Aug 7, 2009
The nation's detention system for illegal immigrants will be overhauled in an effort to improve medical care, increase accountability and reduce costs, federal officials announced Thursday.
The current system, a patchwork of about 350 privately run detention centers and county jails that lease space to the government, has come under...
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Today, the Department of Homeland Security announced changes to detention policies that have been in place since 2006. According to the New York Times:
"Details are sketchy, and even the first steps will take months or years to complete. They include reviewing the federal government's contracts with more than 350...
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It is hard not to be encouraged by the changes that Mr. Morton outlined this week. They could be the first steps in a long journey away from insanity. We will never finally get there, of course, without a wholly reformed immigration system — one that has enough visas...
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Aug 5, 2009
Regardless of their legal status, immigrants deserve a fair shot at justice once they are in this country. That's especially true for the most vulnerable, those in detention and facing deportation. All too often, however, they are denied justice and basic due process.
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Aug 2, 2009
One toxic remnant of one of the Bush administration's failed wars — the one on illegal immigrants — is immigration detention. Wanting to appear tough, Bush officials cobbled together, at great speed and expense, a network of federal centers, state and county lockups and private, for-profit prisons. They needed...
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Today, Senators Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) introduced two bills which seek to improve deplorable conditions in immigration detention and prevent U.S. citizens from being locked up by mistake.S. 1550, the "Prevent Detainee Deaths and Abuse Act" and S. 1549, the "Protect Citizens from Unlawful Detention Act,"...
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What's that line about things getting worse before they get better? We can only hope (oh, wait, someone already owns that one...) or should I say, make the case loudly, that this is the case over at DHS. Nina Bernstein of the New York Times reports this week that...
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Watch Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) give a a one-minute floor speech today on the urgent need to reform our immigrant detention policies and our nation's currently unjust immigration system. Rep. Polis is quickly becoming a strong and passionate champion for real, humane, and sensible immigration reform. Watch it:
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Here's the latest blatant example of the system's decadence, from a piece in the New York Times on immigration detention, entitled, "Piecing Together an Immigrant's Life the U.S. Refused to See." It details the untimely death of Tanveer Ahmad in a substandard immigration jail: "When the 43-year-old man died...
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