HOUSTON - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said officers inside one of its Louisiana jails pepper-sprayed migrants to end their protest over prolonged detention. Spokesman Bryan Cox said Wednesday that “a brief, calculated use of pepper spray was employed” during a Tuesday protest at the Winn Correctional Center in rural Winnfield. Cox said about 50 migrants were pepper-sprayed and the protesters “subsequently became compliant.” Cox said medical staff evaluated anyone who came into contact with the pepper spray and no injuries were reported. Lawyers say asylum seekers have staged protests at other ICE jails in Louisiana, where the immigrant detainee population has surged in recent months and hit 8,000 earlier this year. One 43-year-old man from Cuba, Roylan Hernandez Diaz, died by apparent suicide in October at another Louisiana jail, the Richwood Correctional Center.

Source: thestar December 04, 2019 17:01 UTC