ICE overhaul falls short, critics claim
Immigration officials plan to require detention centers holding the majority of the nation's immigration detainees to provide access to 24-hour, emergency medical and mental health care and expand access to legal resources and visitation.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement's long-awaited, revised national detention standards aim to address vexing, long-term problems within the hodgepodge of detention centers, prisons and jails that house about 400,000 immigration detainees annually.
A draft copy of the nearly 350-page standards obtained by the Houston Chronicle shows ICE officials have taken steps to address some of the most critical problems identified in the agency's internal reports and detention facility inspections, from access to quality medical care to outdoor recreation time.
But immigrant advocates, who had high hopes for the revised standards since ICE announced plans to overhaul its detention system last year, said the changes fell far short of their expectations.
"I really do feel it's a far cry from what we'd hoped for," said Lory D. Rosenberg, policy director for Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International USA. "This doesn't read like guidelines for a civil facility ... or any kind of institutional setting. This reads to me like a prison manual."
And ICE union officials plan to challenge several of the proposed changes at the bargaining table, saying they pose serious safety concerns for officers, contractors and detainees.
Chris Crane, president of the national ICE Council, said officers were particularly concerned about changes to search procedures and plans to mix non-violent, aggravated felons, including drug dealers, in with the general detainee population.
"This thing just stinks of politics," Crane said. "It's about satisfying, publicly, the special interest groups but not really addressing the real issues, the real problems we have in the facilities."
ICE spokesman Brian Hale said the standards, last updated in 2008, are under review by non-governmental agencies and the ICE union. Hale said that once ICE management finishes negotiations with union leaders, the revised standards will be implemented at 22 facilities nationwide that house about 17,000 detainees on a daily basis, roughly 55 percent of the agency's daily detained population.
ICE spokesman Brian Hale said the standards, last updated in 2008, are under review by non-governmental agencies and the ICE union. Hale said that once ICE management finishes negotiations with union leaders, the revised standards will be implemented at 22 facilities nationwide that house about 17,000 detainees on a daily basis, roughly 55 percent of the agency's daily detained population.
Texas sites included The list of 22 facilities includes the Houston Contract Detention facility on the city's north side and several detention centers scattered across Texas. Hale said he did not have a timeline for the union negotiations and could not predict when ICE would expand the standards to cover the rest of ICE's detained population.
Last August, top Obama administration officials announced plans for a major overhaul of the nation's immigration detention system, which includes more than 250 government-run detention centers, private prisons and local jails operated largely by private contractors or county sheriffs.
Under pressure to address reports of substandard medical care and lax oversight, ICE pledged to design a "new civil detention system" specifically to meet the needs of immigration detainees, who largely are detained for administrative, not criminal, violations.
In an Aug. 18 draft letter explaining the revisions to detention standards, ICE Secretary John Morton wrote that the standards were crafted to increase recreation time, visitation, access to legal services, libraries and religious opportunities.
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