CREW requests ICE records on immigrants tortured into accepting deportation

These fingerprints, used in place of signatures, indicated the immigrants’ consent to initiate deportation proceedings and waive their rights to further immigration hearings. Three people provided firsthand accounts of the violent tactics ICE officers used to obtain their prints, including pepper-spraying detainees almost to the point of suffocation, breaking their fingers, and subjecting them to further physical mistreatment in unmonitored rooms. A joint complaint filed by FFI and the Southern Poverty Law Center cites eight cases of forced signatures or fingerprints on stipulated orders of removal, as well as several instances of violence.