I recently published an introduction to a group of essays about the reappearance of old fears about immigrants in today’s immigration policymaking. César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, Immigrant Outsider, Alien Invader: Immigration Policing Today, 48 California Western Law Review 231 (2012). Despite the unprecedented scope of today’s policing apparatus, I wrote (in the abstract), there is reason for hope: Immigration policing has become a high-tech, multi-pronged affair financed annually by billions of dollars of personnel and the tools of their trade: prisons, weapons, massive computer [...]
New ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards: Does “Civil” Mean Better Detention or Less Detention?
By Guest Blogger Mark Noferi (Brooklyn Law School) On August 6, 2012, the American Bar Association’s (ABA) full House of Delegates adopted, for the first time, model “Civil Immigration Detention Standards” to guide reform of U.S. immigration detention, America’s fastest growing and least scrutinized incarceration system. ABA, Civil Immigration Detention Standards (Aug. 2012). Donald Kerwin, who led the effort for the ABA Commission on Immigration, called the new ABA standards an “outline” for how “truly civil immigration detention should look and operate.” The ABA standards, if [...]
ICE’s new prisoner transfer policy: Something old, something new
ICE’s new policy regarding prisoner transfers promises to shed more light on decisions to move prisoners from one facility to another, but relies heavily on requirements the agency has long imposed on itself without success and inadvertently identifies major reform obstacles that arise from its heavy reliance on private prison operators. U.S. Immigr. & Customs Enforcement, Policy 11022.1: Detainee Transfers (Jan. 4, 2012). The policy announced in January 2012 makes some significant improvements by recognizing the impact of transfers and the reality of immigrant relationships. For example, [...]
Private prison business is booming; strong growth expected
The economy may still be stuck in the doldrums for most industries, but the largest private prison company is feeling good about where it stands and where it’s headed. The Corrections Corporation of America, the country’s dominant private imprisoning corporation, recently told investors that it is doing a lot of business with DHS and sees plenty of growth potential. CCA, Investor Presentation (March 2012). In a slideshow posted on its web site recently, CCA announced that it has a “$3 billion gross book value portfolio consist[ing] of 92,043 beds comprised of 47 owned facilities with 66,719 [...]
Report: $2 billion immigration imprisonment bill; 32,953 imprisoned per night; number of prisoners limited by number of beds
Congress appropriated $2.051 billion to DHS for custody operations in fiscal year 2012 to fund 34,000 immigration prison beds, a researcher at the Congressional Research Service reported recently. Alison Siskin, Immigration-Related Detention: Current Legislative Issues (Congressional Research Service Jan. 12, 2012). Despite the country’s economic problems, immigration imprisonment funding has increased steadily since FY 2008, the first year included in the CRS report. Siskin at 15. Between FY ’11 and FY ’12, for example, “Congress increased the number of beds by 600, and increased funding [...]
Report: crImmigration enforcement funding and prison rates rise
A report by the Congressional Research Service tells of increased funding for the federal government’s programs targeting immigrants convicted of crimes, including immigration-related crimes, and an accompanying increase in the number of immigrants arrested and imprisoned. Marc R. Rosenblum & William A. Kandel, Congressional Research Service, Interior Immigration Enforcement: Programs Targeting Criminal Aliens (Oct. 21, 2011). The CRS is a non-partisan unit of the Library of Congress. Between fiscal year 2004 and FY 2001, the report explained, funding for programs targeting so-called [...]
3 Cir: Limits § 236(c) mandatory detention to reasonable period
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that INA § 236(c) authorizes mandatory detention only for a reasonable period of time. Diop v. ICE, No. 10-1113, slip op. (3d Cir. Sept. 1, 2011) (Fuentes, Chagares, and Pollak, JJ.). Judge Fuentes wrote the panel’s decision. This case involved a petition for writ of habeas corpus brought by an individual who was convicted in 1995 of Pennsylvania possession of a controlled substance with the intent to manufacture or deliver it and in 2005 of reckless endangerment. Diop, No. 10-1113, slip op. at 4. After being placed in removal [...]
Op-ed: House bill would put many immigrants in prison unnecessarily
Note: I published this op-ed in the Columbus Dispatch on August 20, 2011. Government coffers are empty and crime rates are at their lowest in 40 years, yet Congress is considering a vast expansion of the nation’s prison system that is unnecessary, expensive and likely unconstitutional. A proposal by Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, approved by the House Judiciary Committee and its two Ohio members, Reps. Steve Chabot, R-Cincinnati, and Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, would drastically expand the number of immigrants imprisoned pending a deportation decision or awaiting a deportation that may never occur [...]