[Ppnews] New report blasts U.S. on immigrant detainees

[Political Prisoner News]

New report blasts U.S. on immigrant detainees

<mailto:thendricks at sfchronicle.com>Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

More than 400,000 people a year are detained by immigration officials 
in the United States - including undocumented immigrants, legal 
immigrants who run afoul of the law and asylum seekers who come 
fleeing persecution - but according to a report released today by 
Amnesty International, conditions are often deplorable and detainees 
are routinely denied due process.

It's the second major human rights report in a week to indict the 
nation's immigration detention system. The system is attracting 
increased attention in part because the number of people in detention 
has grown exponentially in recent years and in part because of dozens 
of in-custody deaths and a lawsuit over the treatment of children.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last month ordered her 
department to examine all aspects of Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement operations and hired a special assistant, Dora Schriro, 
to oversee detention and removal conditions.

A spokeswoman for ICE, as the immigration enforcement agency is 
known, acknowledged Tuesday that concerns have been raised about the 
treatment of immigration detainees.

"We have already made appreciable gains in improving the detention 
system by adopting detention standards and monitoring the compliance 
with those standards," said Cori Bassett. "All that said, the care 
and treatment that some detainees receive does not yet meet our 
shared expectation of excellence, and we can all agree this is a 
reason for concern."

The cases of two Bay Area men illustrate two of the problems 
highlighted by the Amnesty report: Detainees often are denied due 
process, and the burden is on the detainees to prove they don't 
belong in custody.

Afghanistan-born Lemar Nasir of Fremont and Thailand-born Yuttasak 
Simma of San Francisco were taken into ICE custody in 2007, though 
both are naturalized U.S. citizens.

Though the men told immigration officials of their citizenship, 
neither had papers to prove it, and both languished in immigration 
custody in Santa Clara County jail - Nasir for 11 months, Simma for 
seven - before a lawyer finally secured their release.

Sin Yen Ling, an attorney with San Francisco's Asian Law Caucus who 
represented the men, called the cases a violation of the men's 
constitutional right to due process.

"Absent congressional authorization, you cannot use immigration laws 
to lock up a citizen," she said. "And this is not unusual: I have on 
my docket right now five to seven of these cases. People have 
legitimate claims to citizenship, and they inform ICE, yet there's no 
formal procedure to figure out what to do with these folks."

The Amnesty International report, "Jailed Without Justice: 
Immigration Detention in the USA," noted a variety of concerns over 
due process and the conditions of detention:

-- People in immigration custody don't have the same guarantees as 
criminal detainees to challenge their detention before a court, make 
a phone call or obtain legal representation.

-- Detainees can be transferred from one facility to another, 
sometimes in another state, with no notice given to their families or 
attorneys.

-- Two-thirds of people in federal immigration custody are housed in 
state or county detention facilities, usually alongside criminal 
detainees, even though violations of immigration law are considered 
administrative, not criminal, and asylum seekers have committed no violation.

-- Immigrants are subject to excessive use of restraints such as 
handcuffs, waist chains and leg restraints.

"In the criminal justice system, anyone arrested is assumed innocent, 
but in the immigration system, they're put in detention, and then 
it's the individual's burden to prove they shouldn't be detained," 
said Sarnata Reynolds, an author of the report. "That's why you'll 
see long periods of detention, because it's an incredibly high burden."

Both the Amnesty report and a study released last week by Human 
Rights Watch faulted ICE for failing to provide adequate medical and 
mental health treatment to detainees. Human Rights Watch, which 
focused on women's access to health care, emphasized problems with 
perinatal care and care for survivors of sexual violence.

Since 2003, 90 people have died in immigration custody, according to 
Schriro of Homeland Security. Immigration authorities last year 
pointed out that the death rate in immigration detention is a small 
fraction of that in other U.S. jails and prisons.

But earlier this month, Schriro testified before Congress that 
detainees did not always receive timely and appropriate medical care. 
She vowed improvements.

A 2007 lawsuit over the treatment of children in immigration custody 
led to improvements in the conditions at a private Texas prison where 
families are held.

The Amnesty report called on the Obama administration to consider 
alternatives to detention for immigrants who are neither a flight 
risk nor a danger to others. That's a proposal endorsed by San Jose 
Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who chairs the House Judiciary 
Committee's immigration subcommittee.

"Oftentimes there are alternatives, like these ankle bracelets and 
bonds and other ways to make sure the person doesn't disappear into 
the woodwork," said Lofgren, who is particularly incensed that asylum 
seekers are locked up until they can make the case they'd face 
persecution in their home countries.

"You've got people now waiting six months for a 20-minute (asylum) 
interview," she said. "Well, at $90 a day, the meter's running here. 
How can it possibly be cost-effective to postpone a 20-minute 
interview? It's stupid."


Online resources

-- To see the Amnesty International report, "Jailed Without Justice: 
Immigration Detention in the USA," go to 
<http://www.amnestyusa.org>www.amnestyusa.org.

-- To see the Human Rights Watch report, "Detained and Dismissed: 
Women's Struggles to Obtain Health Care in United States Immigration 
Detention," go to <http://www.hrw.org>www.hrw.org.

-- For more information about U.S. Immigration and Customs 
Enforcement, go to <http://www.ice.gov>www.ice.gov


Immigration detention by the numbers

1.1 million People currently in deportation proceedings.

400,000 People detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement every year.

31,000 People in immigration custody on average.

10,000 People in immigration custody on average 10 years ago.

$90 Cost per day to hold a person in immigration detention.

90 Number of people who died in immigration custody since 2003.

Source: Department of Homeland Security, Department of Justice, 
office of Rep. Zoe Lofgren

E-mail Tyche Hendricks at 
<mailto:thendricks at sfchronicle.com>thendricks at sfchronicle.com.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/25/MNAM16MA7P.DTL

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle




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