Reply #110: Dignity, Not Detention [View All]

Dignity, Not Detention

American Friends Service Committee

The issue of detention has become more pressing as recent news reports demonstrate the lack of accountability and structure in the detention system, as the Obama administration continues to detain more people each day, as ICE officials are once again engaging in workplace raids, and as the cost to taxpayers of detaining people continues to skyrocket.

Over 300,000 immigrants a year are detained in a secretive web of 350 private, federal, state and local jails, and prisons at an annual cost of more than $1.7 billion to taxpayers. The GEO center in Aurora, CO is estimated to cost taxpayers close 1.8 million dollars a year.

Over eighty percent of detained immigrants go through the immigration system with no lawyer. Immigrants can be detained for months or years without any meaningful judicial review of whether they should be released. While detained, immigrants face horrific prison conditions, including mistreatment by guards, solitary confinement, the denial of medical attention and limited or no access to their families, lawyers and the outside world. In many cases, these conditions have proven fatal: since 2003, a reported 107 people have died in immigration custody.

http://afsc.org/resource/%E2%80%9Cdignity-not-detention-campaign-continues-press-release