BERLIN, N.H. - Just weeks after leaked plans showed that FCI Berlin would soon jail immigrants detained by ICE, the ACLU of New Hampshire confirmed that it is already doing so - despite the federal government never confirming the plans. Local immigrants’ rights and civil rights groups just last week expressed outrage and concern over how the far-north Granite State facility could be used to fuel President Trump's mass deportation agenda.
"It is harrowing to imagine that people facing civil - not criminal - charges are being sent to a medium-security federal prison in the northernmost city in the entire state, isolated from their family, advocates, and potential legal services," said Gilles Bissonnette, Legal Director at the ACLU of New Hampshire. "We are outraged that New Hampshire is being used for this cruelty and we have strong concerns about the conditions that will exist for hundreds of these immigrants and how they will be treated in this prison."
The ACLU of New Hampshire was able to confirm at least one ICE detainee is at the facility through the ICE public online database. Full details about exactly how many ICE detainees FCI Berlin currently has incarcerated and when they arrived to the facility are not yet available.