News Update - August 15, 2009
By Alan Lee, Esq.†‡
ICE to Implement Immigration Detention Reforms
The US Department of Homeland Security announced on August 6, 2009
that it will make many changes to the immigration detention system.
Since it was widely publicized that the current system deprives
detained immigrants of rights, sanitation, and health care, Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was forced to conclude that an overhaul
was necessary. The current system has 32,000 detention beds available
at any given time spread over 350 facilities across the country.
There are no concrete regulations with respect to handling detainees,
so they essentially have no guaranteed rights. Non-criminal aliens
are often held in detention for over a year and often cohabitate
with dangerous criminals while the main purpose of detention should
be to hold the alien until a decision is made on his or her case
or until he or she is deported. To improve conditions, the following
steps were announced.
- An Office of Detention Policy and Planning (ODPP) will be created.
This office will work towards designing a civil detention system
tailored to the needs of ICE. The ODPP will stress efficiency of
operations and humane conditions for the detained when creating
its system. It will work to find locations which are more densely
populated with individuals who are likely to be detained, ensure
the timely provision of medical services, provide appropriate custodial
conditions, provide appropriate discipline, ensure provision of
law libraries, religious services, family visitation and recreation,
and provide attention to women, children, the elderly and the vulnerable.
- A medical expert will be hired to review medical complaints and
denials of request for medical services.
- An expert in healthcare administration and an expert in detention
management will be hired onto the ODPP staff.
- 23 ICE detention managers will be hired to work in 23 significant
detention facilities to ensure that appropriate conditions are met.
- The Office of Detention Oversight (ODO) will be established to
investigate detainee grievances and conduct routine and random inspections
to ensure that detention facilities are meeting standards.
- Two advisory groups of local and national organizations will
be formed. They will provide feedback on two levels. One group will
focus on general policies and practices. The other will focus on
health care issues.
- The T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas will no longer be
used as a family detention center. It has accommodated families
with the worst conditions and was a symbol of the Bush administration’s
tough approach to immigration enforcement when it opened up in 2006.
This facility was featured on a documentary and an article in The
New Yorker as a representation of the poor conditions of immigration
detention centers. The families will now be sent to Berks Family
Shelter Care Facility. Though eclipsed by the horrid publicity of
Hutto, protesters claim that Berks also does not provide agreeable
conditions to detainees. Its offenses include, but are not limited
to having its guards discipline children by sending them to the
juvenile hall across the street and holding families for over two
years. Meanwhile, ICE suggests that Hutto should operate as a female
detention center.
The steps being taken to improve conditions of detainment represent
progress. However, some voice concerns that the progress may only
be temporary and a relapse into conditions of old will occur. Dr.
Dora Shchriro, future director of ODPP states “A lot of this
[proposed reforms] exists already. A lot of it is making it work
better.”
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