Tales from Detention

PT-Law Mom's post reminds me that I haven't posted about immigration in a while - spending all those hours writing my 3L paper about it kept it off the blog inadvertently. Although I did mention the general crappy state of the court and detention system in my last Record column ever last week.

Rest assured things have not gotten any less outrageous. Here are a just a few charming stories I learned while writing my paper:

- In Jan 2007, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against overcrowding at the Otay Mesa detention facility in So Cal; and in response, officials transferred 200 detainees out. Good, right? Except they were allegedly awoken at 3 AM, put into a holding tank so small they had to take turns sitting for 20 hours, and then bused to San Diego or Arizona, and there was evidence they hand-picked the transferees as the ones who had spoken with the ACLU.

- In a youth detention center in Texas, children were beaten and sexually abused, and then when they tried to report it, officials allegedly transferred the lead whistleblower teenager away and punished others with lack of food and sleeping on the floor. One guard was already sentenced to seven years in prison, but a lawsuit filed in Feb is trying to prove it went much deeper than just her abuse.

- Just yesterday, ICE actually admitted negligence in the death of a detainee (and asylum seeker) from untreated penile cancer. The doctor at the facility disagreed with an outside oncologist's recommendation he be hospitalized for a biopsy because the procedure would be "elective" since he wasn't in imminent danger of dying.

Yeah, I think we've got some work to do.

Comments

[PT-LawMom]

Good Lord, Andrea. :( I hadn't heard of any of those stories. How can these guards and officials sleep at night? Don't they have souls or any sense of humanity?

They sleep at night because they have demonized the detainees. Same way the Nazis demonized the Jews. Beyond that, it is a representation of how intentionally or because they are lax, those above them tolerate or promote the attitude. It is a lesson to us all. Pissed off Tia.

[kristin]

hmm, if you read all the way to the end of the texas article, it says they've reached an agreement which would have the plaintiffs dropping the suit in exchange for officials signing cooperation statements so that the kids can stay in the country. i know it's gotta be hard, and you have to do the best you can for your client, but to drop the suit in exchange for the official doing something it is the official's duty to do anyway (tell the truth and confirm that the children helped with the investigation), leaves justice completely out of the equation. such a messed up system we have that children have to bargain their way out of sexual abuse, their punishment for a nonexistent crime. their compensation for the hell they've suffered? they get to not be deported. welcome to america!

[Andrea]

It looks like there are two separate lawsuits - so the first one suing the guards for abuse is still going forward, it's just that the second one against the sheriff is getting dropped because he's agreeing to sign those forms that say they cooperated with law enforcement (I imagine these are the same as U and T visa applicants need to say they cooperated with the investigation into the crimes they were victims of). So they may still get somewhere with the first suit.

Even so, it's ridiculous to have to sue the sheriff to get him to sign - why wouldn't he in the first place? - because it's a reminder that if they didn't have lawyers they'd be completely screwed.