Two separate Reports Confirm Immigration Detention Failings

A bipartisan study group and a human rights organization concluded in independent reports released on Wednesday a growing numbers of noncitizens, including legal immigrants, are held unnecessarily and transferred heedlessly in an expensiveimmigration detention system that denies many of them basic fairness.  The first report from the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general called for sweeping changes in agency policies and amendments to immigration law, including new access to government-appointed counsel for many of those facing deportation. The Human Rights Watch Report revealed government data showing 1.4 million detainee transfers from 1999 to 2008, most of them since 2006. The inspector general’s investigation found that the consequences of haphazard transfers include a loss of access to legal counsel and relevant evidence; additional time in detention; and “errors, delays and confusion for detainees, their families, legal representatives” and the immigration courts. Click here for the full story in the New York Times.

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