California: Hundreds of Sikh asylum seekers housed in the federal prison in Victorville, California, were banned from wearing turbans and provided no access to vegetarian food, in violation of federal laws. Indian American attorney Munmeeth Soni said that this was the first time in recent US history that ICE detainees have been contracted out to the Bureau of Prisons. “This is a complete violation of the spirit of our laws, which protect people fleeing violence and persecution,” she said. Attorney Deepak Ahluwalia said, “I’ve never experienced what’s happening at Victorville. It’s quite shocking,” the Indian American attorney said.
According to US laws, any prisons which receives funding from the government has been banned from placing restrictions on prisoners’ rights to practice their religion while incarcerated. Lori Haley, Western Region communications director at the Department of Homeland Security, said, “Due to the current surge in illegal border crossings and implementation of the US Department of Justice’s zero-tolerance policy, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is working to meet the demand for additional immigration detention space.
“The use of BOP facilities is intended to be a temporary measure until ICE can obtain additional long-term contracts for new detention facilities or until the surge in illegal border crossings subsides,” Haley said, noting that the ICE detainees are housed away from the general population at prisons. No specific criteria have been established as to which detainees are housed at federal prisons, she said. The Sikh asylum seekers are mistakenly labelled as “American Indian” or white in the Bureau of Prisons inmate locator, which provides no information on the length of their stay in the prison. Soni said that asylum seekers there are not allowed to wear turbans - though they are allowed to keep their long hair, in keeping with Sikh faith. Vegetarian food is not consistently provided at the Victorville prison, she added. Many Sikhs eschew meat as a part of their religious practices.
The detainees have been denied access to proper medical care, which is currently focused on stemming outbreaks of scabies and chicken pox, according to Soni. Other illnesses have gone untreated, she said.
