Human Rights First Welcomes Detention Reforms, Cautions that Additional Changes Are Needed

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Washington, DC –Human Rights First welcomed today’s announcement that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plan to immediately overhaul the nation’s flawed immigration detention system, but cautioned that these important efforts must include a reform of policies and processes governing decisions to detain, parole and release individuals from immigration detention.

“The immigration detention system is lacking in some crucial due process safeguards. Many asylum seekers have been detained – often for months and sometimes for years – after requesting this country’s protection from persecution,” said Eleanor Acer, Director of Human Rights First’s Refugee Protection Program. “This overhaul will not be effective without a thorough reform of the process for deciding who is detained after entering the U.S. and for how long.” 

Human Rights First praised ICE’s commitment to creating a nationwide alternatives to detention program and commended the government’s decision to stop detaining families at the Hutto facility in Texas.  In addition, Human Rights First welcomed the U.S. government’s decision to move away from a “jail-oriented approach” to immigration detention, as well as ICE’s official recognition that immigration detention should be approached in a “civil” rather than “penal” manner. 

In an April 2009 report, U.S. Detention of Asylum Seekers: Seeking Protection, Finding Prison,  Human Rights First found that the United States was detaining asylum seekers in “penal” facilities for months and sometimes years, often without basic safeguards like hearings to assess the need for continued detention. In its report, Human Rights First recommended that DHS stop detaining asylum seekers in “penal” facilities, and create nationwide alternatives to detention. It also called for reform of the parole process for asylum seekers, and recommended that DHS work with the Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide all detained asylum seekers with access to custody hearings so that the need for their continued detention can be assessed by an immigration court.   

“Noticeably absent from this list of reforms is any explicit commitment to injecting long overdue due process safeguards into the system,” Acer observed.  “Reforming the front end of the process would not only help the government to make smarter decisions about who to detain, but it would ultimately cut detention costs by limiting the detention of those individuals who do not present a risk to the community.” 

Though Human Rights First welcomes the creation of a new Office of Detention Policy and Planning (ODPP) and offered its congratulations to Dr. Dora Schriro on her new position, it urged ODPP to reform release policies and work with DOJ to provide immigration court custody hearings to all asylum seekers in immigration detention. It also encouraged Congress to take action to ensure that these necessary reforms are implemented, including swift consideration of two bills introduced within the past week, the Secure and Safe Detention and Asylum Act and the Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Detention Act. Human Rights First praised the leadership of Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Daniel Akaka (D-HI), key sponsors of the two measures, and stated that these proposed bills will fill some of the voids that remain after today’s overhaul announcement by adding critical safeguards to the detention system that help ensure that asylum seekers and other vulnerable populations are not detained unnecessarily for lengthy periods of time.

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