Transaction Search Form: please type in any of the fields below.
Date: April 29, 2024 Mon
Time: 11:47 pm
Time: 11:47 pm
Results for immigrant detention (u.s.)
10 results foundAuthor: New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic Title: Locked Up But Not Forgotten: Opening Access to Family and Community in the Immigration Detention System Summary: This report examines the way that visitation with family and community functions in the current immigration detention context and the way it should function in order to affirm the humanity and dignity of immigration detainees and maximize fairness and transparency in a system lacking in both. Details: New York: New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, 2010. 47p. Source: Internet Resource Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 118593 Keywords: Illegal AliensImmigrant Detention (U.S.)Immigrants |
Author: Chaudry, Ajay Title: Facing Our Future: Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement Summary: This report examines the consequences of parental arrest, detention, and deportation on 190 children in 85 families in six locations, providing in-depth details on parent-child separations, economic hardships, and children's well-being. The contentious immigration debates around the country mostly revolve around illegal immigration. Less visible have been the 5.5 million children with unauthorized parents, almost three-quarters of whom are U.S.-born citizens. Over several years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) intensified enforcement activities through large-scale worksite arrests, home arrests, and arrests by local law enforcement. The report provides recommendations for stakeholders to mitigate the harmful effects of immigration enforcement on children. Details: Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2011. 96p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 13, 2011 at: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412020_FacingOurFuture_final.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/412020_FacingOurFuture_final.pdf Shelf Number: 122050 Keywords: Illegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigrant ChildrenImmigrant Detention (U.S.) |
Author: Rutgers School of Law–Newark Immigrant Rights Clinic (IRC) Title: Freed but not Free: A Report Examining the Current Use of Alternatives to Immigration Detention Summary: In May 2011, the White House released a report entitled, “Building a 21st Century Immigration System.”1 In recognition of the need to balance the valuable economic contributions made by immigrants with the need to secure the nation’s borders, the Obama Administration detailed its “blueprint” to remedy issues related to unlawful immigration as well as to strengthen the economy.2 The document also included other proposals for change, such as creating a more humane immigration system, providing clearer compliance guidance, and improving the immigration court system.3 Among its many outlined solutions, the Obama Administration made clear its desire to remedy critical detention issues, including expanding the capacity of alternative to detention (ATD) programs.4 As the use of ATD programs increases, the need to examine such programs to ensure they are being carried out fairly and effectively also becomes greater. As set forth in further detail in the report, immigration detention is costly, and it is unnecessary except in rare cases. For this reason, many advocates have called for an increase in alternatives to detention. Despite the proven effectiveness of many alternatives to detention, as this report makes clear, the capacity of the current ATD system is insufficient. At present, many individuals who are released from detention are placed on an Order of Release on Recognizance (ROR) or an Order of Supervision (OSUP), under which participants are required to check in periodically with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), among other requirements. Some of those individuals are subject to the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP), which includes an electronic monitoring component and is administered by a private company. This report attempts to examine the use, enforcement, restrictions, and human impact of the existing ATD programs in New Jersey and nationally. For the thousands of individuals that ICE places on supervisory programs—many of whom have been determined to be neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community—ATD programs can be both liberating and debilitating. This report highlights the economic, psychological, emotional, and physical toll faced by individuals under ATD programs and proposes some recommendations for reform. Details: Newark, NJ: Rutgers School of Law-Newark, Immigrant Rights Clinic; Philadelphia: American Friends Service Committee, 2012. 58p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 5, 2012 at: http://www.law.newark.rutgers.edu/files/FreedbutnotFree.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://www.law.newark.rutgers.edu/files/FreedbutnotFree.pdf Shelf Number: 125470 Keywords: Alternative to IncarcerationIllegal AliensImmigrant Detention (U.S.)Immigrants |
Author: National Immigration Forum Title: Immigrants Behind Bars: How, Why, and How Much? Summary: States across the U.S. are facing large budget deficits leading to significant reductions in local programs and services, including cuts to police and Sheriff's departments. But in spite of shrinking resources, many local law enforcement agencies assist in enforcement of federal immigration law, including helping with the identification and detention of immigrants believed—sometimes wrongly—to be subject to deportation. The following backgrounder provides explanations of the ways that immigrants end up in local custody and are held there on the basis of their immigration status. It also explores the associated fiscal costs of increased detention to states and counties. In recent years police have increasingly been drawn into immigration enforcement operations, and as a result, local jails are holding increased numbers of immigrants, even those not facing criminal charges. Detaining immigrants in state or local custody creates additional costs and burdens on local law enforcement agencies, and the unnecessary and prolonged detention of immigrants costs local budgets millions of taxpayer dollars per year. The enforcement of our nation’s immigration laws has historically been a federal duty. However, throughout the last decade, the distinction between federal immigration enforcement and state and local criminal law enforcement has been eroding. Since its creation in 2003, the Department of Homeland Security has pursued broad expansions of local involvement with federal authorities in enforcement of federal immigration laws. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is the Department of Homeland Security’s primary interior immigration enforcement bureau and the manager of the largest detention system in the country. ICE has aggressively sought both formal and informal relationships with state and local law enforcement agencies. This collaboration broadens ICE’s ability to identify, apprehend, and detain immigrants around the country. Notably, ICE’s efforts are not limited to undocumented immigrants. All non-citizens who may possibly be subject to deportation are under ICE’s jurisdiction, even if they have been permanent residents of the United States for decades. In 2007, ICE grouped its major programs for apprehending non-citizens identified or arrested by local law enforcement under an umbrella called “Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security” (ICE ACCESS). ICE ACCESS encompasses 14 different programs that connect ICE agents to state and local law enforcement agencies and operations. Three ICE ACCESS programs engender particularly broad-ranging consequences for immigrants who interact with the criminal justice system: the Criminal Alien Program (CAP), Secure Communities, and the 287(g) program. All of these programs are designed to help ICE identify immigrants who come into contact with the criminal justice system. The increased collaboration between DHS and local law enforcement agencies has resulted in greater numbers of non-citizens being held in local jails for prolonged periods of time, at great expense. When jails go beyond handling regular local criminal matters to holding civil detainees for federal agencies, many additional bodies of law and logistical requirements come into play. Questions of custody and responsibility now involve both federal and state agencies, and inmates may be juggling both criminal and civil proceedings involving different legal rights. The result has been widespread confusion and frequent civil rights violations. Immigrants who come into contact with police may end up in the local jail, being held for ICE, without even being suspected of or charged with a crime. Non-citizens involved in the criminal justice process spend more time behind bars than citizens facing similar charges. And non-citizen inmates due to be released from local custody are unlawfully detained on a regular basis. Imprisoning people is a very expensive endeavor, and the impact of this unnecessary and excessive detention amounts to millions of dollars per year for local budgets. This paper seeks to identify the ways, legal and illegal, that immigrants end up in local custody, and the associated costs to states and counties. Details: Washington, DC: National Immigration Forum, 2011. 17p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 25, 2012 at: http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/2011/Immigrants_in_Local_Jails.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/2011/Immigrants_in_Local_Jails.pdf Shelf Number: 125767 Keywords: Costs of Criminal JusticeIllegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigrant Detention (U.S.) |
Author: Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center Title: Invisible in Isolation: The Use of Segregation and Solitary Confinement in Immigration Detention Summary: Immigrants in detention facilities around the United States often are subjected to punitive and long-term solitary confinement and denied meaningful avenues of appeal, according to an investigation by Heartland Alliance's National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). The two human rights groups surveyed conditions in more than a dozen detention centers and county jails that contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The result is the first comprehensive examination of the effects of solitary confinement on immigration detainees. While the harm caused by solitary confinement to inmates in prisons and jails has been well documented, Invisible in Isolation: The Use of Segregation and Solitary Confinement in Immigration Detention shows that solitary confinement of immigrants in detention is often arbitrarily applied, inadequately monitored, harmful to their health, and a violation of their due process rights. NIJC and PHR uncovered numerous cases in which detention facilities placed mentally ill immigrants in solitary confinement rather than treating them, or separated sexual minorities against their wishes from the general inmate population. Many immigration detainees in solitary confinement had strict limits placed on such “privileges” as outdoor recreation, reading material, and even access to legal counsel. Overall, investigators found, ICE has failed to hold detention centers and jails accountable for their abusive use of solitary confinement. In the report, NIJC and PHR call on ICE and Congress to end solitary confinement in immigration detention, severely limit other forms of segregation, and implement stricter oversight of the detention system. Details: Chicago: Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center; Cambridge, MA: Physicians for Human Rights, 2012. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed october 3, 2012 at: http://www.immigrantjustice.org/sites/immigrantjustice.org/files/Invisible%20in%20Isolation-The%20Use%20of%20Segregation%20and%20Solitary%20Confinement%20in%20Immigration%20Detention.September%202012_5.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://www.immigrantjustice.org/sites/immigrantjustice.org/files/Invisible%20in%20Isolation-The%20Use%20of%20Segregation%20and%20Solitary%20Confinement%20in%20Immigration%20Detention.September%202012_5.pdf Shelf Number: 126547 Keywords: Human RightsIllegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigrant Detention (U.S.)Solitary Confinement |
Author: Epstein, Ruthie Title: Jails and Jumpsuits. Transforming the U.S. Immigration Detention System—A Two-Year Review Summary: Two years ago, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) committed to transform the U.S. immigration detention system by shifting it away from its longtime reliance on jails and jail-like facilities, to facilities with conditions more appropriate for the detention of civil immigration law detainees. At the time of these commitments, in announcements in August and October of 2009, DHS and ICE recognized that detention beds were in facilities that were “largely designed for penal, not civil, detention.” In fact, many criminal correctional facilities actually offer less restrictive conditions than those typically found in immigration detention facilities, and corrections experts have confirmed that less restrictive conditions can help ensure safety in a secure facility. DHS and ICE have consistently affirmed intentions to carry out the planned reforms in a budget-neutral way. Yet two years later, the overwhelming majority of detained asylum seekers and other civil immigration law detainees are still held in jails or jail-like facilities—almost 400,000 detainees each year, at a cost of over $2 billion. At these facilities, asylum seekers and other immigrants wear prison uniforms and are typically locked in one large room for up to 23 hours a day; they have limited or essentially no outdoor access, and visit with family only through Plexiglas barriers, and sometimes only via video, even when visitors are in the same building. Over the last two years, ICE has begun to use, or has acknowledged plans to use, five new facilities that would contain in total 3,485 detention beds in less penal conditions. These conditions would include increased outdoor access, contact visitation with families, and “non-institutional” (though still uniform) clothing for some detainees. These facilities are designed as templates for a more appropriate approach to immigration detention. If they open as designed and as scheduled, 14 percent of ICE’s detained asylum seeker and immigrant population would be housed in these less-penal conditions— meaning that 86 percent of ICE detainees would still be held in jails and jail-like facilities. Official standards detailing core requirements for the environment and conditions of a civil detention system—covering matters such as dress, movement within facilities, extended outdoor access, and contact visitation with family—have not been developed or implemented. ICE has also taken important steps to improve other aspects of the immigration detention system—such as creating a system to allow families and counsel to learn the name of the facility where an immigration detainee is held, issuing new guidance on parole assessments for detained arriving asylum seekers, and training new ICE monitors to report back to headquarters on compliance with standards in the field. However, this report focuses primarily on the agency’s progress on its commitment to “literally overhaul the system”—to transition the immigration detention system away from its jail-oriented approach to a system with conditions more appropriate for civil immigration detainees. While ICE did indicate that the shift would take place “in three to five years,” two years in, there is still a long way to go. Jails and jail-like facilities have been found to be inappropriate and unnecessarily costly for asylum seekers and other civil immigration detainees by the U.S. government itself, as well as by bipartisan groups and international human rights bodies. In a major 2005 study requested by Congress, the bipartisan U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and its expert on prison systems observed that most of the facilities used by DHS to detain asylum seekers and other immigrants “in most critical respects…are structured and operated much like standardized correctional facilities,” resembling “in every essential respect, conventional jails.” The Council on Foreign Relations bipartisan task force on immigration policy, co-chaired by Jeb Bush and Thomas McLarty, concurred in July 2009 that “[i]n many cases asylum seekers are forced to wear prison uniforms [and] held in jails and jail-like facilities.” The bipartisan Constitution Project’s Liberty and Security Committee similarly concluded in December 2009 that “[d]espite the nominally ‘civil’—as opposed to ‘criminal’—nature of their alleged offenses, non-citizens are often held in state and local jails.” In 2009, DHS’s own Special Advisor—who has run two state prison systems and currently serves as Commissioner of Correction in New York City—concluded in a report prepared for DHS and ICE that: With only a few exceptions, the facilities that ICE uses to detain aliens were built, and operate, as jails and prisons to confine pre-trial and sentenced felons. ICE relies primarily on correctional incarceration standards designed for pre-trial felons and on correctional principles of care, custody, and control. These standards impose more restrictions and carry more costs than are necessary to effectively manage the majority of the detained population. The use of immigration detention facilities that are penal in nature is inconsistent with U.S. commitments under the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its Protocol, as well as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants have both expressed concern, in reports issued in 2010 and 2008, respectively, about the punitive and jail-like conditions used by the U.S. government in its immigration detention system. Even with more appropriate detention conditions, however, detention can still be—and is—penal in nature when the detention itself runs afoul of other human rights protections—for example, when detention is not necessary, reasonable, or proportionate, or is unnecessarily prolonged. In this report, Human Rights First focuses its review on the progress of DHS and ICE in transforming the U.S. immigration detention system away from its reliance on jails and jail-like facilities to a system with conditions more appropriate for civil immigration law detainees. In the course of our assessment, we visited 17 ICEauthorized detention facilities that together held more than 10,000 of the 33,400 total ICE beds; interviewed government officials, legal service providers, and former immigration detainees; and reviewed existing government data on the U.S. immigration detention system. We also interviewed a range of former prison wardens, corrections officials, and other experts on correctional systems. Details: New York: Human Rights First, 2011. 80p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 9, 2012 at: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/HRF-Jails-and-Jumpsuits-report.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/HRF-Jails-and-Jumpsuits-report.pdf Shelf Number: 126908 Keywords: Illegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigrant Detention (U.S.)Immigration |
Author: Amnesty International Title: Jailed Without Justice: Immigration Detention in the USA Summary: Migration is a fact of life. Some people move to new countries to improve their economic situation or to pursue their education. Others leave their countries to escape armed conflict or violations of their human rights, such as torture, persecution, or extreme poverty. Many move for a combination of reasons. Governments have the right to exercise authority over their borders; however, they also have obligations under international law to protect the human rights of migrants, no matter what prompted an individual to leave his or her home country. This report focuses on the human rights violations associated with the dramatic increase in the use of detention by the United States as an immigration enforcement mechanism. In just over a decade, immigration detention has tripled. In 1996, immigration authorities had a daily detention capacity of less than 10,000. Today more than 30,000 immigrants are detained each day, and this number is likely to increase even further in 2009. More than 300,000 men, women and children are detained by US immigration authorities each year. They include asylum seekers, torture survivors, victims of human traffi cking, longtime lawful permanent residents, and the parents of US citizen children. The use of detention as a tool to combat unauthorized migration falls short of international human rights law, which contains a clear presumption against detention. Everyone has the right to liberty, freedom of movement, and the right not to be arbitrarily detained. The dramatic increase in the use of immigration detention has forced US immigration authorities to contract with approximately 350 state and county criminal jails across the country to house individuals pending deportation proceedings. Approximately 67 percent of immigration detainees are held in these facilities, while the remaining individuals are held in facilities operated by immigration authorities and private contractors. The average cost of detaining a migrant is $95 per person, per day. Alternatives to detention, which generally involve some form of reporting, are significantly cheaper, with some programs costing as little as $12 per day. These alternatives to detention have been shown to be effective with an estimated 91 percent appearance rate before the immigration courts. Despite the effectiveness of these less expensive and less restrictive alternatives to detention in ensuring compliance with immigration procedures, the use of immigration detention continues to rise at the expense of the United States’ human rights obligations. Details: New York: Amnesty International USA, 2009. 56p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 27, 2012 at: http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/JailedWithoutJustice.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: http://www.amnestyusa.org/pdfs/JailedWithoutJustice.pdf Shelf Number: 127012 Keywords: Alternative to DetentionIllegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigrant Detention (U.S.)Immigration |
Author: Center for Victims of Torture Title: Tortured and Detained: Survivor Stories of U.S. Immigration Detention Summary: This report focuses on the personal and psychological aspects of the detention experience, from apprehension to release, and seeks to offer insights - through first-hand accounts to the extent possible - into what asylum seekers and survivors of torture are seeing, thinking, and feeling as they arrive in the United States, a perceived destination of "safety," and subsequently endure shock and confusion at being arrested and detained. This report does not attempt to provide a comprehensive assessment of the current state of the U.S. immigration detention system. The recommendations contained at the end focus on meeting the unique needs of survivors of torture but most would benefit the U.S. immigration detention system more broadly. The profiles in this report are comprised of selfreported information from the 22 individuals we interviewed in June and July of 2013, though the accounts described here are all consistent with secondary research into U.S. immigration laws, procedures, and practices. The challenges interviewees reported are, likewise, consistent with other in-depth reports of the U.S. immigration detention system. Secondary research into trauma and its effects as well as interviews with clinicians from CVT provided additional perspectives into the particular impact detention has on survivors of torture. All participants consented to having their stories included in this report and used for public purposes. However, to protect individual identities we have changed all names and chose not to include any information that would make the individual easily identifiable. Details: St. Paul, MN: Center for Victims of Torture, 2013. 24p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 13, 2013 at: http://www.cvt.org/sites/cvt.org/files/Report_TorturedAndDetained_Nov2013.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.cvt.org/sites/cvt.org/files/Report_TorturedAndDetained_Nov2013.pdf Shelf Number: 131653 Keywords: Illegal Aliens Illegal ImmigrantsImmigrant Detention (U.S.)Torture |
Author: U.S. Government Accountability Office Title: Immigration Detention: Additional Actions Needed to Strengthen Management and Oversight of Facility Costs and Standards Summary: Within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) uses two different methods to collect and assess data on detention costs; however, these methods do not provide ICE with complete data for managing detention costs across facilities and facility types. One method uses the agency's financial management system to estimate total detention costs per detainee per day for the purposes of developing ICE's annual detention budget request. However, ICE identified errors in the entry of data into this system and limitations in the system make it difficult for ICE to accurately record expenditures for individual facilities. ICE's other method involves the manual tracking of monthly costs by individual facilities for the purposes of reviewing data on individual facility costs. However, this method does not include data on all costs for individual facilities, such as for medical care and transportation, and such costs are not standardized within or across facility types. Thus, ICE does not have complete data for tracking and managing detention costs across facilities and facility types. ICE has taken some steps to strengthen its financial management system, such as implementing manual work-arounds to, among other things, better link financial transactions to individual facilities. However, ICE has not assessed the extent to which these manual work-arounds position ICE to better track and manage costs across facilities or facility types and the extent to which additional controls are needed to address limitations in its methods for collecting and assessing detention costs, in accordance with federal internal control standards. Conducting these assessments could better position ICE to have more reliable data for tracking and managing costs across facility types. GAO's analysis of ICE facility data showed that ICE primarily used three sets of detention standards, with the most recent and rigorous standards applied to 25 facilities housing about 54 percent of ICE's average daily population (ADP) as of January 2014. ICE plans to expand the use of these standards to 61 facilities housing 89 percent of total ADP by the end of fiscal year 2014; however, transition to these standards has been delayed by cost issues and contract negotiations and ICE does not have documentation for reasons why some facilities cannot be transitioned to the most recent standards in accordance with internal control standards. Documenting such reasons could provide an institutional record and help increase transparency and accountability in ICE's management of detention facilities. GAO's analysis of ICE facility oversight programs showed that ICE applied more oversight mechanisms at facilities housing the majority of the ADP in fiscal year 2013. For example, 94 percent of detainees were housed in facilities that received an annual inspection. GAO's analysis of ICE's inspection reports showed that inspection results differed for 29 of 35 facilities inspected by both ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Office of Detention Oversight (ODO) in fiscal year 2013. ICE officials stated that ODO and ERO have not discussed differences in inspection results and whether oversight mechanisms are functioning as intended. Assessing the reasons why inspection results differ, in accordance with internal control standards, could help ICE better ensure that inspection mechanisms are working as intended. Details: Washington, DC: GAO, 2014. 73p. Source: Internet Resource: GAO-15-153: Accessed October 11, 2014 at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/666467.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/666467.pdf Shelf Number: 133931 Keywords: Illegal AliensIllegal ImmigrantsImmigrant Detention (U.S.)ImmigrantsImmigrationImmigration Policy |
Author: U.S. Government Accountability Office Title: Alternatives to Detention: Improved Data Collection and Analyses Needed to Better Assess Program Effectiveness Summary: Aliens awaiting removal proceedings or found to be removable from the United States are detained in ICE custody or released into the community under one or more options, such as release on bond and under supervision of the ATD program. Within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE is responsible for overseeing aliens in detention and those released into the community. In 2004 ICE implemented the ATD program to be a cost-effective alternative to detaining aliens. ICE administers the program with contractor assistance using case management and electronic monitoring to ensure aliens comply with release conditions-including appearing at immigration court hearings and leaving the United States if they receive a final order of removal. The Joint Explanatory Statement to the 2014 Consolidated Appropriations Act mandated that GAO evaluate ICE's implementation of the ATD program. This report addresses (1) trends in ATD program participation from fiscal years 2011 through 2013 and the extent to which ICE provides oversight to help ensure cost-effective program implementation, and (2) the extent that ICE measured the performance of the ATD program for fiscal years 2011 through 2013. GAO analyzed ICE and ATD program data, reviewed ICE documentation, and interviewed ICE and ATD contractor officials. What GAO Recommends GAO recommends that ICE analyze data to monitor ERO field offices' implementation of guidance and require the collection of data on the Technology-only component. DHS concurred with the recommendations. Details: Washington, DC: GAO, 2014. 46p. Source: Internet Resource: GAO-15-26: Accessed November 25, 2014 at: http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/666911.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/666911.pdf Shelf Number: 134254 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationImmigrant Detention (U.S.)Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)Immigration EnforcementUndocumented Citizens |