Krome crowd raises concerns
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/ne ... 936486.htm
Posted on Fri, Jun. 30, 2006
IMMIGRATION
Krome crowd raises concerns
Amid complaints from immigrants at the Krome detention center, officials acknowledged that the facility is holding about 120 more detainees than its previously stated capacity.
BY CASEY WOODS
cwoods@MiamiHerald.com
Immigrants held at Krome say they're having to sleep on cots crowded around bunk beds and that their health and safety are being jeopardized because the federal detention center is holding one-fifth more people than its stated capacity -- a situation one detainee called ``a living hell.''
''The overcrowded, dirty conditions are unbelievable, and there's a lot of tension and people are fighting because there is no space to move,'' said the detainee, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. ``It's totally out of control. The government knows it's wrong to do this, and they're doing it anyway.''
The detainee was among those who were moved out of the West Miami-Dade center last year because of hurricane damage, and has spent time in several detention facilities around the country. In a phone interview, he said that 30 of the 100 or so people assigned to his living area didn't have beds, with most of them sleeping on cots. But in some cases, he said, even the standard cots ran out, and detainees were sleeping on plastic platforms called ``boats.''
Other detainees had similar complaints.
''It's really incredible . . . to see how overcrowded it is here,'' another detainee, who also asked not to be identified, wrote to his lawyer. ``People sneezing, coughing. Some don't cover their mouth when doing it, and a lot of them [are] careless by dropping paper trash anywhere. All those type of stuff may [affect] our health.''
Immigration officials acknowledge that the population at Krome has swelled to approximately 700 -- a significant increase from the previously stated capacity of 580. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Barbara Gonzalez said that the increased number of detainees did not pose a problem, however.
''The current population . . . falls well within our detention standards,'' she said in an e-mailed statement. ``During certain enforcement activities, there are spikes in population, but usually these numbers stabilize after a short period of time.''
The Miami Herald petitioned for access to tour Krome almost four months ago, and ICE officials said they would review the request and respond. They haven't yet done so.
ADVOCATES CRITICAL
Immigrant advocates have been highly critical of the elevated population levels at Krome.
''We have heard that the number of detainees neared 800 at one point in the last few weeks, and it's affecting every aspect of their daily lives,'' said Cheryl Little, the executive director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center. ``It's chaotic, and it's presenting serious health and safety hazards.''
ICE would not provide specifics about the exact number of detainees at the former missile base, which was set up as a detention center in the 1980s to initially accommodate about 300 people. Its capacity remains an open question. The federal facility does not have to abide by local fire-safety capacity rules, a Miami-Dade County fire official said.
Gonzalez maintained that the facility has a ''soft capacity,'' meaning that its population can be expanded at will from a ''rated'' capacity to an ''operational'' or ''emergency'' capacity. She would not provide details on what population levels those entailed, saying that is sensitive law enforcement information that could not be released.
This is the first instance, at least in recent years, that immigration officials have made such a distinction to The Miami Herald about different capacities at Krome, which has been plagued by allegations of sexual abuse, overcrowding and poor treatment of detainees in the past.
Other immigration attorneys said they did not have specific information about the number of detainees at Krome, but decried ICE officials' refusal to confirm the facility's current population.
''There are issues of fire, disease and general occupational safety, and if capacity is just used as guidance and not abided by, then what is the use of having one?'' said immigration lawyer Tammy Fox-Isicoff. ``The fact that they're just not saying how many people are in there is a red flag.''
Last year, Michael Rozos, an ICE field officer who leads detention and removal operations in Florida, said that the capacity was 580.
GAINED ACCREDITATION
Krome was also accredited by the American Correctional Association in 2005, which marked the first time that the center was recognized by detention facility professionals since accusations of mistreatment tainted Krome in the 1990s.
The accreditation did not stipulate a specific capacity, said Eric Shultz, a spokesman for the American Correctional Association.
After a 1996 federal immigration law toughened enforcement, Krome held more than 900 immigrants, but those numbers fell dramatically after federal authorities began investigating allegations of sexual abuse of women detainees, who said they were offered freedom in exchange for sex.
Gonzalez cited increased enforcement activities for the current population jump at Krome, though she said that last month's closure of a facility in Central Florida was also a factor. The Bradenton facility housed about 300 detainees, many of whom were transferred to Krome, Gonzalez said.
Little's clients are reporting shortages of beds, bedding and bathroom facilities. She expressed concern about a possible result of higher population levels at Krome.
''We do not want the Krome detainees to be transferred to remote county jails,'' she said. ``The answer is to release those who are clearly eligible for parole.''
In addition to apprehending more people, ICE also is releasing fewer of those detainees who in the past might have been allowed out on a supervised release program -- among them many asylum seekers who were deemed to have a credible fear of persecution in their homelands.
''They're keeping people detained for punitive reasons, because they're trying to force them to go back to their home countries or to discourage them from exercising their right to pursue their cases,'' said Miami immigration attorney Ira Kurzban, a past national president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. ``To compound all that by keeping them in cattle-like conditions of overcrowding is unconscionable.''
