Amnesty International has called for the abolition of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), accusing the agency of widespread human rights violations during its immigration enforcement operations.
The rights organisation made the demand in a report released Thursday titled “We Had Whistles, They Had Guns,” which documents testimonies from people affected by ICE operations.
The report comes days after Venezuelan migrant Wilber Garces Perez was shot and wounded by an ICE agent in Austin, Texas, an incident that has renewed criticism of the agency’s enforcement methods.
In January, the deaths of two Americans, 37-year-old Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot by federal agents in Minneapolis, also triggered widespread protests and public concern over the conduct of immigration authorities.
Nadia Daar, Director of Amnesty International USA, said the presence of armed federal agents in communities had created additional risks for residents.
“Masked and armed federal agents attacking people in the streets with impunity doesn’t make our communities safer — it puts everyone in danger,” Daar said in the report.
According to Amnesty International, the report is based on more than 150 testimonies collected between March and June in four major US cities where ICE conducted extensive operations.
Daar argued that the agency requires fundamental restructuring, saying, “ICE is fundamentally broken and cannot be fixed.”
She added that the US government would need to establish a new immigration enforcement system that complies with international human rights law and standards.
Amnesty International further accused the Trump administration of pursuing large-scale detention and deportation of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, alleging that the policy is driven by racist and xenophobic rhetoric.
The organisation said its findings point to an immigration enforcement system focused on detaining and deporting as many migrants as possible.
ICE and the US Department of Homeland Security had not responded to requests for comment on the report at the time of publication.
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