Report Highlights Human Rights Violations in Illinois Immigrant Detention Centers
By aaroncynic in News on Dec 13, 2011 8:40PM
The Heartland Alliance National Immigrant Justice Center and The Midwest Coalition for Human Rights released a report yesterday calling for the closure of two detention facilities in Illinois. The report, titled “Not Too Late for Reform,” is based on 21 visits the two Illinois facilities, along with one in Kentucky, and 1,600 legal intakes and interviews, the Huffington Post reports.
Conditions in both the Tri-County Detention Center in Ullin and Jefferson County Jail in Mount Vernon were found to be substandard, including requiring detainees to pay for medical care, refusals to respond to requests for assistance, cold temperatures, inadequate clothing and soiled and torn clothing. In addition to “punitive and inhuman” conditions at the facilities, the report found that immigration detainees faced major barriers to legal counsel.
The groups outlined an action plan they hope the Department of Homeland Security and the Obama administration will adhere to, including closing the offending facilities, reducing immigration detention and canceling plans to build new facilities run by private contractors. NIJC Executive Director Mary Meg McCarthy said via press release:
“The abuses we see in the Midwest are a snapshot of the abuses occurring in immigration detention centers throughout the country. The Obama administration must put an end to this human rights crisis by ending the expansion and privatization of this broken system.”
According to the Tribune, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a statement that said they take “any allegation of misconduct or negligence at our detention facilities very seriously” and the three facilities cited “received passing grades” in annual inspections. At present, the government contracts with 250 prisons nationwide for immigrant detention. Around 400,000 illegal immigrants per year are deported by the Obama administration.