Obama Administration's Immigration Detention Reform Includes Ending Family Detention at Hutto
The Obama administration announced plans on August 8, 2009 to restructure the nation's much-criticized immigration detention system by strengthening federal oversight and seeking to standardize conditions in a 32,000-bed system now scattered throughout 350 local jails, state prisons and contract facilities.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton announced that ICE is undertaking a major overhaul of the agency's immigration detention system. "This change marks an important step in our ongoing efforts to enforce immigration laws smartly and effectively," said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. "We are improving detention center management to prioritize health, safety and uniformity among our facilities while ensuring security, efficiency and fiscal responsibility."
Morton said his goal within three to five years is to hold noncriminal immigrants in a smaller number of less prison-like settings. Those facilities would meet federal guidelines ensuring access to pro bono legal counsel, medical care and grievance proceedings, he said.
"We need a system that is open, transparent and accountable," Morton said. "With these reforms, ICE will move away from our present decentralized jail approach to a system that is wholly designed for and based on civil detention needs and the needs of the people we detain."
The new approach comes after a massive detention buildup under President George W. Bush, an increase that civil liberties and immigrant advocacy groups say led to systemic abuse. Starting after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and accelerating as Washington took a get-tough approach to illegal immigration, ICE's detention system more than tripled in size. It now houses nearly 400,000 immigration violators a year.
Government investigators have also faulted ICE for delivering substandard and sometimes fatal medical care, providing insufficient food and clothing, and barring detainees from making even a single phone call to a lawyer. Many detainees are transferred to remote facilities, hundreds of miles from lawyers, even though some judges do not allow hearings by teleconference.
Morton will assign a federal overseer to each of ICE's 23 largest detention centers and set up a detention oversight unit within ICE's Office of Professional Responsibility that will report directly to him. He also will create an Office of Detention Policy and Planning, headed by Dora Schriro, a former Arizona corrections official and aide to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, to redesign detention operations.
The ACLU of Southern California has reservations about the proposed reforms because of their limitations. “Though this is a good first step, serious problems with the detention system persist. Unless the federal government creates enforceable regulations, and ceases to detain people who present neither a danger nor flight risk, there will remain an unchecked, shadow incarceration system inviting abuse,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants’ rights and national security for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California (ACLU of Southern California, August 6, 2009).
ICE will stop sending families to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center near Austin, a 512-bed former state prison. The Bush administration highlighted the family detention facility as a symbol of its immigration crackdown efforts, but it became a lightning rod for litigation over the government's treatment of children.
ICE will instead begin relocating the 127 remaining detainees at Hutto, Morton said. Some will be transferred to an 84-bed former nursing home in Pennsylvania, the Berks Family Shelter Care facility, while others will be considered for programs that do not require detention, such as home monitoring, he said. He said no deadline to complete the moves has been set.
Comment by the ACLU regarding ending family detention is favorable; however, the organization looks for broader reforms. "Ending family detention at Hutto is extremely welcome and long overdue, and the American Civil Liberties Union looks forward to working with DHS to revamp the broken immigration detention system," said Joanne Lin, Legislative Counsel with the ACLU. "However, in order to effectuate meaningful reform of the immigration detention system, DHS must issue legally binding and enforceable detention standards, which DHS has refused to do for years, and must provide basic due process to ensure that individuals – including U.S. citizens – are not being inappropriately locked up, often for prolonged periods of time."
Most shark experts agree that the "immigration shark" discussed below is far more
dangerous than the species pictured here.
NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Closes Three Immigration Firms for Allegedly Defrauding Clients
The shark is back. We pulled a favorite picture from the newsletter's archives in honor of Andrew Cuomo, New York Attorney General. Andrew Cuomo is chasing immigration sharks. On August 20, 2009, he shut down three firms, two on Long Island and one in New York City, for allegedly defrauding immigration clients.
We are pleased to feature a scholarly work in this month's section on immigration books. The title brings to mind Bob Dylan's song, Knockin' on Heaven's Door. The book however, is more controversial. Borjas is a Harvard economist whose thesis is the benefits of recent immigration have been exaggerated and the cost to the U.S. economy high.
In the course of the book, Borjas carefully analyzes immigrants' skills, national origins, welfare use, economic mobility, and impact on the labor market, and he makes groundbreaking use of new data to trace current trends in ethnic segregation. He also evaluates the implications of the evidence for the type of immigration policy that the U.S. should pursue. Some of his findings are dramatic.
Borjas considers the moral arguments against restricting immigration and writes eloquently about his own past as an immigrant from Cuba. A Cuban refugee who greatly benefited from the political privileges and economic opportunities associated with living in the United States, he provides a comprehensive account of the economic impact of immigration on this country. In framing his argument that U.S. immigration policy needs to be changed, he considers the skills of the immigrants, their national origin, the impact on the labor market, the costs and benefits associated with immigration, welfare use, economic mobility, ethnic segregation, and the need for cultural and economic assimilation. He highlights his discussion by pointing out that the key issues to be addressed are how many immigrants should be admitted to the United States each year and what skills they should have.
If you are a regular reader of this newsletter, you may not agree with Borjas's conclusion, but this book is featured in the spirit of reading broadly and thinking critically.
Could You Pass the Naturalization Test?
Test your knowledge:
How many members are there of the House of Representatives?
How many times can a member of the House be reelected?
Answers:
There are 435 members of the House of Representatives.
There are no term limits for members of the House.
PROCESSING TIMES & CASE STATUS
· To view processing times and your case status, click one of the links below to connect to the correct U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services information page.
It is published by the Law Offices of Curtis Pierce, 213-327-0044.
Disclaimer: The information contained in this newsletter is analysis and commentary of a general nature. Nothing in this newsletter applies to a specific case nor does it constitute legal advice.
Schedule appointment: For legal advice on your case, please schedule an appointment with Curtis Pierce, Certified Specialist, Immigration & Nationality Law, The State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization.
“The only title in our democracy superior to that of President (is) the title of citizen”.
Former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis. (In the case Ng Fung Ho v. White, 259 U.S. 276, 284 (1922), Justice Brandeis wrote that deportation can deprive an individual of "life, or of all that makes life worth living.")
In the words of President Kennedy,
the United States is a "nation of immigrants."
IMMIGRATION LAW E-NEWSLETTER curtis f. pierce
Attorney At Law
certified specialist, immigration & nationality law the state bar of california board of legal specialization
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