"The Nigerian man described being roused with other detainees in September in the middle of the night. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers clasped shackles on their hands and feet, he said, and told them they were being sent to Ghana, even though none of them was from there. When they asked to speak to their attorney, he said, the officers refused and straitjacketed the already-shackled men in full-body restraint suits called the WRAP, then loaded them onto a plane."
"Referred to as the burrito or the bag, the WRAP has become a harrowing part of deportations for some immigrants. It was just like a kidnapping, the Nigerian man, who's part of a federal lawsuit, told The Associated Press in an interview from the detainment camp in which he and other deportees were being held in Ghana. Like others placed in the restraints interviewed by the AP, he spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals."
ICE has used black-and-yellow full-body WRAP restraint suits on deportation flights, restraining detainees with shackles and straitjackets and loading them onto planes. Some detainees were taken from detention in the middle of the night and flown to countries where they were not citizens. Five deportees interviewed reported being restrained for hours, and witnesses or family members reported at least seven other uses this year. Homeland Security's civil rights division raised internal concerns in 2023, citing reports of deaths involving the WRAP by local law enforcement. Autopsies in about a dozen fatal cases over the last decade implicated restraint in deaths.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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