Thread: ICE Detention Reform Still a Touchy Subject

ICE Detention Reform Still a Touchy Subject; Alternatives: Helpful or Harmful?

Congressional Quarterly
December 10, 2009
By Rob Margetta, CQ Staff

Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention policy maintained its status as a lightning rod for controversy on the Hill during a Thursday House hearing, with lawmakers and witnesses laying out starkly opposed positions about how the agency should proceed.

On one side was Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Homeland Security Border, Maritime and Global Counterterrorism Subcommittee, who said she called the hearing to explore detention conditions and alternatives beyond the acquisition of more beds for illegal immigrants.

"It is important to recognize that of the thousands of detainees being held in our detention facilities, 58 percent of them have no known criminal history; however they are still held in expensive criminal detention facilities," she said.

On the other was subcommittee ranking Republican Mark Souder, of Indiana, who expressed "significant concerns" about the hearing's tone and said that illegal immigrants should not receive better treatment in custody than U.S. citizens awaiting trial.

"It is one thing to say that conditions should be more humane," he said. "However . . . the fact that aliens in detention facilities are there because they have violated U.S. law."

Jane Harman, D-Calif., wanted to know how President Obama's promise of a comprehensive immigration overhaul in the coming months would affect detention policy, and received competing answers from witnesses.

According to Brittney Nystrom, senior adviser to the immigration advocacy group the National Immigration Forum, revamping the immigration system could help solve detention issues.

"If comprehensive immigration reform contains a path to citizenship . . . the numbers that would have to be in detention and detention proceedings would be dramatically reduced."

But Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which promotes immigration enforcement, said only a "very robust credible detention system would be one of the ways to create the credibility for the government" to implement an immigration overhaul. He added that a "path to citizenship" also would not necessarily mean that detainees would be off the hook. Virtually all illegal immigrants have committed federal crimes beyond simply crossing the border, including fraudulently signing tax forms and using false documents, he said.

"The fact is a very large portion of the illegal population . . . will not be redefined as legal" even under current administration proposals, he said.

ICE was responsible for about 380,000 detainees in fiscal 2008 and 2009. During a typical day, the agency has about 32,000 in custody, and according to ICE data collected on Sept 1, about half of those were felons and one-tenth had committed violent crimes.

Sanchez said she called the subcommittee hearing to evaluate changes to the ICE detention system the Department of Homeland Security announced earlier this year.

Those planned improvements included the appointment of 23 federal detention managers, the centralization of all ICE detention contracts, the development of an assessment tool to identify illegal immigrants suitable for detention alternatives, the issuance of bids for two new detention facilities and a new system of determining where detainees will be held based on the flight risk or risk to the public safety that they pose.

Another change made at ICE was the creation of Office of Detention Policy and Planning. Dora Schriro served just a month as the office's head before leaving in October to become commissioner of New York City's Department of Correction. But when she testified at Thursday's hearing, she said she was able to tour 25 detention facilities across the country and found that ICE's decentralized management of its detention system -- stemming from the fact that most illegal immigrants are scattered across a network of local jails and contract facilities -- meant that the agency had trouble standardizing medical treatment, legal services and other conditions. Additionally, she said, ICE policies and practices incurred more costs than necessary.

However, Schriro added, "I earnestly believe that ICE wants to do better and I believe that it's moving in that direction."

ICE has announced a commitment to exploring detention alternatives, something Schriro said she supports. Nystrom struck a similar note. Alternatives such as GPS and telephone monitoring cost as little as $14 a day, compared to $100 per day to keep detainees in a prison environment, she said.

"ICE detains many individuals who pose no flight risk or danger to the community and thus should be released," she said.

Other witnesses were vehemently opposed to that notion, though.

"Our focus must be on the vital role of detention as a necessary tool to maintain the integrity of immigration enforcement," Krikorian said.

Kirkorian quoted Department of Justice figures saying that most illegal immigrants not held in detention flee upon receiving notices ordering them removed from the country. And until ICE begins prosecuting all absconders -- not just those with criminal records -- there is no reason for illegal immigrants to change that behavior, he said.

Experiments in alternatives are worth trying but probably won't work, he said, adding that detention "not only must continue but be expanded significantly."

Christopher L. Crane, vice president for detention and removal operations at the chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees representing ICE, took issue with ICE's proposals to winnow its detainees to a population of 85 to 90 percent illegal immigrants with criminal convictions and explore "low custody, open campus" centers where detainees would be able to move about with a greater degree of freedom.

Such environments are "clearly unsafe and unreliable," and union officials have been told they would hold both non-criminal detainees and those convicted of offenses including murder, rape, kidnapping, armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon, Crane said.

Rob Margetta can be reached at rmargetta@cq.com

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/En ... 56&start=4

Why are they being held so long, anyway? Deport them as the law dictates.

These stupid people think "Pathway to citizenship" will solve all immigration problems....well I don't think they believe it but they think we are stupid enough to believe their rehtoric.