For Some Detainees, Immigration Reform Can’t Wait
Posted on | September 18, 2009 | No Comments
Hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants have waited since 2000 for a new wave of immigration reforms, hoping that change will offer them a path to legalization or even amnesty. But for many immigrants detained in federal detention centers, immediate conditions are more pressing than comprehensive reform.
As the Obama Administration has begun to examine the nation’s immigrant detention centers, the new attention continues to reveal ugly features of a system in need of immediate renovation.
According to one plan, Obama would unite a “patchwork of jail and prison cells” under a centralized authority that would oversee the nearly 400,000 immigration detainees in the nation’s detention centers. The current fragmented system creates administrative problems and also allows wide variance in detention conditions, leading to dangerous and undignified conditions for those detained.
It is important to note that although detainees are suspected of unlawful presence in the country, this is usually their sole crime. Holding people in squalid conditions violates a basic American belief that even detention should be dignified. Further, the majority of those detained for suspected immigration crimes are not hardened criminals, as right-wing myths claim, but rather are people whose sole “crime” has been to seek better economic opportunities for their families.
In the wake of an ACLU lawsuit and “scathing news coverage for putting young children behind razor wire,” the government terminated detention of immigrant families at the Hutto facility in Texas, according to the New York Times. A month later, the LA Times reports that the facility now holds only 22 people, whereas it previously kept 127 individuals despite only hosting 84 beds.
Texas is not alone, however. A Chinese woman was recently released after a year and a half in a detention center in Florida. The woman, who had serious mental illness, was not provided with adequate legal representation and she plunged deeper into mental anguish during her detention. As the New York Times reports, the case highlights the need for special conditions to deal with detainees whose mental conditions require additional support or attention.
Another detention center—this one in Los Angeles—recently settled a lawsuit challenging the “barbaric” conditions there. The “B-18” center has no beds and was meant to be a temporary holding area, but the immigrant advocates who brought the suit describe 20-hour detentions and a lack of basic facilities. The settlement, which is in effect until next June, improves conditions at the facility.
What is clear from all these anecdotes is that individuals suspected to be illegal immigrants are detained under unacceptably poor conditions, perhaps even systematically so. The Obama Administration’s plan to centralize detention centers and establish nationwide standards for the treatment of detainees is a vital first step toward enforcing America’s immigration laws in a just, dignified way. Such changes could–and should–be made in advance of wider immigration reforms.
Tags: ACLU > Amnesty > Department of Homeland Security > Detention > ICE Enforcement > Illegal Aliens > Immigrant Rights > Immigration Reform > La Migra
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