It is just another day at the Immigration Court in Boston JFK Building. In the course of 40 minutes, detainees housed at distant prisons have filed, one after the other, across the video screen. The faces are hard to make out and the voices difficult to hear, but you can discern distress, fear and frustration. On the benches of the court, families are trying to connect with their loved one: "Wave to your father." "We love you." "We miss you." "Don't lose courage." Soon the court is called to order. Eventually one woman overpowered by emotion breaks out in tears and screams, and is escorted out.
Now the detainees held in local prisons are brought in. They are dressed in orange jumpsuits and walk in small steps, their ankles and hands tightly shackled. By the end of the morning as many as 15 detainees have come before the judge. Most do not have lawyers to represent them and are not eligible for bail. Rare are those who qualify for some form of relief under the current system. Many beg the judge to pass judgment quickly so that they do not linger for months, if not years, in detention. But they do not understand that by doing so, they may give up their right to ever return to the US.
Who are these people and what crimes did they commit?
It could be Rosalia who came to this country from Mexico to be reunited with the father of her child. He repeatedly raped her and abused their child. When he was convicted of child abuse and deported, she was charged with criminal child neglect and both her children were taken away from her and placed in foster care. She is under an order of deportation and is detained because she did not leave, staying here to fight in court to regain the custody of her children.
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Today, 600 million women are illiterate as compared to 320 million men. While access to primary education is increasing, only 69 per cent of girls in Southern Asia and 49 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa complete primary school. At the secondary level, the gap is even wider with only 47 per cent and 30 per cent enrollment respectively.
— UNFPA State of World Population Report 2005 |
Or Mohammed, who came to this country 14 years ago from Algeria and was granted political asylum. He used to work as a computer programmer. He was in the process of appealing the revocation of his status when he was arrested and placed in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, where he spent an entire year before being deported back to this country. He is married to a Colombian woman who is herself in immigration limbo. They have a three-year-old child.
The stage for this policy of detention and deportation was set under the Clinton Administration with the enactment of two federal statutes: the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
Under these laws, many types of immigrants are subject to being detained and deported: green card holders who have committed any crime, no matter how small (even if it was a long time ago and no jail time was ever imposed); people fleeing persecution in their native country; and the undocumented, whether they crossed the border without papers, overstayed their visa, came on a false passport or are in the process of adjusting their status.
The number of immigrants who have been affected by these policies are staggering. Since 1996, over one million have been deported. Immigrant detainees are the fastest growing portion of the US prison population (detention facilities receive higher compensation for an immigrant detainee then for other inmates). Also since 9/11, the FBI has encouraged more and more detentions as part of a public relations strategy to convince the public that they are fighting against terrorism.
Once arrested, immigration detainees are scattered throughout a network of county jails and prisons, federal detention centers, and private prisons. They are often moved arbitrarily from one facility to another, sometimes ending up thousands of miles away from their family and community. They are subjected to the same harsh conditions as any other inmate (overcrowding, inadequate nutrition, poor health care, economic exploitation, and abuse at the hands of corrections officers and other inmates) even though they may never have committed a crime or, if they did, have already served their time.
To respond to this crisis, immigrant communities have started to organize. In New York, Families for Freedom, a multi-ethnic defense network for and by immigrants, seeks to repeal the laws that are tearing apart their homes and neighborhoods, to build the power of immigrant communities and to provide a guiding voice in the growing movement for immigrant rights as human rights. Most immediately, they fight to stop deportation now.
Keeping Hope Alive, based in Boston, helps immigration prisoners across the US and their families investigate, document and take action against abuses perpetrated in detention facilities. It aims to create accountability, improve access to legal resources and bring national attention to human rights abuses in the detention industry.
The National Lawyers Guild is seeking to replicate in other parts of the country the study conducted by the Boston-based Detention Working Group, which documented issues of due process in the handling of immigration detainees in Massachusetts. Their observations in court and the information they collected from interviews with former detainees, their families and immigrant rights organizations, confirmed the wide spread violation of the human rights of immigrants.
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