The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been accused of forcing Muslim detainees at Miami’s Krome Service Processing Center to choose between eating pork and halal meat that has expired.
Consuming pork is forbidden in Islam.
Two civil rights groups, Muslim Advocates and Americans for Immigrant Justice claimed in a letter addressed to ICE’s Miami field office, as well as the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General Office, that “ICE officers at Krome have repeatedly served pork or pork-based products to Muslim detainees, contrary to the detainees’ sincerely held religious belief that they are forbidden from consuming pork.”
“Muslim detainees have been forced to accept these meals, because the religiously compliant or halal meals that ICE has served have been persistently rotten and expired,” the letter said, adding that “ICE has continued to serve these rotten halal meals for over two years even after the detainees notified prison officials that the meals were inedible.”
Muslim Advocates shared pictures of the expired halal meat on their website, allegedly shared by a detainee in the facility. The pictures show that the food consumed by the detainees “expired August 2017 and was served in December 2017.”
The civil rights groups demanded that ICE rectify the food situation at the detention center, and also “train, supervise, and discipline all personnel involved in this systematic denial of detainees’ rights at Krome.”
It’s not the first time ICE has been accused of explicitly discriminating against Muslim detainees. A group of Somali men at Florida’s Glades County Detention Center in 2018 blamed ICE officials for prohibiting them from observing the holy month of Ramadan.
In a statement to Mic publication, ICE denied the allegations.
