Page Content | Events
Features
Newswire
Publish
Links
Regions
Other IMCs
Search
Leeds Bradford IMC | UK IMC | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Support Us

(((i))) Leeds Bradford

Read It. Write It. DO IT!

Injustice Behind Bars

By Karen Yi | 17.04.2009 20:49 | Anti-racism | Migration


An undocumented immigrant from Cameroon, Pauline Nbzie landed among the inmates of the Hudson County Correctional Center in New Jersey late last year due to her “illegal status.” Despite having no criminal record, Nbzie was detained for almost four months.

“They make you feel like you’ve killed so many people,” said Nbzie, whose hands, feet and waist were shackled when she was taken into detention. “I’ve been here [in the United States] for 20 years and I never committed a crime, I always pay taxes. But I was treated like a criminal.”

Stories like Nbzie’s are not uncommon. On an average day, more than 30,000 immigrants are held by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which is approximately triple the number in custody 10 years ago. ICE projects that about 440,000 will be detained in 2009, up from 311,213 detained in 2008.

A single mother of three, Nbzie was torn from her children and held in detention from October 2008 to January 2009. She was denied medical care, verbally harassed by guards and placed in substandard conditions. Suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes, Nbzie waited for two weeks before receiving medication. Forced to share a room with 40 other women, Nbzie said the food and living conditions were inhumane. She was given a uniform, two pairs of underwear and two bras for four months. “It was wash one, wear one,” Nbzie said. “It makes you feel less than a person.”

The healthcare conditions in immigration detention facilities have come under fire Human Rights Watch and the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, both organizations released reports on the topic in March.

And, according to Amnesty International, asylum seekers, trafficking victims, children and even U.S. citizens are detained under conditions that violate their human rights. A March Amnesty report, Jailed Without Justice, takes issue with the lack of separation between immigration detainees and convicts, “unnecessary and excessive” use of restraints, and inadequate access to legal council, healthcare and physical exercise.

Being undocumented is a civil offense, yet detainees are subject to mandatory detention without the right to judicial review. “No one in removal proceedings has a right to paid counsel,” said Kerri Talbot, associate director at the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AIL A), “They don’t have the same rights people have for criminal proceedings.” According to Amnesty, 84 percent of detainees are not able to attain legal aid.

“Immigrants are being persecuted under the full force of the Constitution of the laws, but they don’t have legal access or any of the rights under the constitution,” said Juan Carlos Ruiz, director of organizing at Youth Ministry for Peace and Justice.

“It’s the criminalization of immigrants,” said Alfonso Gonzales, a Latino Studies professor at New York University. The Migration Policy Institute found that 73 percent of detainees have no criminal records. “Naturally attributing and normalizing criminal characteristics to immigrants [is] the organizing principle behind all of this,” Gonzales said.

The Clinton administration widened the range of deportable offenses in 1996 through the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Minor offenses became grounds to deport both illegal — and legal — immigrants.

“That’s what allows more raids, border expansion [and] militarization,” Gonzales said, “It’s the assumption that the people that are [immigrating] are indeed national security threats.”

After Sept. 11, 2001, immigrants were cast as a threat to national security, resulting in the USA PATRIOT Act, the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and increased funding for programs like 287(g), giving local law enforcement the power to act as immigration agents.

The case of permanent resident Tirso Jose highlights the relationship between ICE and local jails and the trend toward the privatization of detention centers. Detained for possession of marijuana, Jose was sent to Rikers to serve a three-day sentence. While detained, ICE officials questioned his immigration status, putting him through four additional days of “hell” at Rikers, then transferred him to Varick Immigration Detention Center in Chelsea.

Locked up in a room with 53 other men, Jose was only allowed to leave the room for meals — three times a day. Forced to wear orange jumpsuits, detainees had 6 a.m. wake-up calls and solitary confinement as punishment and endured freezing room temperatures. Jose suffered from a heart condition, yet spent a week without his medication, dropping 35 pounds during the four months he was held. “They treat you like an animal,” he said, “it’s a business, they don’t care about you.”

Detention Watch Network (DWN) reports that there are more than 350 detention facilities nationwide. “ICE only owns and operates seven of them, about 16 are run by private prison corporations, and the rest are county or local jails which ICE contracts for bed space,” said Andrea Black, coordinator for DWN. Black says county and local jails hold 67 percent of all immigrants in detention.

With the decline in the number of incarcerated people, private prison corporations like Correction Corporation of America, GEO Group, Cornell and Management Corporations are turning to providing detention beds for ICE. The government gave ICE $1.7 billion for detention and custody in 2009. And the average cost per detainee is $95 per person per day. “When profit motives are involved in the process,” said Black, “it’s hard to look for alternatives.”

“[Detention] temporarily keeps this population silent — out of sight, out if mind,” said Chia-Chia Wang, coordinator at American Friends Service Committee, “but doesn’t address the real problem.”

“To have a truly humane system, we have to decriminalize immigrants by humanizing them and recognizing people’s rights to move freely across borders,” Gonzales said. “How can you have economic integration in the free movement of goods [with free trade agreements], but then criminalize the free movement of people? It’s a total contradiction.”

By Karen Yi

Write It
Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

Search

The Common Place - Leeds The 1 in 12 club - Bradford The Trades Club - Hebden Bridge

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech