Some Facts About Immigrant Detention**

What is Immigrant Detention? 

Immigrant detention is called “detention” because detainees are not being held for criminal charges.  Immigrants are the only group of people in the United States that are routinely held in jail for civil offenses.  Paradoxically, while immigrant detainees are held for lesser offenses, they can be held indefinitely, and they do not have the same legal protections, such as the right to free legal counsel, as people who have been charged with crimes. 

People detained by the INS (Immigration & Naturalization Service) fall into three different major categories. 

1. People seeking asylum in the United States that have suffered persecution in other countries who arrived in the US without proper documents. 
2. People who have overstayed a visa, or committed other immigration violations;
3. Any non-citizens (including people that have a green card) who have been convicted of a crime at any time in the past.  In other words, immigrants who have already paid their debt to society get punished a second time, and can actually been detained indefinitely for a crime they have already done time for. 

Who is Being Detained?

While immigrants from all over the world are detained, the post-9/11 enforcement of immigration law has shown just how much of the INS/FBI use racial profiling in its enforcement practices.  For example, while millions of people living in the United States are here on Visa violations, the Justice Department has openly decided to focus its efforts on Visa violators from Arab, South Asian, and Muslim communities. 

How Many People are Detained?

The INS has the largest number of armed officers with arrest powers in the United States.  No other federal agency arrests as many people in one year.  Since the 1996 Immigration Laws (the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Anti-Terrorist and Effective Death Penalty Act), the number of immigrants in detention nearly quadrupled to between 20,000 and 25,000.  Since September 11th, the INS has also picked up at least 1200-2000 people from Arab, South Asian and Muslim backgrounds.  Before September 11th, the INS did not actively seek out most immigration violators.  This has changed drastically in the past year. 

Does Immigrant Detention Make Us Safer? 

Detention certainly does not make any of the thousands of families that have been torn apart by detention and deportation safer.  The cooperation of the INS/FBI with local government agencies has also paralyzed immigrant communities from sending their children to school, going to the hospital, and speaking out about abusive relationships, and other things that affect the health and safety of everyone.  And it must be stated that none of the hundreds of detainees that community groups in New York/New Jersey have been in contact with have been charged with anything related to September 11th.

Who profits from immigrant detention? 

The US now spends more than $35 billion a year maintaining its 2 million prisoners, for which immigrants are the fastest growing portion.  It cost approximately $70 a day per to hold one detainee in detention.  Altogether, prior to September 11, taxpayers were spending over $875 million to detain and deport immigrants held by the INS.  It is unknown how much that figure has risen to today.  Needless to say some people are making a lot of money on the misery of others.  For example, after September 11th, the CEO of Cornell Corrections, one of the companies that runs for-profit detention facilities, said “It’s clear that since September 11th there’s a heightened focus on detention.  So I would say that’s positive . . . The Federal business is the best business for us and . . . September 11 is increasing that business.”   

Post 9-11 Detention in Focus: Conditions in Detention

• In places like Passaic County Jail, the jail, the dormitories where INS prisoners were being held was often far over capacity.  The use of triple bunks for detainees became a regular habit.  This overcrowding is good for no one in the facility, including INS prisoners.  The jail as a whole is completely dirty and unhygienic.  Detainees that we work with whom have been held in other facilities in New Jersey say that Passaic is one of the worst. 

• INS prisoners, especially Post-911 INS prisoners in Passaic County Jail, are often harassed by the guards because of their race, religion, and immigration status.  Religious practices and religious dietary habits are still not followed and respected by Passaic County Jail.  Sheriff Speziale responded to this on Martin Luther King day by stating that this was a jail not a hotel.

• There have been reports of beating of INS prisoners.  Furthermore, Passaic County jail has used police dogs to transfer INS prisoners to different parts of the jail.  Sometimes these dogs are used to threaten or scare the INS prisoners.  Shortly after the Stop the Disappearances Campaign’s MLK day rally; Passaic County Jail curbed the use of dogs for a few months.  However more recently, the dogs have returned.

• INS prisoners waiting to go to court are transferred to the bullpen early in the morning before going to court.  In some cases, people that were not called to court were kept in the bullpen for more than 10 hours

• INS prisoners with health problems have generally complained of poor attention to their health needs.  There are individuals that have heart problems and high blood pressure whose requests for medical treatment have been ignored by both the INS and the jail.  Furthermore the overcrowded and dirty conditions of detention are exacerbating health problems for people.  Detainees are rarely taken out for fresh air, some rarely see direct sunlight, rarely get exercise, and often cannot afford the clothes sold in the jail to keep them warm.  Families are no longer allowed to give clothes to their loved ones inside.

• There was recently a fire at Passaic County Jail.  News reports had stated that all prisoners were evacuated from the jail.  The detainees we are in contact with have said that they were not evacuated.

• The conditions of detention are so bad that many people frequently want to go on hunger strike.  When they do go on hunger strike they are intimidated more by the jail officials.

• There is a culture of violence and intimidation in the jail in which tensions are flared between the INS Detainees and the General population.  This culture is NOT discouraged by the jail staff.  INS detainees are often transferred in and out of General Population arbitrarily and sometimes punitively.  When they are transferred out of General Population to their own floor they are often ignored by the jail officials, when they are transferred into the jails General population they are often intimidated or harassed as the staff often looks on.  This is not a blanket condemnation of the general population of the jail and it must be stressed that the general population of the jail also suffers from overcrowding and bad conditions.

• Detainees are often arbitrarily transferred from one jail to another without informing the family or the attorney.  Low-income families that have taken time off of work to visit their families come to New Jersey jails only to hear that their relative has been transferred. 

• The locations of people detained by the INS are often far away from their families, making it a financial nightmare to visit their loved ones.  Furthermore, the jails/detention centers are often in far away localities in which the elected officials and administrators are inaccessible and unaccountable to the family members of those held in their jails.

 **Courtesy of the Campaign to Stop the Disappearances, Winter 2002.