Muslim ICE detainees forced to choose between pork or expired halal meals

Muslim detainees at a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centre have repeatedly been forced to eat pork, despite it going against their religious beliefs.

The detainees at the Krome detention facility in Miami, Florida, have been forced to eat pork products, as the “religiously compliant or halal meals that ICE has served have been persistently rotten and expired,” advocacy groups Muslim Advocates and Americans for Immigration Justice told CNN.

There are around several dozen detainees at the facility whose religious beliefs prevent them from eating pork, according to a letter the groups sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership.

In the letter, they claimed that issues with halal meats being spoiled has been ongoing for two years, but was exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic.

Before the pandemic hit the US in March, Muslim detainees were able to choose their own meals and could avoid pork if halal meats were rotten or perished, according to the advocacy groups.

However, in recent months the facility has been serving meals already pre-made, which has forced the Muslim detainees to choose between eating pork or dishes that include spoiled halal meat.

Pork is included in the meals at least three days a week, and Nimra Azmi, a staff attorney for Muslim Advocates, told CNN that a chaplin at the facility dismissed multiple requests for help from Muslim detainees, and told them: “It is what it is.”

Ms Azmi added: “The detainees are frustrated, rightfully so, that something as simple as being able to get meals that are edible for them and religiously compliant for them are not being attended to.

“I think that they particularly feel that they’re just being ignored, that ICE is being dismissive, that nobody cares.”

An ICE agency official told CNN that they are investigating the specific allegations included in the letter and a spokesperson denied not giving Muslim detainees a “reasonable and equitable opportunity” to observe their religious requirements.

The spokesperson said: “ICE’s Performance Based National Detention Standards cover all aspects of detention, to include reasonable accommodation of religious dietary practices.

“Any claim that ICE denies reasonable and equitable opportunity for persons to observe their religious dietary practices is false.”

Last year, the two groups filed a lawsuit against the Glades County Detention Centre in Florida, as they alleged that Muslim detainees were denied religious compliant meals and had their prayers interfered with.

In reaction, Aleksandr Sverdlik of the Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, wrote on American Civil Liberties Union‘s blog last year that “this sort of treatment is not just morally reprehensible, it’s against the law.

“Federal statutes provide heightened protections for religious exercise. This extends to immigrants and incarcerated individuals, who are especially vulnerable to neglect, mistreatment, and other abuses.”