History Teaches Us One Thing: Fear Makes Bad Policy
Guest blogger: Erin Caliri, third-year law student, University of San Francisco
In 1994, President Bill Clinton passed the 1994 Crime Bill. The effects of that bill are still present to this day. The bill set the precedent for mass incarceration, the privatization of prisons, and overcrowding of prisons. In 1994, Americans had a fear of crime, a fear of criminals, and a fear of juvenile “superpredators.” “Lock them up and put them away” was the motto. Incarceration over rehabilitation was the preference.
Twenty years later, the dialogue shifted. Criminals were no longer the number one target but immigrants were. With the influx of what some called a “surge” of Central Americans migrants, the Obama administration responded. They responded by locking up families and detaining women and children—most who were asylum-eligible and fleeing countries where their lives were at risk and in danger. These women and children were held in detention facilities. These detention facilities are operated like prisons in every sense of the word. These facilities that are even owed and operated by private prison companies.
In June of 2014, the Artesia Detention Center opened in New Mexico to supplement the additional family detention capacity at Berks facility in Pennsylvania. The location of the Artesia facility was 3.5 hours outside of Albuquerque, the closest major city to the facility. That meant it took at least 3.5 hours for an attorney to see a client—if the woman was even able to find representation to help her asylum case. Because the right to an attorney is not a guaranteed right in immigration proceedings, holding women and children in detention facilities, in a removed and remote location, provides a further obstacle and due process concern for these women and children held in prison-like detention centers.
The Artesia Detention Center closed in December 2014, but the Obama administration responded with the opening of two additional family detention centers, the Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas, and the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas. Despite the attempt to end a “catch and release” policy, the Obama administration’s goal of family detention facilities was the same—eventually deport these women, but have a wait time in between, while treating these women and children like prisoners in the meantime. Give them substandard access to medical care, nutrition, and psychological treatment. Make them subject to room checks and put them in barracks.
With the result of these policies, President Obama has deported more people in his presidency than any other president in the history. As the November 2016 election approaches, the Republican and Democratic candidates’ stance on immigration is more important than ever.
At the Democratic debate on February 11, 2016, Hillary Clinton “called for the end of family detention, for the end of privately-run detention centers,” but she also supported Obama’s decision because “we also had to send a message to families and communities in Central America not to send their children on this dangerous journey in the hands of smugglers.” Bernie Sanders pointed out this was the wrong answer and replied, “Who are you sending a message to? These are children who are leaving countries and neighborhoods where their lives are at stake. I don’t think we use them to send a message. I think we welcome them into this country and do the best we can to help them get their lives together.”
On the other side of the spectrum, on February 13, 2016, at the Republican debate, Ted Cruz promised to deport “illegal aliens” and reverse President Obama’s execution action under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). Donald Trump’s solution was, “We’re not taking care of our people. We have no border. We have no control. People are flooding across. We can’t have it. I will build a wall. I will build a wall. Remember this, the wall will be paid for by Mexico. We are not being treated right.”
As a national and global concern today, we must make sure that we elect a president who addresses the treatment and acceptance of refugees in the right way, the most tolerant way, the humane way. We cannot continue to detain families and children in prison-like structures. Fear cannot be a motive that drives our decisions because fear has led the United States to be a country of mass incarcerations and mass deportations. We cannot afford to continue using fear as the foundation for implementing bad policy because the effects of these bad policies do not go away.
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