Hearing Lays Out Immigration Battle Ahead

Future of Detention Programs Divides Along Party Lines

By Daphne Eviatar 12/11/09 6:00 AM

(photo) Reps. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) and Mark Souder (R-Ind.) (house.gov)

A House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday morning highlighted the sharp divide in Congress over illegal immigration and what should be done about it, presaging the difficult fight ahead when Congress eventually begins to tackle proposals for comprehensive immigration reform.

The number of immigrants in government detention has more than doubled over the last ten years, with more than 360,000 detainees in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in the last year. As a result, ICE now operates the largest detention and supervised release system in the country, creating an unprecedented challenge for the agency and for immigrants seeking to challenge their detention. Detainees often face long waits for deportation hearings, and are increasingly transferred to prisons far from where they were apprehended, disrupting their connections with family members and lawyers who can help them.

Thursday’s hearing, ostensibly about how ICE should improve its immigrant detention system, underscored the fundamentally inconsistent positions of lawmakers who either view illegal immigrants as dangerous criminals that need to be locked up and ultimately deported, or as hapless men and women who only broke the law in the hopes of attaining the American dream: a better life for themselves and their families.

“I think the most effective immigration reform is to truly enforce the laws on the books,â€