[migrawatch-public] An Immigration Basic

Washington Post editorial: An Immigration Basic

An Immigration Basic
Broad reform may have to wait. Decent treatment at detention centers
does not.
Washington Post: Friday, July 6, 2007; A14
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/05/AR2007070501803_pf.html

COMPREHENSIVE immigration reform may lie dormant for a long while after
its failure in the Senate. But plenty of related issues deserve
attention on their own. One of them is how this country treats those who
violate American immigration laws, particularly the treatment given
those at immigrant detention centers.

The Justice Department, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the
American Bar Association and other groups negotiated a set of detention
standards that were adopted in 2000. The rules call for hygienic living
conditions, access to legal materials and counsel, and appropriate
medical care. Recently, critics have argued that Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE), the successor to the Immigration and Naturalization
Service, and related federal authorities are failing to meet those
standards.

Evidence they cite includes a study of five immigration detention
facilities released by the Department of Homeland Security's inspector
general earlier this year. Auditors found rodent and bug infestations,
out-of-date law libraries, limited access to legal aid services,
irregular medical care, undercooked chicken and filthy food trays. The
American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, has been tracking deaths at
detention centers, and it and other advocates claim to have documented
cases of blatant medical neglect. In one instance, a detainee's groin
cancer spread after his petitions for treatment were denied. ICE told
the New York Times last month that 62 inmates died in its custody from
2004 to 2006.

Immigration officials have maintained that problems uncovered by the
inspector general at the five facilities are not pervasive in the
system's 300-plus detention centers. Officials also dispute details of
some of the cases the ACLU and others are investigating. And they point
out that nearly a million detainees passed through the system from 2004
to 2006; inevitably, they say, some were seriously ill or injured.

But since ICE inspectors failed to catch many of the problems found by
the inspector general at the five facilities, the agency's claims about
the rest of the system aren't reassuring. And the stories the ACLU and
others have collected, if true, are horrifying even if rare. To ensure
that American immigrant detention facilities meet basic standards, ICE
should promulgate its detention rules as regulations, giving them the
force of law and providing a larger incentive to comply. It also should
commission an independent, comprehensive review of living conditions and
medical care. Then detainee advocates and ICE alike will have a better
picture of what is happening in these centers.

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