A 24-year-old Somali American woman, a U.S. citizen born in Hennepin County who asked her name not be used, described agents ignoring requests for medical help from a fellow detainee with a broken finger.
The Fifth Amendment states:
No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.
I'll note (again) that it does not say "no citizen." It says "no person."
Senator McCormick, explain to me how any of this falls under an appropriate definition of "due process."
And more importantly, Senator, how can you possibly be OK with any of this?
