Thread: Coverage & Access | Immigrant Women Detained at Arizona

Coverage & Access | Immigrant Women Detained at Arizona Detention Centers Receive Inadequate Medical Care, Face Mistreatment, Study Finds

Coverage & Access | Immigrant Women Detained at Arizona Detention Centers Receive Inadequate Medical Care, Face Mistreatment, Study Finds
[Jan 21, 2009]
About 300 female immigrants who were detained at three federal immigration centers in Arizona between August 2007 and August 2008 were not provided with adequate or timely medical care or faced extensive forms of mistreatment, according to a University of Arizona study released on Jan. 13, the New York Times reports. The study was jointly conducted by researchers from the university's Southwest Institute of Research on Women and James E. Rogers College of Law.

In the study, researchers examined the conditions at the three facilities while the detainees awaited their deportation proceedings. The study found that the women were treated aggressively by immigration authorities and often experienced severe hardships, such as inadequate prenatal care and treatment for cancer, ovarian cysts and other severe medical conditions. In one case, the study found that a woman who was experiencing severe abdominal pain was told by the facility's staff to "exercise and watch her diet." After about six months, it was determined that the woman had a large cyst; immigration officials immediately released the woman with no money or health insurance to treat the cyst, according to the Times.

Growing Pressure
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been under growing pressure from federal regulators to improve conditions for detainees. In the last three years, the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office have issued reports criticizing the standard of care at the centers. In September 2008, ICE announced new regulations that would improve conditions at its detention centers, but the new rules are not scheduled to be fully implemented until 2010, the Times reports.

According to the Times, nearly 3,000 women currently are being held at such centers nationwide, which are managed by the ICE bureau but mostly operated by private companies. The three centers identified in the University of Arizona study were being operated by the Pinal County Sheriff's Department and the Corrections Corporation of America, the Times reports.

Comments
Katrina Kane, who directs Arizona detention and removal operations at ICE, said the conclusions of the University of Arizona study were based on inconclusive accounts from a selected number of detainees and their representatives. Kane said, "Reports such as this, while alleging to be unbiased, do great harm to the public's understanding of the complex issues involved in immigration law enforcement," adding, "We strictly enforce all national ICE standards and if we find those standards are not being met and we feel the deficiencies are not being corrected, we locate our detainees to other facilities."

Nina Rabin, the study's lead author and director of the Southwest Institute of Research on Women, said that detainees, former detainees and their lawyers all recounted similar patterns of widespread mistreatment when being interviewed for the study. Rabin, who also is an immigration attorney, said that many immigrant advocacy group representatives to whom she spoke said that the mistreatment of women at the detention centers was not unusual. She said, "We were pretty shocked to learn about all the ways in which life is made endlessly difficult for these women," including those who were pregnant or already had given birth (Frosch, New York Times, 1/21).

The report is available online (.pdf).




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http://www.kaisernetwork.org/daily_repo ... R_ID=56537

There's no reason to keep them in limbo for up to 6 months. Process them as fast as can be done and ship them out. ICE would do well to look over Ike's methods. DON'T drop them at the border, bus them much further inland into Mexico. The others are flown back, don't drop mexicans off at our border - drop them off at the mexico-guatemala border - much harder for them to get back here.