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07-01-2006, 10:38 PM #1
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.''Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn
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07-01-2006, 11:03 PM #2
Then find some more "space" in Miami to hold these people who have entered our country illegally. Are thay going to tell us that in all of South Florida they cannot find a place to hold these people ?? Give US a break.
Figure out something because it's the responsibility of our government to PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Brother.Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
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07-01-2006, 11:12 PM #3
I know where there are some empty trailers just waiting to be trashed.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — Mobile homes worth hundreds of millions of dollars are deteriorating in a muddy field in Arkansas and may never be used to house victims of Hurricane Katrina because of a dispute over where to install them, federal officials acknowledged Monday
Only about 2,700 of the 25,000 mobile homes ordered at a cost of $850 million have been installed, and at least 10,000 are sitting in Hope, Ark., according to documents and statements from Federal Emergency Management Agency officials. Though about 55,000 Louisiana families are still waiting for a manufactured housing unit, the mobile homes may never be used because FEMA regulations prohibit them from being installed in flood-prone coastal areas, federal officials said.
Members of a Senate committee investigating the response to Hurricane Katrina called the mobile home episode an appalling example of government stumbling.
.It's like hell vomited and the Bush administration appeared.
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07-01-2006, 11:12 PM #4The government knows it's wrong to do this, and they're doing it anyway.''
….there are spikes in population, but usually these numbers stabilize after a short period of time.''
The federal facility does not have to abide by local fire-safety capacity rules, a Miami-Dade County fire official said.
To compound all that by keeping them in cattle-like conditions of overcrowding is unconscionable.''"Liberty CANNOT be preserved without general knowledge among people" John Adams (August 1765)
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07-01-2006, 11:23 PM #5
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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.''
DEPORT THEM QUICKLY or SEND THEM TO IRAQ or AFGHANISTAN and let them see what it's really like to live in hardship Give them a taste of the living conditions some of our troops have to bear!Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
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07-01-2006, 11:30 PM #6DEPORT THEM QUICKLY or SEND THEM TO IRAQ or AFGHANISTAN and let them see what it's really like to live in hardship Give them a taste of the living conditions some of our troops have to bear!Join our efforts to Secure America's Borders and End Illegal Immigration by Joining ALIPAC's E-Mail Alerts network (CLICK HERE)
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07-01-2006, 11:39 PM #7
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Immigrant advocates have been highly critical of the elevated population levels at Krome.
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07-02-2006, 01:14 AM #8
We need to give our guys in Iraq a break -- So let's "induct" these people into the military and send them over there, if they don't like it here.
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