US probes reports of Sikh turbans being confiscated at Mexico border
Darpan News Desk IANS, 04 Aug, 2022 11:04 AM
Washington, Aug 4 (IANS) US authorities have said investigations were underway into reports that turbans of Sikh asylum seekers were confiscated after they were detained at the country's border with Mexico, the media reported.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), nearly 50 Sikh migrants have had their turbans taken away, the BBC reported.
It said that the turban confiscations "blatantly violate federal law" and are inconsistent with the US Customs and Border Protection's (CBP) own non-discrimination policies.
In a letter sent to CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus on August 1, the ACLU called the seizures "ongoing, serious religious-freedom violations".
Meanwhile, Vanessa Pineda, a lawyer of the ACLU of Arizona, told the BBC that no proper explanation has been given about what, if any, security concerns a turban could raise.
"It's just not acceptable. They need to find another alternative and to stop this. It's dehumanising," she added.
In response, Magnus said the border agency expects its staff to "treat all migrants we encounter with respect", the BBC reported citing A Washington Post report.
"An internal investigation has been opened to address this matter," the CBP Commissioner was quoted as saying.
According to CBP statistics, nearly 13,000 Indian citizens, including many from Punjab, have been detained by Border Patrol officers at the US-Mexico border in the fiscal year that began in October 2021.
Of these, about three-quarters, or nearly 10,000, have been detained in the Border Patrol's Yuma sector, a 202 km expanse of desert and rocky mountains that stretches from California's Imperial Sand Dunes to the border between Arizona's Yuma and Pima counties.
Three people were killed Wednesday in a shooting at a Tulsa medical building on a hospital campus, a police captain said. Capt. Richard Meulenberg confirmed the number of dead. Meulenberg said the shooter also was dead.
Matthew Rycroft, the senior-most civil servant at the Home Office, reportedly informed him that he and another officer who had been short-listed for the job that they would not be selected. He is not known to have spelled out a reason for the decision.
Soon after the aircraft went out of contact, the Nepal Army deployed its personnel in the Lete area for search. The plane was carrying 13 Nepalese, four Indians, and two Germans.
In a public session on Monday, WHO's Dr. Rosamund Lewis said it was critical to emphasize that the vast majority of cases being seen in dozens of countries globally are in gay, bisexual or men who have sex with men, so that scientists can further study the issue and for those at risk to be careful.
The incident commander who was on scene during the 45 minutes it took for tactical officers to storm a bullet-strewn classroom in Uvalde, Tex., on Tuesday made the "wrong decision" to wait, the head of the state's Department of Public Safety acknowledged.
The gunman entered the school at about 11:40 a.m. local time through an apparently unlocked door, and contrary to initial reports, encountered no resistance, Escalon said — the armed school safety officer, normally a fixture at educational facilities around the U.S., was not there.
