More than 400,000 people a year are detained by immigration officials in the United States – including undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants who run afoul of the law and asylum seekers who come fleeing persecution – but according to a report released today by Amnesty International, conditions are often deplorable and detainees are routinely denied due process.
It’s the second major human rights report in a week to indict the nation’s immigration detention system. The system is attracting increased attention in part because the number of people in detention has grown exponentially in recent years and in part because of dozens of in-custody deaths and a lawsuit over the treatment of children.
“We have already made appreciable gains in improving the detention system by adopting detention standards and monitoring the compliance with those standards,” said Cori Bassett. “All that said, the care and treatment that some detainees receive does not yet meet our shared expectation of excellence, and we can all agree this is a reason for concern.”
“Tens of thousands of people languish in immigration detention facilities every year without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted,” said the report, titled “Jailed Without Justice: Immigration Detention in the USA.”………
The detention center is one of several operated by the profitable Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private corrections company in the U.S.
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Confined in prisonlike facilities, detainees are held under civil immigration laws, under which they are neither accused nor convicted of a crime, the report said.
With no right to counsel, they are often subject to mandatory detention without the right to judicial review, and face challenges in their use of habeas corpus.
The fish rots from the head down. Once you start down the slippery slope…etc. The Bushco standards of Human Rights which were defined by the Bush Torture Program migrated to the worst of the worst of American Law Enforcement. ICE…Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The tactics are similar, oppress and disempower people by diminishing humanity and sowing fear. The overall philosophy is the same. Brown People are less, they are Other, they do not deserve to be treated with respect or humanity. They are not people. They are a problem. A problem not to be dealt with humanely or with respect for human rights and dignity. But with the cold efficiency of processing and storing a product, not men, women and children.
New Homeland (ugh) Security Chief Napolitano, a governor from one of the states hit hard by worker migration,
“This cannot wait. This is a situation that should be taken care immediately,” she said.
In the meantime…all we have is another just cause for outrage.
“America should be outraged by the scale of human rights abuses occurring within its own borders,” said Larry Cox, director of Amnesty International USA.
PLEASE HEAD OVER TO DKOS AND REC THIS DIARY!
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been going on for years. raids to “render” people right here, men, women and children. families separated.
once “detainee” accepted by public for suspected terrorists, why should not bush expand this illegal status of “detainee” for immigrants?
that’s one reason i say prisoner, causes prisoner is a recognized legal status with constitutional rights. none of this fucking detainee BS.
oh, now i feel better getting off a little rant. thanks B.
on this subject at the orange from amnesty i.
Immigrants Locked Away in Legal Limbo
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…
and shit.
A whole ‘nother big area I now have to work at getting my stupid ostrich-recovery brain into gear about and get up to speed.
Since… I am who I am, and I live in Houston, and I used to work here, way back in 1992.
are paid little, pick our food, do our landscaping, etc. and who, generally, are picked up in the middle of the night, often separated from their families and some not even knowing what happened to another of their family. They’re put into the “concentration camps” that were built by Halliburton/KBR, left there, and I’ve read have also suffered torture and medical neglect! Many have died in these containments.
Amnesty International has noted some aspects:
emphasis mine
Just another disgusting statement for this great country!!!!