Detention should not be a growth business
February 12, 2009


Prison management is expanding as the U.S. government seeks help from private companies in detaining immigrants being ordered out of the country.

The federal government spent $9 million on hunting fugitive immigrants in 2003, according to a new study by the Migration Policy Institute. But by last year the budget for such efforts had mushroomed to $218 million. In five years' work, $625 million was spent, and the government captured 96,000 immigrants, the report found.

New places had to be found to keep them. On an average day, about 33,000 immigrants are held in detention.



A German immigrant reportedly was kept in isolation and later died. An untreated staph infection apparently contributed to the detainee's death. More than 80 immigrants have died in U.S. custody in the past five years. Detainees in Texas immigrant prisons rioted recently because of a lack of medical care.

More than three-quarters of the captured immigrants in the period studied by the Migration Policy Institute had no criminal convictions.

Some immigrants held in detention are families, people who have applied for asylum in the United States to escape horrors in their own countries and await hearings.

Used to be, many immigrants were allowed to remain free until an immigration judge could rule on their cases. But too many people determined to be in the country illegally never left.

About five years ago, immigration officials announced an intention to crack down. Initial efforts were to focus on immigrants with criminal records. "Fugitive apprehension teams" were set up through Immigration and Customs Enforcement. More than 100 such teams exist now. But when the teams couldn't meet their quotas for criminal immigrants captured, the net was widened. Increasingly, raids were conducted at businesses.







A good way to approach the immigration problem would be to rework numbers allowed legal entry, to control the borders better and to legalize those undocumented immigrants who have acted like good citizens. Those changes, in addition to deporting those with no valid reason to stay, would substantially decrease the illegal immigrant population, nipping the need for new prisons.





Mary Sanchez's e-mail address is msanchez@kcstar.com.

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