HuffPo Op-Ed: The Incarceration of Asylum Seekers and the Immigration Detention Bed Quota

This Huffington Post op-ed by Alexandra Goncalves-Pena, Supervising Attorney with the American Friends Service Committee, links the continuing detention of asylum-seekers with Congressional detention bed quota.  She tells the story of a client, a pro-democracy activist from Togo, who was detained for almost 2 1/2 years (after the Immigration Judge’s adverse credibility finding) before being released and granted asylum.

From the op-ed:

“Since 2010, Congress has mandated that ICE maintain space for 34,000 immigrants per day, while paying private companies to do so. Known as the “detention quota,” this policy bears a significant human cost. As the American public becomes aware of the endemic problem of mass incarceration, we can no longer overlook the role of immigrant detention in this larger American tragedy. Mass incarceration of immigrants is psychologically traumatizing for the individual, their family, and their community…

This reality became all too clear to me when I visited with Emmanuel during his years in detention. As the days, months, then years went on, I began to see the physical and psychological toll detention was taking on him. The lines in his face grew deeper, his frame grew smaller, and his hair grew whiter. For Emmanuel, who had been tortured and detained in his home country for a year and a half, his incarceration in the U.S. forced him to relive many of the things he had fled Togo to escape.”

-JKoh