New report blasts U.S. on immigrant detainees
Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer

More than 400,000 people a year are detained by immigration officials in the United States - including undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants who run afoul of the law and asylum seekers who come fleeing persecution - but according to a report released today by Amnesty International, conditions are often deplorable and detainees are routinely denied due process.

It’s the second major human rights report in a week to indict the nation’s immigration detention system. The system is attracting increased attention in part because the number of people in detention has grown exponentially in recent years and in part because of dozens of in-custody deaths and a lawsuit over the treatment of children.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last month ordered her department to examine all aspects of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and hired a special assistant, Dora Schriro, to oversee detention and removal conditions.

A spokeswoman for ICE, as the immigration enforcement agency is known, acknowledged Tuesday that concerns have been raised about the treatment of immigration detainees.

“We have already made appreciable gains in improving the detention system by adopting detention standards and monitoring the compliance with those standards,â€