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Complaints Ignored, Abuses Excused: Why the Department of Homeland Security’s Internal Accountability Mechanisms Must Be Reformed

Report
Issue area
Detention
Audience
Attorney
Community Advocate
Published: Apr. 21, 2021

Over the past four years, federal agencies and their employees have engaged in abusive, harassing, and illegal behavior against immigrants, advocates, and attorneys. As we transition to a new administration, we cannot simply “turn the page” and move on without holding agencies accountable for those abuses. It is critical to recognize and change the toxic culture within immigration and law enforcement agencies that led to such abuses, and to engage government accountability mechanisms whose role it is to address and discipline such behavior.

NIPNLG compiled both formal and informal complaints from immigration advocates and attorneys in a report, Complaints Ignored, Abuses Excused: Why the Department of Homeland Security’s Internal Accountability Mechanisms Must Be Reformed. The cases highlighted in the report present a small sampling of the widespread and systematic harm these agencies continue to inflict on immigrants without being held to account.