Detention
Immigrant Detention and the Private Prison Industry
The latest data on immigration enforcement show that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a record high of 429,247 noncitizens in the 2011 fiscal year, an increase of 18 percent over 2010. Immigration detention has been steadily increasing over the last two decades. A new report by Justice Strategies suggests this increase is largely due to the efforts of private prison companies. Read More
Doing the Math: Immigration Detention Costs a Pretty Penny
By Dan Gordon, Communications Associate, National Immigration Forum. Congress will return to Washington after Labor Day amid talk of a “fiscal cliff,” yet loath to address the steep price American taxpayers shoulder to detain immigrants. Read More
Secretary Napolitano Clarifies President’s Deferred Action Plan…Again
Today, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano testified before the House Judiciary Committee and, as expected, defended the administration’s use of prosecutorial discretion and recently announced deferred action policies for qualified DREAMers—fielding questions and accusations from those who would rather take Napolitano to task than focus on creating smart, humane, and effective immigration policies. Read More
For Immigrants, Alternatives to Detention Not All They’re Cracked Up to Be
On any given day, approximately 300,000 immigrants in the United States have pending removal proceedings to determine whether they will be deported from the country. Of those, about 10% are kept in detention centers while proceedings are pending, with the rest are subject to alternatives ranging from the posting of bail to the use of electronic ankle monitors. While few if any immigrants prefer to be detained, a recent report explains that many alternatives to detention (ATD) program impose hardships themselves. Read More
Non-Deportable Immigrants Languish in Alabama Detention Center at Taxpayers’ Expense
Immigration violations are civil, not criminal infractions. But for many non-criminal immigrant detainees living alongside criminal inmates at the Etowah County Detention Center in Alabama, that distinction carries little meaning. Far removed from families and legal orientation programs, many of the 350 immigrant detainees housed at the Etowah Detention Center have received deportation orders, but for various reasons cannot be deported. Many are serving the maximum allowable time in detention, and are doing so under poor living conditions at a great cost to American taxpayers. In fact, a recent report by the Women’s Refugee Commission reveals that ICE continues to operate facilities like Etowah that fail to meet even its own detention standards. Read More
Human Rights Abuses Along U.S.-Mexico Border Underscore Need for Reform
U.S. immigration and border-enforcement policies have precipitated a litany of human-rights abuses along the U.S.-Mexico border, from the needless deaths of border-crossers to inhumane conditions in immigration detention to the racial profiling of entire Latino and indigenous communities. That was the principal finding of the human rights groups which presented testimony at a recent hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). It was also the main conclusion of a recent report by Amnesty International. Both the hearing and the report underscore the urgent need for the U.S. government to abide by the human rights treaties to which it is a signatory. Read More
ACLU Brings Cases of Immigration Detention Abuse to Light
Reports of abuse from immigration detention facilities are nothing new. In fact, due to private contractors’ lax attitude and lack of federal oversight, many experts are finding that cases of abuse are vastly underreported. Last week, the ACLU reported on 185 allegations of sexual abuse of undocumented female detainees held in federal detention facilities. While undocumented immigrants have consistently been denied the same protections afforded to U.S. citizens, the recent allegations of sexual abuse—which are starkly out of place in a civil society—need to be addressed, regardless of an individual’s immigration status. Read More
All gifts are matched dollar for dollar
No one should face the immigration system alone
