Reports Find Lapses in Immigration Detention System

[alp227]

Source: Nina Bernstein, The New York Timse

A growing number of noncitizens are being held unnecessarily and transferred heedlessly in an expensive immigration detention system that lacks basic fairness, a bipartisan study group and a human rights organization concluded in reports released jointly on Wednesday.

Confirmation of some of their conclusions came separately from the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security, in an investigation that found detainee transfers by Immigration and Customs Enforcement were so haphazard that some arrived at a new center without having been served a notice of why they were being held, or despite a high probability of being granted bond, or with pending criminal prosecutions or arrest warrants in the previous jurisdiction.

The bipartisan group, the Constitution Project, whose members include Asa Hutchinson, a former undersecretary of Homeland Security, called for sweeping changes in agency policies and amendments to immigration law, including new access to government-appointed counsel for many of those facing deportation.

In its report, the human rights organization, Human Rights Watch, revealed government data showing 1.4 million detainee transfers from 1999 to 2008. The transfers are accelerating, the report found, sending tens of thousands of longtime residents of cities like Philadelphia and Los Angeles to remote immigration jails in Texas and Louisiana, far from legal counsel and the evidence that might help them win release.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/us/03immig.html

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[Flaneur]

2. Ah, American justice. Ain't it grand?

And profitable for some.

[greiner3]

3. I always thought "Born in East L,A."

Was a pretty good movie. It was sorely missing Chong though. Ha, imagine sending him back to China!