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Press release: New immigration detention facilities proposed for Minnesota, three other states, would escalate due process and civil rights violations
Posted on Oct 26 2017
October 26, 2017 – The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota (ILCM) joined with 13 other legal services providers and human rights advocate to tell ICE that new immigration detention facilities it seeks would undermine due process and civil rights for thousands of detained immigrants. The joint letter responded to ICE’s October 12 request for information (RFI) to assist in the identification of new detention sites to detain up to 3,000 people each day within 180 miles of St. Paul, Chicago, Detroit, and Salt Lake City.
The Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, Advocates for Human Rights, and the Detainee Rights Clinic at the University of Minnesota work to provide pro bono services to people detained by ICE in Sherburne, Carver, Freeborn, Ramsey, and Nobles County jails in Minnesota. Our organizations are already overwhelmed by the number of people needing assistance, and we do not have the capacity to provide needed representation to the additional number of immigrants who would be detained under the new RFI.
“Immigrants in detention need lawyers,” said John Keller, executive director of ILCM. “Immigration law is insanely complicated, and immigration judges are overburdened with huge backlogs of cases. Without an attorney, immigrants cannot determine what legal options they may have or what facts and arguments to put before the judge.”
In Minnesota, only 21 percent of detained immigrants have legal representation. There is no right to appointed counsel in the immigration court system, so immigrants in detention are only represented if they can retain private counsel or find free legal services.
Increasing detention is the wrong direction to go. Alternatives to detention, including parole, affordable bond, community-based support programs and regular check-ins, cost less than 10 percent of the amount of detention, according to the Government Accounting Office. Pilot programs show compliance rates at check-in and hearings of 95-99 percent.
“Detention makes it much harder for immigrants to find attorneys or to prepare for their hearings,” said Keller. “Moreover, while the Constitution requires immigration detention to be civil and non-punitive, that’s not what happens. Across the country, most immigrant detainees are held in private prisons, where abusive treatment has been repeatedly documented. Increasing immigration jails is the wrong move to make. Alternatives to detention are both less expensive and more humane.”
Read and download the RFI response letter at https://immigrantjustice.org/detention-RFI-letter
The letter was signed by representatives from the following organizations:
In Minnesota:
- Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
- Advocates for Human Rights, Minnesota
- ACLU of Minnesota
- Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid
- University of Minnesota Detainee Rights Clinic
Outside Minnesota:
- American Civil Liberties Union
- ACLU of Michigan
- ACLU of Utah
- ACLU of Wyoming
- Detention Watch Network
- Immigrant Legal Services, Salt Lake City
- Michigan Immigrant Rights Center
- National Immigrant Justice Center, Chicago