“Constantly afraid”: immigrants on life under the US government’s eye

Johana Bhuiyan  for The Guardian reports that immigrants subject to a privately-operated ankle monitor system, “billed as an alternative to detention [results in the use of] painful ankle monitors and contradictory rules.”

The U.S. government in 2004 launched the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program (ISAP) as an alternative to detention for immigrants awaiting immigration court hearings.  The surveillance system is supposed to monitor the movements of noncitizens in the program.

Under the direction of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, immigrants in the ISAP program “are electronically surveilled through an ankle monitor, voice recognition or the company’s proprietary tracking app until their court date, and meet regularly with a case manager. Holding an exclusive, $2.2bn five-year contract to run Isap for Ice is BI, a company that got its start in monitoring cattle and is owned by one of the country’s largest private prison corporations, the Geo Group.”

ISAP allows some immigrants to go home rather than remain detained.  Noncitizens subject to the program, and their lawyers, claim that the technology is substandard; ankle monitors cause bruising, overheat “and at times sending out electroshocks.”  “[ISAP’s] structure is as flawed as the tools it relies on, they argue, with arbitrary requirements and opaque decision-making processes inhibiting the ultimate goal of the program: transitioning out of it.”

In response, an official from ICE  “said Isap was effective at increasing court appearance rates among immigrants facing removal proceedings. . . . Ice also said there was no proof the ankle monitor caused any physical harm.”

KJ