The treatment of women and children in immigration custody in America has been characterized as inhumane with reports of American Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers being violent against detainees. There have been documented cases of sexual, physical, and mental abuse happening at immigration detention centers for decades, but reports of such cases have escalated in recent times. This is likely because there has been an uptick of arrests and detainment of immigrants, since Donald Trump became president in 2024 as it was one of his campaign promises. The treatment of immigrants, especially women and children, in detention centers is horrific. Rachana Desai Martin, Chief U.S. Program Officer at the Center for Reproductive Rights (Repro) stated, “What we’re hearing from pregnant and postpartum women in ICE custody is shocking. They are shackled to beds, denied wanted prenatal care, and left alone to miscarry. Nursing mothers are ripped from their children and deported. This is inhumane.”  As reported from Repro, “A pregnant woman bled for days before she was taken to a hospital—where she was left alone in a room without water or medical assistance for over 24 hours while she miscarried. Another, repeatedly requesting medical assistance, was told to “just drink water” rather than receiving an exam.” Children, including infants and toddlers, are regularly separated from their parents, who are deported, while the children are placed in American foster homes, or forcibly disappeared.

In one of the most infamous detention centers in America, The Dilley Detention Center, in Texas, the conditions are abysmal. Water is dirty and makes detainees ill, the food served is undercooked and–according to some reports–contains worms. Bright lights are kept on day and night with constant disturbances from guards keeping children from sleeping, and medical care is dangerously lacking. There is little to no access to education, which has caused many children to fall behind at least one grade, and guards torment detainees, often threatening to separate children from their parents. These conditions have left detained children depressed causing some children and teens to start wetting the bed and in a constant state of fear and anxiety. The response from doctors at the center is to give them antidepressants and antipsychotics that parents have complained make their children sleep constantly. At Stewart Detention Center in Georgia, many immigrant women are routinely sexually assaulted by a male nurse who is being protected by the government agencies and the private firm that runs the center.

These incidences of abuse are not isolated to these particular detention centers, but are common across all ICE and Department of Homeland Security facilities across the country. This is unsurprising for there has been decades of physical and sexual abuse of women from the inception of America. Native American women, the women who were forced into slavery, children who are trafficked, women in Vietnam and Korea, our sisters in Afghanistan, Iraq, and across the Muslim lands have been subjected to this humiliating and brutal abuse by politicians, military, and government employees. Indeed, rape and abuse of women and children is part of the fabric of the elite of the American state and wider society due to its secular liberal culture and system that promotes personal and sexual freedoms which encourage individuals to act on their whims and desires with no accountability to a higher being.

In contrast, Islam obligates men to view and treat women with respect and dignity always, prohibiting any form of exploitation, sexualization, violence or abuse against them, and promoting the concept of accountability to the Creator in the way they are treated. Allah (swt) describes the man as the guardians, protectors and maintainers of women, saying:

[وَعَاشِرُوهُنَّ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ]

“live with them (women) honourably.”[An-Nisa: 19]. And the Prophet (saw) said «اسْتَوْصُوا بِالنِّسَاءِ خَيْرًا»“Treat women well”. The social system of Islam ensures the healthy cooperation of men and women in a manner which safeguards the dignity of both in all spheres of life. And it is the Khilafah (Caliphate) State which implements all of these Islamic principles and laws comprehensively upon the society such that it will stand as a beacon for the protection of women, including those seeking refuge within its lands.