An immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) agent approached a Cameroonian asylum-seeker who was sitting in a cell at Adams County Correctional Center on Sunday, September 20, 2020. The agent asked the man for his signature. The man, identified as C.A. in legal documents, said that he didn’t know what was on the paper. Mississippi Today interviewed him by telephone. C.A. was told by the ICE agent. It was a deportation form, the ICE agent told C.A. C.A. stated that the ICE agent said he was doing his job and would sign my document because my plane had been scheduled. said. “I told him with all due respect that I have attorneys working on my case. C.A. refused to sign the document. He refused to sign the document and violence ensued. C.A. was later to report that he had been held in ICE Natchez detention since March 2020. He claimed that ICE agents and officials beat him and handcuffed him. They were pressing my fingerprints and they were on my fingers. C.A. said that she was crying and begs for an attorney. said. “Before it was known, one of my fingers had been broken.” C.A.’s story is one of eight Cameroonian immigrant experiences that were cited in a federal lawsuit filed by several civil rights organizations this fall. According to the complaint, ICE officers and others at Adams County Correctional Facility are accused of using torture to force Cameroonian immigrants to sign immigration documents. This was done through threats and pressure. On Oct. 7, the Civil Rights and Civil Liberties complaint was submitted by the Southern Poverty Law Center and Freedom for Immigrants to ICE, DHS, and the DHS Office of Inspector General. CoreCivic Nashville’s Adams County Correctional Center is a private detention facility that partners with ICE for the detention of immigrants. Nearly 800 people are currently held in the medium security facility, which has a capacity for 2,300. The complaint stated that each of the eight immigrants, C.A. included, claimed they were subject to different forms of excessive force from CoreCivic officers and ICE agents. The complaint stated that the retaliation started when the Cameroonian immigrants detained refused to sign travel documents without speaking with their lawyers out of fear of being deported. C.A. claimed that he was placed in isolation for two week after his fight with the ICE agent. Mississippi Today asked ICE for details about the allegations contained in the complaint. “U.S. “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement does not comment on specific issues presented to the Office of the Inspector General. This provides independent oversight and accountability within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security,” Sarah Loicano (ICE public affairs officer) told Mississippi Today by email. A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspection General stated that they did not confirm or deny the ongoing investigation into the Adams County Correctional Center and the New Orleans ICE Field Office. CoreCivic, which operates the Natchez detention center and another Tutwiler facility, denies the allegations in the complaint. CoreCivic’s manager of public affairs Ryan Gustin told Mississippi Today via email that the allegations in SPLC’s October 7 letter were completely false. CoreCivic has no control over immigration policies or laws, and does not have any influence on an individual’s deportation. These decisions are made solely by our government partners.” Cameroon is a country in central Africa that is currently roiled in violence because of its language divide. The Anglophone Crisis, or the Cameroonian Civil War has been a conflict between Cameroonians since late 2016. It is based on differences in language between the English-speaking majority and the French-speaking minority. The conflict has seen more than 3,000 deaths and half a million people forced from their homes by the violence, which grew in severity in late 2019. C.A., an English-speaker said he fled Cameroon to seek safety and arrived in the United States to save himself. C.A. said, “When I entered this country, I knew that I could be protected. I know from what I have learned, this country is one the best countries in all of the world.” said. “Humanity in this country is very progressive. It was a shock to not receive it. They sent me to jail and began torture by ICE. They are making me look more like a criminal.” A Cameroonian asylum-seeker, who was previously held at Adams County Correctional Facility, said that he had crossed the U.S. border to Arizona in the last year of a long journey. His journey from Cameroon to Natchez took him several months and covered thousands of miles. He traveled from Cameroon to Nigeria on foot, then to Ecuador by plane. He traveled on foot through Colombia to Panama with the assistance of locals. He claims that he was detained in a jail cell for one month. After being released in Panama, he traveled north on foot through Nicaragua and Honduras. He said that he was held for four months at the Mexican border and then released by a lawyer. For the next few weeks, he traveled through Mexico. He claimed that he tried to cross the U.S. Mexico border initially, but it was closed because of COVID-19 restrictions. So he waited in Reynosa (Mexico), which is just across the border from McAllen Texas. There he spent time washing cars along the side of the road to make money and to survive. He said that some people had passed and tried to hurt him, the migrants. “Life was really kinda like extremely difficult for us.” He stated that he soon had to leave Reynosa to travel to Mexicali in Mexico, which is a border town between California and Mexico. He claimed he had paid a Mexican citizen to show him how to cross into Arizona. According to him, he arrived in the United States last summer. He said that he crossed the U.S. Mexico border and turned himself in to border agents. He was then placed in quarantine for one week at La Palma Correctional Center, just south of Phoenix. After five months in ICE custody for about five months, he was quickly transported to the Adams County Correctional Center, Natchez. He was released on bond this fall. According to Mississippi Today, he said that he fled Cameroon due to the ongoing genocide. “I fled Cameroon due to my political opinion, so it was necessary to flee the country to seek protection.” He said that he had heard of other Cameroonian immigrants being tortured and had not been subject to any violence or harm at the Adams County Correctional Center. The man stated that he was told by them that they had been tied to their hands to sign or take fingerprints. He also learned that many of them were placed in chains and forced to sign these documents. It was difficult to be held behind four walls and barriers. E.O. is another man named in the federal complaint. He has been in the U.S. from November 2019 and has been at Adams County Correctional Center since January 2020. E.O. also spoke in dire terms about his future, if he was deported. E.O. said, “I’m trying not to lose my faith because I don’t want to go home to my country.” said. According to the federal complaint, ICE agents took the men to a dorm at the Adams County Correction Center called “Zulu” on Sept. 27th and 28th. According to the federal complaint, this dorm is “known among the men as a spot where those who are punishedare taken”, and ICE agents and CoreCivic officials “took turns beating the men and forcing them sign travel documents.” D.F. said that when an ICE agent approached him Sept. 27, he said, “I’m afraid to return to my country.” According to the complaint. D.F. was contacted by an ICE agent. The complaint stated that he refused to sign the documents the following day out of fear of being deported. “He pulled my neck towards the floor. D.F. asked me to tell him, “Please, I can’t breath.” In the complaint. They tortured me in Zulu. They placed me on my knees, where they were torturing and said they were going after me. While in Zulu they did take my photo and fingerprint and put my fingerprint on my deportation paperwork.” D.F. According to the SPLC, four of the eight men named in the complaint were deported. C.A. and E.O. are the three men named in the complaint. B.J. is the fourth. Three of the men in the complaint — C.A., E.O. and B.J. Other facilities in the New Orleans ICE Field Office have been subject to violence. This oversees operations and facilities in Alabama, Arkansas Louisiana Mississippi Tennessee. According to a SPLC press release, Cameroonian immigrants detained at Pine Prairie ICE Processing Center, Louisiana, “staged a hunger strike in protest of their indefinite detention and racist treatment by prison staff and inhumane conditions amid COVID-19 pandemic.” According to a SPLC press release, “Prison officials used unnecessary lethal force and placed them in choke holds and pointed a gun at the men and said they would be put in solitary confinement.” Sofia Casini (director of visitation advocacy strategies for Freedom for Immigrants) said that the New Orleans Field Office is aware of these allegations and has been for some time. Casini was also one of the main authors on the federal complaints. She stated that ICE has a history of deporting key witnesses to investigations. Casini stated that ICE’s practice of removing key witnesses in investigations is what’s most important. “There were eight persons on the complaint against Adams County Correctional Center. These five other witnesses are crucial to verify the stories of these men and have also been subject to intimidation and violence. They were deported for what reason? “ICE is disappearing key witnesses,” B.J., one the immigrant included in the complaint against Adams County Correctional Center said that he had fled Cameroon and never imagined that he would be subject to torture and detention in the United States. B.J. said, “It was like Hell to me.” said. “I don’t know why they’re doing that to me,” he said.