05 Dec 09
According to a new report by Human Rights Watch, US authorities are transferring many thousands of detained immigrants away from their attorneys and family members in order to hinder them in their legal efforts to fight deportation.
The report: http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86789
Away from public view, immigrants face conditions as bad or worse than the criminal justice system, including physical abuse by guards, long periods of solitary confinement and unsanitary conditions (see report by the National Immigration Law Center, entitled, “A Broken System“ - http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/arrestdet/A-Broken-System-2009-07.pdf ). Little is ever known about the conditions and fate of the detainees, except when periodic news reports cover hunger strikes, riots or the deaths of immigrants who were denied medical care while in custody.
The new Human Rights Watch report noted that immigrants are often detained initially in a location near their place of residence, for example in New York or Los Angeles, where they have lived for decades and where their family members, employers, and attorneys also live. “Days or months later, with no notice,” the human rights organization says, “many of these immigrants are loaded onto planes for transport to detention centers in remote corners of states such as Texas, California, and Louisiana (the three states most likely to receive transfers),” the report found.
An analysis of the data obtained by Human Rights Watch show that over the 10 years between 1999 and 2008, 1.4 million detainee transfers occurred. In the first six months of 2008, for example, 53 percent of detainees were transferred at least once, and one in four were transferred multiple times, a fivefold increase from 1999.
“The transfers are devastating, absolutely devastating,” Rebecca Schreve, an immigration attorney in El Paso, Texas, said. Detainees “are loaded onto a plane in the middle of the night. They have no idea where they are, no idea what state they are in. I cannot overemphasize the psychological trauma to these people. What it does to their family members cannot be fully captured either. I have taken calls from seriously hysterical family members—incredibly traumatized people—sobbing on the phone, crying out, “I don’t know where my son or husband is!”
While immigrants have the right to legal representation, the report noted many are swept away before they can inform their attorneys about their relocation. As a result, detainees remain “lost” for days or weeks before their lawyers can track them down. The loss of crucial time can lead to missed filing deadlines and misplaced evidence and witness lists.
From: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/immi-d04.shtml
I think most would agree that illegal immigrants are illegal immigrants and that a country has to handle their illegal presence and enforce its laws. But are the disturbing U.S. policies and procedures highlighted in this Human Rights Watch report decent, acceptable or even necessary?
Can Human Rights Watch - and its reports - be useful for helping the U.S. to take a look at itself and at how far it may have strayed from core humanitarian values that many American citizens may not realise are being ignored. Or can reports such as these be dismissed as having limited credibility?
