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It calls US immigrant detention centers "A Broken System" in a recent report that presents "the first-ever system-wide look at the federal government's compliance with its own standards regulating immigrant detention facilities....based on previously unreleased first-hand reports of monitoring inspections."
Annually, over 320,000 immigrants are incarcerated. They face enormous obstacles challenging their detention, and they're held under conditions "as bad as or worse than those faced by imprisoned criminals." They're kept in three types of facilities:
-- ICE owned and operated Service Processing Centers (SPCs);
-- privately run Contract Detention Facilities (CDFs); and
-- Intergovernmental Service Agreement Facilities (IGSAs) holding two-thirds of detainees - mostly state or county jails plus a small number in US Bureau of Prisons or other facilities.
Since 1992, immigrant detentions have increased from 6,259 to 20,000 in early 2006 to the current 31,000 total - a number that continues to grow due to policies discussed above.
NILC learned that detention standards are poorly regulated and that government efforts to monitor compliance have been "woefully deficient and in need of a major overall." Testimony obtained from ICE employees revealed that monitoring is understaffed. Before inspections, facilities get at least 30 days notice to fix or cover up problems and abuses in advance. Multiple review levels are used, yet headquarters rarely requires violations to be corrected and often gives facilities "higher overall assessments than the review team's original ones."
Systemic problems were also uncovered pertaining to annual review procedures and their inadequately identifying and correcting noncompliance with acceptable standards. ICE plans to let private contractors monitor compliance, yet current failures suggest that new management will let a broken system fester and worsen as the detention population grows and overcrowded facilities get further stretched.
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