Obama’s Immigration Conundrum



Posted on Feb 7, 2009


By Bill Boyarsky

One of the worst messes facing the Obama administration is the disgraceful state of the federal government’s immigration detention centers.

There are 350 of these centers around the country, housing almost 30,000 men, women and even children waiting for the Department of Homeland Security to decide whether or not they will be deported. Some have been in custody for years. The centers are overcrowded. Newspapers and academic and civil liberties studies tell of physically and mentally ill inmates being denied help.

Given that they are in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, you’d think these people would be suspected terrorists, threats to national security. Many, however, are guilty of nothing except seeking asylum from their native lands. Plenty have been swept up in the increasing number of raids by immigration officers. Some of these are actually here legally but are detained until they can prove it. Others have committed crimes, although some of the violations are so small they would have rated only a light fine or jail sentence in the criminal justice system.

As Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein wrote in The Washington Post last year, “Most are working-class men and women or indigent laborers who made mistakes that seem to pose no threat to national security. ...â€