Tweet
USCP15.NSM.Rally.USCG.WDC.19apr08
New Report on Detainee Abuses
According to a new report on immigration detention, in ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) custody “medical requests are ignored, detainee grievances are scoffed at, and immigrants are held in violation of their due-process rights for inhumane amounts of time.”
In analyzing nearly 500 grievances, the ACLU determined that few are given any sort of serious consideration by the government. These are grievances from primarily civilian detainees; meaning these folks committed no crime other than being in the country illegally. The Obama administration has claimed it is committed to improving conditions for these people, but no tangible improvements have been seen as of yet.
Our immigration detention system is a deplorable stain on our reputation. A large portion of the system is run by private companies, mainly the GEO Group (and CCA to a lesser extent), which Dick Cheney (who obviously had a strong hand in our immigration policy during his tenure) used to be invested in. But that should come as no surprise, since he was also invested in Halliburton and Blackwater, two other companies that earned millions during the Bush administration by destroying lives and livelihoods.
12 Comments
So private companies save by ignoring medical treatment and Obama does nothing? Way to win the Hispanic Vote O!/s
Is O getting a share of Dick’s 13 pieces of Silver?
They’ll have to hold their noses and vote for Obama because the only other choice will be even worse.
Oh yeah, and Supreme Court nominations, Supreme Court nominations, Supreme Court nominations!!!
Our immigration detention system is a deplorable stain on our reputation.
And just what would that reputation be. The reputation as being a torturing nation, a war mongering nation, a nation that bombs and murders innocent civilians, a nation that bribes, corrupts, assassinates, a nation of bigots, racists, a nation that supports apartheid, a nation that finances and provides war machinery to a terrorist nation… for gosh sakes this country is the bloody pits when it comes to reputation, a hell hole and a sewer. You honestly think that the immigration is a stain on the reputation….
i suppose “former reputation” would have been more accurate. But I was speaking more to the reputation we think we have than we actually have. The sentiment that we’re the freest, nicest, best place on earth to live (unfounded though it may be).
I know that our reputation has been tarnished, mostly internationally, over the past few decades as we walked harshly with our big stick. My point was that the way we treat immigrants is unbecoming of a country that has the words “the land of the free” right there in its national anthem. The entire system is effed and despicable, and makes me embarassed for my country.
But I hear ya…
I don’t think Dick shares his silver with anyone.
basically. that and we’ve now criminalized the act of being brown in America, and have a system for legal immigration that’s far too circuitous and difficult to navigate. I know he called for comprehensive immigration reform, but I’ve yet to be convinced he’s actually trying to achieve it.
Sometimes it seems that it is only the American people that do not know just how bloody bad this country has become.
There is no good side to this deplorable situation, but one noteworthy result of the maltreatment of Mexican immigrants and their kin is its contribution to economic improvements in Mexico, including 5% GDP growth, 5% unemployment and 3% inflation.
Mexicans who formerly considered sending their children to school in the U.S., or investing, or working, or visiting, now stay in Mexico. The people who are evicted from the U.S. and who move away from the border area due to drug violence are improving the economy in places like the Yucatan. Mexico still depends upon the U.S. for eighty percent of its trade but they do trade elsewhere.
Meanwhile U.S. communities and their commercial establishments which depended upon immigrant spending are going belly-up which hurts the overall U.S. economy and individual business-people. Thanks, Barry.
The system seems designed to be cheap and to maximize the abuse of the weakest. They’re weak, so they must deserve it; at least, they can do nothing to fetter the discretion of the powerful to abuse them. That is not a system of laws, it is a system built on predation.
For the most part, I’d agree, but I’ll also say those of us in the know are the most keenly aware of the discrepancy between what we are as a nation, and what we could be.
absolutely! part of the report discussed the impotence of these folks in being able to seek help for the problems they faced while incarcerated (or detained, to use industry parlance). they’d go to try to file a complaint with the prison they were in and staff would tell them to write directly to ICE. They’d write to ICE, who then tell them to write to the prison. They just give the runaround on these complaints until immigrants either give up or get a status hearing