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Illegal US immigrant detention practices questioned. Part 1
Published: 12 March, 2010, 13:04
Edited: 19 March, 2010, 03:17
TAGS: Scandal, Human rights, Law, USA
Barack Obama has vowed this week to overhaul the American immigration system, and with half a million people entering the US illegally every year, the number being deported is growing.
There is criticism that officials dealing with the issue often resort to questionable detention methods.
Back in October 1994, the US started “Operation Gatekeeper” by building a wall to prevent people crossing from Mexico to the United States as they had previously done.
By some estimates, half a million people cross into the United States through Mexico illegally every year, and when some are caught they come to a “best in the nation” Otay, San Diego, detention facility before they are kicked out of America.
“If they're a citizen of Mexico, they're going to get a bus to the border,” outlined Field Office Director Robin Baker. “Or if they're from say, Europe, we're going to get them a plane ticket, and they're going to go back home.”
Run partially by the US federal agency known as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the detention facility for illegal immigrants holds nearly 700 foreign detainees at any given time. ICE publicly calls it a "field office", but there are also facilities that ICE may not want you to know about.
“Such facilities are like every other building. They look like offices, strip malls, federal buildings, anywhere – except inside, the immigration services imprison people,” revealed Ahilan Arulanantham from the American Civil Liberties Union.
They are called “subfield offices” and nearly 200 of them are believed to be stashed in plain sight throughout the country.
Even government officials that work for immigration services learn this information only in due course.
"It's a set of holding facilities, basically prison tanks, to hold people, immigration detainees in there,” Arulanantham explained.
“Even though it was meant to keep people there about 12 hours, in fact, the government was keeping people there for weeks, sometimes even for months. As a result, people were going without showers, without brushing their teeth, without access to talk to their lawyers, without being able to talk to their families, sometimes months at a time stuck in limbo,” exposed Ahilan Arulanantham.
For obvious reasons, those subfield offices are essentially “secret”, particularly in relation to how detainees even get there.
12.03.2010, 10:50
1 comment
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The average US citizen would appear to be either ignorant or too self interested to notice that this is the 'thin end of the wedge'. The USA have learned that, as the worlds only true superpower, they can do almost whatever they want to people of other countries, whether this be to invade thier land, steal thier resources, change their governments, set up prisons on thier soil, take their citizens away without trial, or to torture and humiliate them with impunity. Some may object but non can stop them, let alone punish them. Soon this way of doing things will seem normal to them. However, on the domestic front, and within a generation, practices that undermine centuries of laws protecting the rights of the citizen will be favoured. The 'might is right' mentalitly will be the rule not the exception, and it will be backed up by the full state mechanisms. We already see many legal protection mechanisms and legal barriers (which have always served to ensure the rights of the citizen) disposed of under various titles, usually under the heading of national security, or the war-on-terror. Traditionally, states moving towards totalitarianism have moved against minority groups first (such as immigrants both legal and illegal), before eventually moving against / controlling / restricting more 'mainstream' citizens. When that in the USA, those ignorant and self interested people, and their children, who currently turn a blind eye towards what their own government is doing will discover the true meaning of the term 'you will reap what you sow'.
having been in ICE holding facilities in Arizona in 2009 for 4 months I know full well the abuses of the system , everything from being denied medical care to being held in county jail facilities as a criminal and not once being able to go outside.surprisingly enough i never had the opportunity too plead my case before deportation, even after having been in the states for 26 yrs . although i thought at first the hopelessness of my situation i now think they actually did me a favor by deporting me, Im very happy to be out of a country that has a broken system
This story is yet another in a barrage of sob stories put out by the organized, corporate funded pro-amnesty, pro-illegal alien, and pro-open borders crowd. First of all, the people in any ICE detention center are people who believe they are above US law; not just immigration law, but any law that would prevent them from getting whatever it is that they want. There are somewhere between 12 and 30 million of these people in the US today. The problem has become so large that it is time to get really tough on the illegal aliens and ANYONE who aids and abets their continued presence in our country. We currently permit 1.5 million legal immigrants to enter our country every year; more than all the developed countries in the world combined. We can no longer tolerate the huge numbers of legal immigrants coming to our country much less those who are here illegally. In my view whatever happens to illegal aliens caught by ICE is too good for them. I would agree to far worse treatment of any illegal alien found in the US. I would also support very harsh penalties for ANYONE found giving them anything of value, or helping them in any way to enter or remain in the country. The welfare of my family today and my children's welfare in the future is at stake.