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.”

† The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.

‡ This article © 2009 Alan Lee, Esq.

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