The federal government routinely failed to follow its own standards regulating immigration detention centers, denying detainees sufficient recreation time and adequate access to attorneys, legal materials and telephones, according to a report issued Tuesday.
As a result of the widespread violations, hundreds of thousands of detainees faced tremendous challenges in making their case to stay in the U.S. and were frequently denied basic due process, according to the report.
“The findings in our report raise serious doubts as to whether the hundreds of thousands of immigrants detained each year get a fair shot at justice,” said one of the authors, Karen Tumlin of the National Immigration Law Center.
The report is based primarily on thousands of pages of reviews conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2001 to 2005, turned over by court order in a legal case.
Among the findings were that at least 41 facilities did not give detainees the minimum number of hours and days of recreation required by the standards and that 19 centers did not have offer any outdoor recreation time.
The report also found deficiencies in access to phones and legal information. For example, 30 centers failed to provide reasonable privacy for legal calls. In addition, detainees were often placed in solitary confinement without justification.
Dora Schriro, special adviser to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, said the report was impressive but also dated, with half of the reviews predating the creation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Since then, she said, the government has increased oversight.
