SPLC Report: Shadow Immigration Detention in the South

[The Blue Flower]

https://www.splcenter.org/20161121/shadow-prison-immigrant-detention-south

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to deport up to 3 million people, an investigation of immigrant detention centers in the South has found that detainees are routinely denied their due process rights and frequently endure inhumane conditions in isolated facilities that have little oversight from the federal government.


Executive Summary

Just days after winning election, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he intends to round up and deport up to 3 million immigrants. Such a plan, if carried out immediately, would require a massive – and costly – expansion of America’s prison and detention infrastructure at a time when politicians and policymakers across the ideological spectrum are working to reduce the nation’s prison population, the world’s largest. And it would likely be a major boost to the fortunes of private prison companies that profit from incarceration – even though most studies show that privately operated prisons are generally more dangerous, less effective and no less expensive than government-run facilities.

Recently, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) decided to add 10,000 beds to its immigrant detention system, increasing the capacity to 45,000 immigrants per day. But, as a result of Trump’s proposed deportation plan, the DHS could need many thousands more. Unsurprisingly, private prison stocks have soared since Trump’s election. An expansion of the immigrant detention system threatens to greatly exacerbate the mass incarceration crisis in America. And it would violate our nation’s basic values and cement our reputation as a country intolerant of immigrants.

The findings of this study demonstrate that the immigrant detention system is already rife with civil rights violations and poor conditions that call into question the DHS’s commitment to the due process rights and safety of detainees. Many of these detainees have lived here for years; others recently fled violence in their home countries to seek refuge in the United States. This report is the result of a seven-month investigation of six detention centers in the South, a region where tens of thousands of people are locked up for months, sometimes even years, as they await hearings or deportation.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

1. It can't happen here. nt