[nyfoil-l] 3/23: NYU report disturbing allegations of Essex County(NJ) detainee treatment

[SIUHIN at aol.com]

NYU immigration report details  disturbing allegations of Essex County 
detainee  treatment



Friday, March 23, 2012
Jason Grant, New Jersey The  Star-Ledger 

_http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates_impact/print.html?entry=/2012/03/nyu_im_ 
(http://blog.nj.com/ledgerupdates_impact/print.html?entry=/2012/03/nyu_im) 


The immigrants being held in Essex County and facing deportation  tell of 
being locked down in rooms while being denied medical help, of not  getting 
"a mere" 1,000 to 1,500 calories a day in nutrition, of trying to sleep  
fully clothed in freezing spaces, of fellow detainees "who haven’t seen the sun  
for over two years."

These are some of the testimonial details gathered  from detainees whose 
anonymous quotes lace a disturbing report released Thursday  by New York 
University School of Law’s immigrant-rights clinic.
The report,  titled "Immigration Incarceration: The Expansion and Failed 
Reform of  Immigration Detention in Essex County, N.J." and done in 
cooperation with New  Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees, will undergird an 
important law  school-run conference today in Newark that focuses on the rights 
and treatment  of the nation’s scores of imprisoned immigrants.

In 39 pages, the report  claims Essex County has more than 1,200 detainees, 
many of whom are suffering  through abusive, unsafe and unclean conditions 
that fail to meet the federal  Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s 
own standards for such  detention.

It also bluntly recommends that "ICE should cease detaining  immigrants in 
state and local jails, starting with those facilities that fail to  meet the 
2011 ICE Performance-Based National Detention Standards," and says "ICE  
officials should use alternatives to detention, such as supervised  release."

But ICE officials, along with those who run both Essex County  facilities 
housing detainees — the county jail and the privately run Delaney  Hall — 
offered swift responses Thursday.

"The report by the New York  University School of Law and N.J. Advocates is 
the latest attempt to discredit  the Essex County Correctional Facility and 
Essex County’s contract with ICE to  house immigration detainees," said 
Alfaro Ortiz, director of the Essex County  jail.

ICE, meanwhile, noted that it had not yet had a chance to read the  NYU 
report, but said, "Since ICE initiated detention reform in August of 2009,  the 
agency has made tremendous strides in our ongoing efforts to reform the  
immigration detention system, prioritizing the health and safety of detainees 
in  our custody."

In a statement, the agency added, "ICE has taken aggressive  steps to 
increase oversight through announced and unannounced inspections … and  by hiring 
more than 40 Detention Services Managers, who work to ensure  appropriate 
conditions exist at detention facilities."

Community  Education Centers, the for-profit group that runs Delaney Hall, 
responded by  sending out a copy of a recently published United Nations High 
Commissioner for  Refugees report that the group said "presents an accurate 
and balanced account  of the positive steps that Delaney Hall has taken to 
be a humane facility for  non-criminal detainees."

The issue of detention-conditions for  immigrants, along with that of how 
best to deal with people facing deportation,  many of whom are not alleged to 
have committed a crime, will dovetail with other  issues at today’s Newark 
conference, says its organizer, Rutgers-Newark law  school professor Anjum 
Gupta.

Gupta, a recently hired professor who has  opened her own immigrant-rights 
clinic at Rutgers, added a major thrust of the  daylong event will be to 
"call to action" New Jersey and New York’s robust  community of lawyers to 
vastly increase pro bono representation of immigrants  facing deportation.

According to Gupta, immigrants, often without  financial resources or a 
knowledge of the system, routinely go unrepresented by  counsel as they try to 
avoid deportation.
She says a recent study spearheaded  by a prominent judge for the 2nd 
Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals showed immigrants  with legal counsel in New York 
between 2005 and 2010 had "successful outcomes"  in their cases 67 percent of 
the time, while those without representation won  such outcomes only 8 
percent of the time.

"We really want to highlight in  the conference how much of a difference 
representation makes," Gupta said,  noting that since her clinic opened in 
January, it has gotten dozens of calls  and letters from immigrants in New 
Jersey and social services organizations that  work with them.

But even as U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) makes a  keynote speech at 
today’s event, and various symposiums take place, it’s  possible the NYU 
report will create the biggest stir among the crowd of law  professors, 
students, lawyers and advocates gathering by the hundreds at the  Rutgers-Newark 
building on Washington Street.

"We’re essentially seeing  ongoing complaints about inadequate medical 
attention, poor food quality and  mistreatment by guards and staff," Alina Das, 
the law professor who helps run  NYU’s immigrant-rights clinic, said in an 
interview Wednesday. What’s more, she  said, "there’s a lack of oversight 
and accountability" at Essex County’s two  facilities, "yet the federal 
government and counties have been continuing to  expand" the civil detention of 
immigrants.

Das said studies show  alternatives to detention, such as releasing 
immigrants on supervision and bond,  have proven effective in keeping tabs on those 
who must go through the legal  process, while still allowing them to be 
with their families and be productive  in society.

Das pointed to ICE’s expansion of the number of immigrant  detainees it 
keeps in Essex County — from 500 to 1,250 beds in a move completed  in 2011 — 
while also noting that many of New York’s immigrants are housed in New  
Jersey.

"The concern that I have about ICE’s policy of expansion before  reform is 
that they’ll only continue to hold people in these facilities without  
having meaningful reform," she said. "Alternatives to detention are more humane,  
they’re more cost-effective."

ICE, in its statement Thursday, countered  Das, saying it had reduced its 
overall number of facilities in the  country.
"Part of ICE’s detention reform efforts are also aimed at putting  
detention centers in strategic locations that maximize detainee access to local  
consulates and pro-bono legal services, reduce detainee transfers ... and  
increase overall operational efficiencies," the statement said.
 
 
 
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