IRATE & First Friends publishes a newsletter, Yearning to Breathe Free, 3-4 times a year. Important upcoming events and articles from the most recent newsletter are published below. Copies of other recent newsletters are available through the links to the left. The following articles were published in the September 2009 newsletter (for the September 2009 newsletter in pdf format, click here).
Ice Announces Reform. Is it Enough?
New Program in Kearny. Request for Visitors
Columbus Day March and Teach-In, 2 P.M. on Sunday October 11, 2009
IRATE & First Friends will hold the 11th annual vigil at the Elizabeth Detention Center. March and pray with those who are in solidarity with the thousands of immigrants being held in detenrion throughout our country.
We will gather at 2 P.M. at the corner of Dowd and Evans Streets in Elizabeth, NJ. for the march and vigil.
A spaghetti supper and teach-in will follow at 4 P.M. at the St. Joseph Social Service Center, 118 Division St., Elizabeth, NJ. The teach-in will include presentations by invited speakers:
Marisol Conde-Hernandez, Rutgers undergraduate & activist
Msgr. William Reilly, member of the NJ Blue Ribbon Committee on Immigration Policy
Requested donation: Adults $25, Students $15, Children under 10 free.
Contact IRATE & First Friends at 908-965-0455 or firstfriends2@juno.com for information
ICE Announces Reform. Is it enough?By Greg Sullivan
In response to mounting criticism, law suits and a hunger strike in Louisiana, ICE on August 6 announced that it is undertaking reform of detention policies which will address standards, conditions and the use of contract facilities.
While we as advocates applaud any move to improve detention standards and conditions, we are upset by continued efforts of the administration to maintain its policy of mass detention. On August 6 The New York Times reported an interview with John Morton, Assistant Secretary DHS and head of ICE, at which he said detention on a large scale must continue. The same article quotes Janet Napolitano Secretary of DHS as saying that she expected the number of detainees to stay the same or grow slightly. The article goes on to suggest that to assure a “truly civil detention system” new, large regional facilities dedicated to proper care of immigrant detainees may be necessary.
Thus, DHS appears to be set on perpetuating a system of mass detention. This is in the face of an administration which says it is dedicated to comprehensive immigration reform which would legalize the status of most of our 12 million undocumented residents within the next year. The New York Times article claims that the present 32,000 bed network, using cheaper excess capacity at local jails costs $2.4 billion a year, or $75,000 per bed. This is $6,000 for each of the 400,000 immigrants run through the system each year. We hate to think how this cost would increase with a new regional system run by DHS.
IRATE & First Friends believes DHS should adopt a more humane and sensible approach to detention. Detention should be restricted to dangerous criminal aliens and entering immigrants subject to immediate deportation, excluding credible asylum seekers. For immigrants who have been resident, there are a number of reasonable alternatives much more humane and cost effective than incarceration. The vast majority of detainees being held were productive members of the community with family, friends and employment. ICE has the ability to find and control these people and should rely on organizations within the community for assistance.
We ask the administration to reconsider its move to hold large numbers of our residents in detention far from families and support. Such confinement remains a punishment for people who have done no real harm. The use of detention should be limited. How can forceful removal of a selected group of people from their homes ever be benevolent?
Credible asylum seekers should not be detained under any circumstance. These persons fleeing persecution and harm who are legitimately seeking entry should be welcomed and more actively supported in their effort.
Please call The White House at 202-456-1111 (or comment at www.whitehouse.gov) and the Department of Homeland Security at 202-282-8495. Ask them to reconsider our current policy of mass detention for immigrants in favor of truly humane and just (and less expensive) alternatives to incarceration.
Where Are the Detainees?
By Greg Sullivan
Since 2007, under the enforcement only policy toward undocumented immigrants by the Department of Homeland Security, there has been a 33% increase in detentions to a current level of more than 400,000 per year. This is reflected in the experience in Central and Northern New Jersey. Before 2006, the principal facility to hold immigrant detainees was the Elizabeth Detention Center, generally holding 250 to 300 detainees. At the present time the majority of detainees are being held in county jails.
Currently, the break down of the detainee populations is:
Elizabeth Detention Center 225
Hudson County Jail 350
Essex County Jail 300
Middlesex County Jail 135
Monmouth County Jail*150 Est.
Bergen County Jail* 150 Est.
* Holding detainees from ICE NY, Varick St.
1,300 detainees are being held in Central and Northern New Jersey facilities, 1,000 of whom are from New Jersey operations of ICE. Additional detainees are held at local jails and the Sussex County Jail for short periods under detainers requested by ICE.
The conditions at county facilities are much harsher than at the Elizabeth Detention Center. While county facilities keep immigrant detainees segregated from the criminal population, they receive similar treatment and are subject to the same rules. Generally the dorms at the county jails are more crowded with limited services. Costs to ICE will vary by contract with each facility. Since ICE is contracting for excess capacity at county jails, the cost is less than $100 per day. The cost at the Elizabeth Detention Center is $175 per day.
When the Elizabeth Detention Center was established in 1994, the City of Elizabeth stipulated that no criminals could be held at the center. Therefore, immigrants with any criminal record are sent to county jails. Many detainees in the jails have a police record, although those who we have visited appear to have had relatively minor, non-violent charges. Ironically, many detainees in jail have been held much longer as a detainee than their original sentence.
Most affirmative asylum seekers will be placed in Elizabeth. We believe only defensive asylum seekers (those having been resident more than one year) will be found in county jails. Credible Fear Asylum seekers declared at ports of entry continue to be sent to the Elizabeth Detention Center.
By Karen Long
Each year World Refugee Day is celebrated around the world on June 20th. World Refugee Day was established on December 4, 2000, through a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly which noted that June 2001 would mark the 50th anniversary of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. Since 2001 all kinds of celebrations take place on or around this day.
This year IRATE- First Friends, along with AFSC Immigrants Rights Program and Pax Christi of New Jersey celebrated WRD on June 18th. This year we came together as guests of the Highland Park Reformed Church in Highland Park New Jersey, for a film screening of the award winning documentary “The Least of These”. This documentary explored family detention, one of the most controversial policies of immigration detention.
The film was an hour long and focused on the T. Don Hutto Residential Center near Austin Texas. “Hutto”, is a former medium-security prison turned “Residential Center” by ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and operated by the for profit Corrections Corporation of America, The facility was opened under the Bush Administration in 2006 for the purpose of detaining immigrant children and families. None of the detained are charged with any crime but merely seeking asylum in the United States from persecution in their home countries.
Hutto came about as a response to congressional concern over the separation of families that was occurring under ICE as a result of the passage of such bills as the U.S.A. Patriot Act. In 2006 the House appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security, DHS, submitted a House committee report requiring the release of families or the use of such programs as Intensive Supervision Appearance Program. It also stated that if family detention was necessary the DHS must detain families in appropriate space so as to remain together. Michael Chertoff, then secretary of the DHS, took this to mean family detention at Hutto was an acceptable solution.
The “Least of These” focused on individual family stories as well as the reality of life in Hutto. Prior to a lawsuit settled in August 2007 by the American Civil Liberties Union, children had very little schooling or outdoor activity. Families were confined to cells with bunk beds and open toilets and children were not allowed to have crayons and pencils to write or draw while in their cells. Now they have regular school hours and play time and a more relaxed lifestyle once inside the cell. The settlement also required DHS to provide such things as more timely reviews on whether a family should be detained at all.
After the film we had the privilege of hearing two former detainees, John and Harry, speak on their experiences as detainees in the American immigration detention system. There was also post film discussion along with comments and briefings from Bill Westerman of Princeton University, Alix Nguefack of AFSC and Kathy O'Leary from Pax Christi New Jersey.
Post Script: On August 6, 2009 the Obama administration announced that it would stop detaining families at Hutto as part of an overhaul of immigrant detention. Hutto will remain open but the facility will house only women, not children and families. As of this writing the last of the families held at Hutto have been deported, paroled or released pending a determination on their immigration status. However, even with this development, families, like Harry’s, are still suffering under current immigration policy and immigrants in detention are still being denied basic human rights. There is much still to be done.
New Program in Kearny. Request for Visitors
First Friends, has been visiting and providing non-legal services to detainees for over 8 years and has just recently received permission to contact the 350 immigrant detainees held at the Hudson County Correctional Center in Kearny. We need volunteer visitors and pen pals for these unfortunate, confined neighbors in our midst. If you, your family, friends, congregation or any organization you belong to can help, please contact us at 908-965-0455 or firstfriends2@juno.com.