Critics of mass detentions of immigrants dismayed by push to expand system

~ On any given day, the system detains about 21,000 people.

NEW YORK -- The sweeping immigration bills in Congress would add many thousands of beds to the patchwork network of detention facilities that hold illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers -- places that critics say are over-costly and under-regulated.

Already, activists say, far too many nonthreatening people are held for too long in demoralizing conditions.

"I'm not against homeland security," said Edward Neepaye, a pastor and human-rights campaigner from Liberia who was detained in New Jersey for four months. "But the greatest nation on earth must come up with a remedy that accords immigrants some respect, rather than throwing them in jail like animals."

On any given day, the system overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains about 21,000 people -- most for a few weeks, some for years. Some, like Neepaye, are asylum seekers; others are illegal immigrants or foreigners who had U.S. residence cards but face deportation because of run-ins with the law.

Hodgepodge system

More than 200,000 people are detained over the course of a year in any of three types of facilities -- eight run by ICE itself, six run by for-profit companies that are eager for more business, and 312 county and municipal jails that have won lucrative federal contracts and hold about 57 percent of the detainees. Advocacy groups call it a hodgepodge system that is expensive and difficult to monitor.

"ICE hasn't done a good job with the facilities they directly manage, much less the ones they contract out," said Judith Greene, a New York-based prison expert. "Talking about doubling or tripling this system, without some kind of restructuring, is a recipe for a nightmare."

ICE defends its performance, saying it has reduced the average detention from 90 days to 20 days as it speeds deportation proceedings. Gary Mead, an assistant director of ICE's detention and deportation division, said the agency has 300 inspectors who examine each facility annually to ensure standards are upheld; at least two have lost contracts because of shortcomings.

In Congress, criticism of the detention system had little impact as both chambers proposed major expansions in their immigration bills. The Senate bill, though more moderate on some issues, proposed the biggest increase -- 20 new facilities with 20,000 beds.

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE's parent agency, says it needs 35,000 more detention beds to hold all the illegal immigrants awaiting deportation. As of Dec. 30, there were 544,000 such people who had absconded; ICE blamed the bed shortage for fueling "an unofficial mini-amnesty" for high-risk aliens.

Detainees, as non-citizens, have no automatic right to legal counsel. The majority, who are indigent and without local connections, depend on scarce pro bono assistance or do without, reducing their odds of winning appeals.

Many detention facilities -- notably those in the Southwest -- are geographically remote, with few pro bono attorneys nearby, and detainees often are transferred far from their home base. Other hurdles include inadequate law libraries in some facilities and steep telephone charges, lawyers said.

Janet Curley, as part of a church-based volunteer program, has been visiting detained asylum seekers in Elizabeth, N.J., for the past year, conversing by telephone through a window.

"It's a lifeline," she said "They know there's at least one person who cares about them."

The detainees, she said, "are essentially warehoused" -- without opportunities to exercise outdoors or take English-language classes. At many detention centers, watching TV is the primary pastime.

Mead said some centers offer anger-management and drug-education classes, but a broader array of programs is considered impractical because turnover is so rapid. Even without programs, the average daily cost per detainee is about $90, ICE said -- well above the cost for federal and state prison inmates.

Neepaye was detained at Elizabeth in 2003 after fleeing Liberia. He feared for his life after condemning human rights abuses in a war between rebels and warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor.

Despite some prominent American contacts, Neepaye said he was placed in handcuffs at Newark International Airport and interrogated for hours.

"It was a torturous experience -- being treated like a common criminal," Neepaye said by telephone from Rogers, Minn., where he lives with his wife and four sons, busy as a pastor and businessman.

He recalled the tedium, the lack of privacy, the despair of other detainees who -- unlike himself -- had no one outside advocating for them and no idea how long they would be held.

At the request of some House Democrats, the General Accounting Office agreed this month to investigate alleged mistreatment of detainees and examine how ICE monitors their conditions. There have been numerous complaints of poor nutrition and medical care.

"We've had asylum seekers who endured horrendous conditions in their home countries, and they come here, past the Statue of Liberty, and get thrown in some hellish jail that mirrors the experience they just escaped," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

During the Senate's immigration debate, Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., proposed an amendment to improve conditions for detained asylum-seekers. The measure died after Homeland Security officials said its provisions would be burdensome.

"Tens of thousands of non-criminal detainees are held in maximum security prisons and jails for months, often in the same cellblocks or cells with hardened criminals," said Lieberman, who urged ICE to make greater use of alternatives to detention.

Advocacy groups say only high-risk illegal immigrants should be confined, while most other detainees could be released, at huge savings, if ICE expanded pilot programs that have succeeded -- through close supervision -- in persuading people to show up in court.

"It's outrageous how many people are detained who don't need to be," said Judy Rabinowitz of the American Civil Liberties Union.

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Immigration and Customs Enforcement: http://www.ice.gov