Hawzah News Agency - The Muslim congresswomen, along with 27 other Representatives, ask Homeland Security to investigate claims that detainees were fed pork and expired food.
Dozens of US House representatives are demanding an investigation into reports that an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Miami has been "regularly" serving pork and expired halal meals to Muslim detainees.
In response to a complaint filed earlier this month by two rights groups, Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib - the first Muslim women elected to Congress - sent a letter on Monday to the office for civil rights and civil liberties at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), calling for the investigation.
Signed by at least 27 other representatives, the letter demanded that DHS, which oversees ICE, look into a complaint filed on 19 August which claimed that the ICE-run Krome Service Processing Center in Miami, Florida, had been giving Muslims the choice between pre-plated pork meals and spoiled religious accommodations since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
At the time, ICE refuted the complaint, telling Middle East Eye that "any claim that ICE denies reasonable and equitable opportunity for persons to observe their religious dietary practices is false".
But according to Monday's letter, lawmakers were not convinced.
"While ICE has publicly denied the allegations, every aspect of the allegations has documented precedent," the letter reads.
"Given the history of religious freedom violations across ICE detention facilities, including violations affecting Muslim, Catholic, Jewish, and Hindu detainees, we find the allegations of targeted violations of Muslim civil rights to be credible."
The lawmakers pointed out that in February 2019, a DHS Office of the Inspector General's report found "unsanitary and unsafe conditions" at New Jersey's Essex County correctional facility, the largest of such detention centres in the region.
The 2019 report said inspectors had found that "food handling, in general, was so substandard that ICE and facility leadership had the kitchen manager replaced during [the] inspection".
At the time, inspectors also documented liquid dripping from ceilings into housing units, including onto detainee beds, as well as unsanitary and mouldy shower stalls.
"Given a history of dangerously poor food quality in ICE detention facilities… we find the allegation that the 'reasonable accommodation' provided to detainees at Krome may have included spoiled religiously compliant food alternatives to be credible," the lawmakers said in Monday's letter.
"As you are no doubt aware, forcing Muslim detainees to choose between eating pork and eating spoiled halal food would be a clear violation of ICE's 2011 Performance-Based National Detention Standards. They would also be clear violations of the civil rights and civil liberties of Muslim detainees," the lawmakers continued.
In a post to Twitter on Monday, Representative Omar slammed the Trump administration for its ongoing anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim policies.
"It is unconscionable Muslim ICE detainees were reportedly forced to choose between eating pork or rotten halal food," Omar tweeted. "This is the latest betrayal of religious liberty by Trump and a reminder of the inhumanity of ICE detention".