There's a Better Way: Alternatives to Detention

Stories from Detention - Week 6

Creating alternatives to detention would be a bold step in fixing this country's broken immigration system.  Before we get into alternatives, let's take a brief look back to see what we've learned so far.

We've learned that immigration is a human rights issue.  Protecting the human rights of all immigrants, including those held in detention centers, is critical in order to restore the credibility of the U.S. immigration system.

We've learned that lacking the proper documentation is a civil offense, not a criminal offense.  Even so, undocumented immigrants are being treated as if they were criminals - they are detained in detention centers across the country and deported at times without ever appearing before a judge.  These immigrants deserve better.

We've learned that the conditions in detention facilities are substandard and that members of vulnerable populations are not sufficiently protected.  While these conditions need to be improved, ultimately the number of people held in immigration detention centers must be reduced.

This final post will discuss humane and cost-effective alternatives to detention.

Before we dive into the details, let's watch a video from Human Rights First about the need for alternatives to detention for asylum seekers.  Then we'll take a look at what it will take to create a nation-wide system of alternatives that works for everyone.

In order to move toward a more humane approach to immigration enforcement, the U.S. government should develop alternatives to detention in a systematic way.  Currently, some alternatives exist here and there, but much more could be done to create humane alternatives on a national scale.  A systematic approach to reform will ensure that all immigrants are treated equally.

What would humane alternatives to detention look like?

The first step in creating nation-wide alternatives to detention is establishing a standardized assessment.  When each individual detainee is apprehended, ICE would conduct an assessment that would examine the detainee's risks and needs.  Questions on risks would establish whether the detainee could be considered a flight risk or a threat to public safety.  Questions on needs would determine whether the detainee belongs to a vulnerable population, whether they have a claim to citizenship or legal status, whether they need medical care, and so on.

By conducting this assessment, ICE would have a much better sense of who exactly is in its custody.  The agency would then be well-positioned to consider whether detention is appropriate for each individual.

The next step would be to determine whether it makes sense to detain each individual.  We're not talking about an either-or proposition here, as if either a person is detained or released.  Instead, we're talking about creating a continuum of different alternative-to-detention options.

ICE would use its risk and needs assessment to determine which option is most suitable for each detainee.  That way, ICE would treat each detainee individually instead of using the current one-size-fits-all approach in which detention is the default.

In this continuum, detention would be a last resort.  

Let's start by looking at the least restrictive end of the continuum.  At the far end, immigrant detainees who are non-criminal and do not pose a risk to society could be released on parole.  They would be expected to appear to their court dates on their own.  Others could be released into community-based or faith-based programs, where they would receive support as their cases proceed.  Others could be enrolled in alternative-to-detention programs that would include regular check-ins with an officer or telephonic reporting.  These would be the non-custodial alternatives to detention.

The more restrictive options in the continuum would be alternative forms of detention (as opposed to alternatives to detention).  The most common of these forms is electronic monitoring, through ankle bracelets.  Detainees in these programs could also be expected to check in regularly or adhere to a curfew.  Then, moving up the scale, immigrant detainees could be held in residential facilities.  Finally, those who are deemed a flight risk or a threat to public safety could be held in less restrictive detention facilities or traditional detention facilities as appropriate.

Essentially, detention would no longer be the first option.  It would be the last.  This continuum of alternatives would ensure that detention - an extreme measure - would only be used when it is absolutely necessary.

In political parlance, such a continuum would create a presumption against detention.  The burden would be on the U.S. government to prove why immigrants should be detained, instead of on those in its custody to prove why they should not be detained.

Is this continuum of alternatives to detention possible?

It is not only possible, but necessary.  The current immigration detention system is inefficient, costly, and prone to human rights abuses.  Creating alternatives to detention would improve this system.

Pilot programs for alternatives to detention have demonstrated high levels of compliance, in that almost all participants still showed up for their court dates and removal orders.  If people feel that they're receiving due process, if they respect the system and feel that they've been heard, then they're more likely to respect the final decision on removal.

In addition, creating a nation-wide system of alternatives to detention would save money.  Alternatives cost as little as $12 per person per day, while traditional detention costs, on average, $95 per person per day.  Finally, alternatives would make the system fair by keeping people out of detention who don't belong there.

The ultimate goal is to safely and humanely reduce the number of immigrants in detention.  Creating a continuum of alternatives to detention would be a workable solution that would fix the broken immigration enforcement system and uphold this country's commitment to justice.

So call or write your Representatives and Senators and tell them that the time for immigration reform is now.  Encourage them to include humane detention and due process reforms in comprehensive immigration reform.  Contact the Department of Homeland Security and tell them that the government should use its discretion to create alternatives to detention.  Speak up in church, at school, or at home and tell your community about how to support workable solutions to this broken immigration detention system that disrupts the lives of so many each day.

Want to learn more, or share what you've learned with others?  Check out these resources on detention and alternatives to detention.

The Detention Watch Network is an excellent resource for information on detention and due process.  Click here for their alternatives to detention fact sheet.  Click here for the Rights Working Group fact sheet on detention and due process.

"Jailed Without Justice" is an Amnesty International report on the immigration detention system.  "Seeking Protection, Finding Prison" is a Human Rights First report on asylum seekers in detention.

Wondering whether there's a detention center near you?  Click here to see a map of detention facilities around the country.  Want to get some friends together and visit detainees?  Read this detention visitation manual to learn how to connect your community with immigrant detainees.

To read more stories on detention, visit this website from the Detention Watch Network.

To be neutral in a situation of injustice is to have chosen sides already.

~Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Other posts in this series:

Stories from Detention: Introduction

Rights and Dignity Denied: One Woman's Story

No Human Being is Illegal: Civil Offenses

Searching for Justice: Mandatory Detention

Inside the Walls: Detention Conditions

In Need of Protection: Vulnerable Populations

In Need of Protection: Vulnerable Populations

Stories from Detention - Week 5

If you were in detention, what would your needs be? What if your children had no one to care for them at home? What if you were pregnant? What if you had a heart condition? What if you had been abused?

In our last post in this series, we looked at how the conditions in detention centers often do not meet the basic needs of immigrant detainees. However, detainees' needs differ according to their circumstances. Some people, such as those fleeing persecution or torture abroad, are particularly vulnerable and need additional protections.

Right now, when people seeking asylum try to enter the United States, they are usually detained in county jails, privatized prisons, and ICE-controlled detention centers as their cases are processed. These facilities are highly restrictive. They are not appropriate for asylum-seekers who have already had traumatic experiences. Being held in prison may actually trigger memories of past trauma and cause lasting psychological harm.

For example, let's say you were apprehended in your country of origin for political activism and then tortured in a clinical setting. You flee to the United States but then being held in a facility with cramped cells, fluorescent lights, metal tables, and armed guards could trigger flashbacks, nightmares, depression, and even suicidal thoughts. Basically, the jail-like conditions in detention facilities can aggravate post-traumatic stress disorder for asylum-seekers.

Detainees fleeing persecution must deal with the emotional and physical effects of past traumas while simultaneously trying to take care of their basic needs, such as their health. In this week's video clip, we will hear the story of an asylum-seeker from Cameroon. When she arrived at an airport in the United States, her infant child was taken from her and she was detained for 11 months without appropriate medical care.

Please note: This video clip is mostly audio, without visuals, because this asylum-seeker has chosen to remain anonymous. Please turn up your volume and take the time to listen to her story.



This asylum-seeker did not pose a threat to public safety. Still, the U.S. government held her in a detention center while her asylum claim was reviewed. Meanwhile, her family and her health suffered. She, like members of other vulnerable populations, was caught up in a system that fails to recognize the needs of individual detainees.

Who might be considered vulnerable? Vulnerable immigrants include asylum-seekers, torture survivors, victims of human trafficking, the sick and elderly, LGBT immigrants, pregnant women, families, green card holders, and the parents of U.S. citizen children.

People in these categories are in need of additional protections, which the current system does not provide. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not yet have a national system in place to make sure that vulnerable detainees are treated humanely.

However, DHS recently announced plans to overhaul the immigration detention system. Here are a few specific changes that DHS should make to ensure that vulnerable detainees are protected:

DHS should develop a nationwide assessment that would be conducted for each detainee when they are first apprehended. This assessment would determine the needs and risks for each detainee. That way, DHS would have a much better sense of who's in their custody and what kind of protections and services they may need.

DHS should enforce humane detention standards, including special provisions for vulnerable populations. They should improve oversight in all their facilities - including privatized facilities that they contract out to - to make sure that basic rights are protected and that abuses are not tolerated in the system.

DHS should ensure that immigrant detainees each get their fair day in court. This would mean improving access to lawyers, law libraries, and telephones; making translation services available; and refraining from transferring detainees arbitrarily to other facilities around the country.

DHS should prioritize vulnerable detainees - like the asylum-seeker who describes her experience in today's video - for alternative to detention programs and release into the community. Most immigrant detainees are non-criminal and do not pose a risk to society. They should be held in the least restrictive setting possible.

Next week, in our final post in this blog series, we'll explore what these alternatives to detention might look like. Creating alternatives to detention would be a strong step in fixing this broken immigration enforcement system.

Other posts in this series:

Stories from Detention: Introduction
Rights and Dignity Denied: One Woman's Story
No Human Being is Illegal: Civil Offenses
Searching for Justice: Mandatory Detention
Inside the Walls: Detention Conditions
There's a Better Way: Alternatives to Detention

Inside the Walls: Detention Conditions

Stories from Detention - Week 4

Imagine that you are on your way to pick your son up at school and you run a red light. A police officer pulls you over and arrests you because he suspects that you are an undocumented immigrant. After processing, you are held in a local prison. The prison is overcrowded so, two days later, you are put in leg and belly chains and transferred to an immigration detention facility in a remote location in rural Texas. What do you do?

You don't know whether your son is safe. Your visa proving you are legally permitted to live in the United States is back at home in the drawer. Your blood pressure medication, which you need to take every day, is on the table at home too. You only have the $27 in your pocket when you were arrested. You are afraid that you will be deported.

Many of the 440,000 people who will be detained in the immigration detention system this year face situations similar to this one. They are caught up in a system that has weak guidelines and little oversight. Even their basic needs often go unmet.

The conditions in many immigration detention facilities are terrible. Detainees do not receive adequate health care, have trouble contacting their families, and are frequently transferred - without warning - to detention centers far away from their homes. In today's video clip, we will learn the story of a young immigrant woman who was placed in seven detention centers over three years.



Even though Agatha Joseph's daughter is a green card holder, she was detained for a minor offense on her record for which she had already paid a fine. In the last post in this series, we discussed how mandatory detention policies punish immigrants retroactively and disproportionately for minor crimes they have committed in the past.

This young woman was transferred to seven different facilities in three years. Such transfers are common and make it extremely difficult for immigrant detainees to stay in touch with their families and their lawyers. In addition, guards sometimes threaten to transfer detainees to another facility if they complain about conditions.

Frequent transfers also complicate medical treatment. Immigrant detainees find it very difficult to get any medical care at all, much less timely care for any illnesses or injuries. In addition, immigrant detainees who have experienced torture, abuse, or other trauma often also need mental health care. These detainees may suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. They are actually at risk of re-traumatization while in detention, since the conditions in detention may remind them strongly of their past traumatic experiences.

Immigrant detainees face a number of other unreasonable restrictions while in detention, many of which amount to violations of human and civil rights. Just to give you a sense of the range of violations…

• Over 57% of immigrant detainees are held in county or city prisons where they are mixed in with the local prison population. They are not adequately protected against physical, verbal, or sexual abuse. Many of these facilities are overcrowded as well.

• In many facilities, immigrant detainees lack access to fresh air and exercise. Some facilities do not allow detainees to spend any time outside. Some only permit exercise two or four days a week while others schedule exercise at unreasonable hours of the day.

• Many immigrant detainees lack access to religious services, pastoral care, and a diet in keeping with their religious practices. In one detention center, detainees observing Ramadan had fasted during the day and requested hot water in the evening with which to make soup to break their fast. The guards refused and, when the detainees objected, the guards threatened to put them in solitary confinement if they continued to complain.

• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, 84% of immigrant detainees are not represented by a lawyer. As they prepare to argue their own cases, they lack access to necessary resources and materials. Detainees rely on the facility's telephones in order to contact family members, law offices, and consulates. However, they may be required to wait as 40 or 50 detainees share 2 or 3 phones. In addition, they are unable to make free calls to pro bono legal services. The detention facilities' law libraries do not often have immigration-related legal materials in appropriate languages and translation and interpretation services are nearly non-existent. Legal orientation programs are rare. In sum, immigrant detainees are often reliant on ICE officers for information about their case - a clear conflict of interests.

The conditions in immigration detention centers are abysmal by nearly any standard. By expressing your concerns on the conditions in these facilities, you can urge Congress and the Obama administration to take three steps to fix this broken system.

First, you can urge ICE to provide detainees with adequate medical treatment including initial medical screenings, primary care and emergency care. This step would avoid needless and preventable detainee deaths.

Second, you can urge Congress to pass legislation on detention standards. In the House, there are two bills on this subject: the Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act and the HELP for Separated Children Act. In the Senate, there are two bills as well: the Strong STANDARDS Act and the Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Detention Act. These bills would create binding, clear, enforceable standards to ensure that the conditions in detention facilities are improved.

Third, you can urge the Department of Homeland Security to create independent oversight of detention facilities. This step would promote accountability and ensure that all immigrant detainees are treated fairly and humanely.

Improving the conditions in detention centers is an important step in fixing the immigration detention system. However, this is only the tip of the iceberg. Ultimately, ICE must no longer detain as many people as it does currently. Stay tuned for more posts in this series that will discuss how to safely and humanely reduce the number of immigrants in detention.

Other posts in this series:

Stories from Detention: Introduction
Rights and Dignity Denied: One Woman's Story
No Human Being is Illegal: Civil Offenses
Searching for Justice: Mandatory Detention
In Need of Protection: Vulnerable Populations
There's a Better Way: Alternatives to Detention

Searching for Justice: Mandatory Detention

Stories from Detention - Week 3

In the last post in this series, we discussed how immigration violations are civil, not criminal offenses. If that is so, then how has it been possible for the number of immigrant detainees to skyrocket in recent years?

Recent immigration laws have deprived immigrants of their dignity and their rights. By denying immigrants the right to a fair day in court, these laws have greatly expanded the number of people detained and deported each year.

In 1996, laws on expedited removal and mandatory detention created some of the most severe failures to uphold justice within the U.S. immigration system. Expedited removal is a procedure that allows immigration agencies to deport certain immigrants without a hearing in front of an independent court. Detention is mandatory during the time it takes to deport these people from the United States.

It is common knowledge that the U.S. government was set up as a system of checks and balances - without the judicial branch, that system would be severely weakened. However, the U.S. immigration system currently lacks this same measure of justice.

Before we get into the history of how expedited removal and mandatory detention were put into place and which immigrant populations are affected by these policies, let's take a look at how this denial of justice affected Warren Joseph, an immigrant from Trinidad. As Joseph's story will demonstrate, mandatory detention can last months, or even years.

Joseph was fortunate that his case was processed and he was eventually able to reunite with his son and remain in the United States. Many are not as fortunate - they are deported, without ever having had an opportunity to argue their case before a judge.

So, who is affected by expedited removal and mandatory detention?

As Joseph's story indicates, immigrants who have been convicted of a crime are subject to mandatory detention. The offenses for which immigrants are detained and deported include minor misdemeanors, such as shoplifting or petty drug possession. These minor misdemeanors may not have required any jail time, but they are still grounds for deportation under current immigration laws.

This policy affects all non-citizens, including green card holders with strong ties to the United States who have previously been convicted of a crime, even if the conviction is for a minor offense and even if - like Joseph - they have already paid their debt to society. They are punished retroactively for crimes they committed years, even decades ago, even for crimes that were not deportable offenses at the time that they were committed.

Mandatory detention also applies to arriving immigrants who do not have the proper documentation and who are unable to establish a "credible fear" of returning to their country of origin.

As I mentioned earlier, immigration laws were passed in 1996 that expanded the scope of mandatory detention and expedited removal. At the same time, the budget for the Department of Homeland Security increased significantly. As a result, the number of immigrant detainees has increased dramatically in the past fifteen years. According to the Detention Watch Network, the U.S. detained approximately 95,000 individuals in 2001. By 2007, over 300,000 people were being detained annually under immigration laws. By the end of 2009, that number will have increased yet again to more than 440,000 immigrant detainees.

Mandatory detention and expedited removal, policies that affect thousands of people's lives each year, are actually illegal under international law because they do not grant detainees a fair day in court. According to the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, detention is arbitrary if it fails to consider individuals' personal circumstances. Mandatory detention therefore violates international law. The United States has signed onto international treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which prohibit arbitrary detention.

The vast majority of people who are subject to mandatory detention and expedited removal do not have access to a lawyer. Overall, 84% of immigrant detainees do not have legal representation. In addition, mandatory detention does not allow detainees to appear before an impartial judge. People are routinely deported under mandatory detention without any consideration of their personal situation, such as whether they have young children in the United States or whether they would be in danger if returned to their country of origin.

Here at FCNL, we maintain that mandatory detention and expedited removal must be ended, in order to restore justice to the U.S. immigration system.

In order to restore fairness to the immigration system, we urge Congress to pass a bill that ends these fundamentally unjust policies. Such a bill should give immigration judges discretion to make case-by-case decisions on whether individuals should be detained. Alternatives to detention should be put into place on a national level. In addition, it is important to push back against bills that would expand the criteria for mandatory detention even further.

We also urge the Department of Homeland Security to take immediate steps to ensure that immigrant detainees have access to lawyers and law libraries. Detainees currently face huge obstacles in finding legal assistance because they are held in isolated areas, often without interpreter or translator services, and have limited access to telephones. The next post in this series will address our concerns regarding detention conditions in greater detail.

Justice is denied to immigrants under the mandatory detention and expedited removal policies. There is no place for this kind of injustice in a fair immigration system.

Other posts in this series:

Stories from Detention: Introduction
Rights and Dignity Denied: One Woman's Story
No Human Being is Illegal: Civil Offenses
Inside the Walls: Detention Conditions
In Need of Protection: Vulnerable Populations
There's a Better Way: Alternatives to Detention

No Human Being is Illegal: Civil Offenses

Stories from Detention - Week 2

In conversations on immigration issues, people on many sides of the debate use the term "illegal immigrants." Some choose instead to say "illegal aliens." Even the mainstream media uses these phrases. This choice of language reflects the widely-held notion in the United States that not having proper documentation is a crime.

Get ready for this one: Being an "illegal immigrant" is not a crime.

Violations of immigration laws are civil, not criminal offenses. Let's look at a couple other examples of civil offenses. These include paying for damages in a car accident, going to court for a property dispute, or settling a disagreement about someone's will. These are not criminal offenses, and neither are immigration violations.

What is the punishment for most civil offenses? A fine. What is the punishment for immigrating to the United States without documentation, which is also a civil offense? Arrest, detention, and deportation.

When undocumented immigrants are found to be in violation of immigration laws, they go through a process to see whether they have a right to stay in the United States. Immigrants detained during this process are in non-criminal custody. However, it's easy to get confused on this point, because more than half of the immigrants in detention are held in private prisons or county jails. Some of them are even mixed in with the criminal prison population.

In this video clip, a woman who was detained in an immigration raid on a New Bedford factory gives testimony about her experience. She was separated from her daughter and refused access to a lawyer. Traumatized from the humiliation she experienced, as well as the verbal and physical abuse that she witnessed, she still chooses to share her story.



This woman's experience in the immigration detention system caused her a great deal of pain. Her story raises an important question: What should be the appropriate governmental response to people who enter the U.S. without documentation?

Since most immigration violations are civil rather than criminal offenses, the U.S. government should treat detention as a last resort. Right now, almost all the people accused of violating immigration laws are held in detention centers - no matter what their individual circumstances are. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security should develop community-based alternatives to detention for people, like the woman in this video, who are not a risk to public safety. That way, they could stay together with their families and children as their cases are processed. In addition, Congress should pass a bill on immigration reform that protects people from being treated unfairly in detention.

I will talk in much more detail about these possibilities for reform in the upcoming post, "There's a Better Way: Alternatives to Detention." But these reforms aren't going to happen tomorrow - although they could certainly happen in the next few months. In the meantime, you can help to raise awareness about the immigration detention system.

Language can be a powerful tool. The way that people talk about immigration reflects how they think about immigration. The words that frame these issues actually serve a political purpose - they shape how the discussion on immigration reform advances.

By making a conscious choice not to say "illegal immigrants" and instead to say "undocumented immigrants," you can help to educate your friends, family, and community about how violating immigration laws is not a criminal offense.

Other posts in this series:

Stories from Detention: Introduction
Rights and Dignity Denied: One Woman's Story
Searching for Justice: Mandatory Detention
Inside the Walls: Detention Conditions
In Need of Protection: Vulnerable Populations
There's a Better Way: Alternatives to Detention

Rights and Dignity Denied: One Woman’s Story

Stories from Detention - Week 1

"Our nation's soul is at risk. Families are being torn apart. Human rights are being denied. Comprehensive immigration reform is needed now. We recognize an urgent duty and challenge to stand in solidarity with immigrants, refugees, and trafficked persons seeking fullness of life, and to act as a voice for those whose needs get lost in the political debate."
~ Sister Eileen Campbell

The use of detention as a tool of enforcement has skyrocketed in recent years. In 1996, immigration authorities had the capacity to detain less than 10,000 people on a daily basis. Today that number has tripled - more than 30,000 immigrants are detained each day. More than 440,000 people will be detained by immigration authorities this year.

Immigrants in the detention system spend anywhere from a few days to months or even years in confinement, with little access to family or lawyers on the outside. They are caught in a system that has weak guidelines and little oversight.

More than 104 individuals have died while in immigration custody since 2004, including 11 previously unreported deaths that were revealed in August 2009. Detainees being held on immigration charges are routinely denied adequate medical care, including access to medications treating pre-existing conditions.

Those in detention include immigrants who have never committed a crime, survivors of torture, asylum-seekers searching for protection from persecution, and the parents of U.S. citizen children. None of these populations receive the support and protections they need.

Moreover, until recently, families - including young children - were held in the T. Don Hutto detention facility, a former medium-security prison, in Texas. Families are still detained in the less restrictive Berks facility.

Two agencies within the Department of Homeland Security are in charge of enforcing immigration laws. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is responsible for enforcement within the United States, while Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is responsible for enforcement on the borders. People whose legal status is in question are detained in a mix of facilities run by ICE, privately contracted facilities, and county jails.

One of the people directly affected by the detention system is Juana Villegas, a Mexican woman who was stopped for careless driving and then detained in substandard conditions while nine months pregnant. Take a look at this video, in which she describes her experiences while in detention:

Juana Villegas's experiences raise questions about what place a detention system like this has in a society committed to equality, justice, and rights. Her story, which took a lot of courage to tell, sheds light on how the immigration detention system disregards the humanity of too many detainees.

While the government has the right to control its borders, it also has obligations under international law to protect the human rights of all people in its territory. This does not just apply to citizens - it includes everyone, no matter their immigration status. The United States has signed and ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that:

• Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person (Article 3)
• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, or exile (Article 9)
• Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state (Article 13.1)
  

The public debate on immigration, particularly in the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, has created the impression that immigration is an issue of national security. From this debate, hate rhetoric has emerged which contributes to the widely-held impression that immigrants do not deserve any rights. This is not true. Every immigrant, whether undocumented or not, deserves to be treated with dignity and to enjoy the rights listed above.

Today, the U.S. immigration detention system violates these rights, which are protected by international law. When mandatory detention is enforced, these rights are violated. When immigrants are denied a fair day in court, these rights are violated. When ICE does not ensure that detention facilities have appropriate living conditions, these rights are violated. And when people who are particularly vulnerable to trauma and abuse are not protected, these rights are violated. The subsequent posts in this blog series will address each of these issues in turn.

When both legal and undocumented immigrants are held in detention centers for months or even years, their confinement erodes the United States' commitment to upholding justice for all. When people like Juana Villegas are treated inhumanely in the U.S. detention system, their experiences tarnish the United States' reputation as a protector and defender of human and civil rights.

In order to restore justice and respect for the rights of all, Congress and the Obama administration must take bold steps to reform the U.S. immigration detention system. The Department of Homeland Security must make good on its promise to overhaul its detention facilities. The current legislation on humane detention reform must be included in upcoming bills on broader immigration reforms. These steps would ensure that this country's immigration system works for everyone and still respects the basic rights and dignity of all immigrants.

Other posts in this series:

Stories from Detention: Introduction
No Human Being is Illegal: Civil Offenses
Searching for Justice: Mandatory Detention
Inside the Walls: Detention Conditions
In Need of Protection: Vulnerable Populations
There's a Better Way: Alternatives to Detention

Stories from Detention: A Six-Week Series

Welcome to "Stories from Detention," a six-week blog series examining the U.S. immigration detention system and exploring possibilities for humane reforms.

Detention is an aspect of the U.S. immigration system that, for all the attention it receives in the media, is not well understood. Anti-immigrant rhetoric creates the impression that detention is less problematic than it really is. Detention facilities themselves are often located in rural areas, away from the public eye. Immigrants held in detention facilities are often unable to tell their own stories because of the conditions of their confinement.

However, since the United States will detain over 440,000 people in 2009, it's worth a closer look.

In this series, every Friday I will post a short video in which a former detainee tells his or her story of experiencing detention. Each video will be accompanied by information about different aspects of the U.S. immigration detention system. At the end of each post, I will offer concrete steps that Congress and the Obama administration could take to reform each component of the detention system.

As you read these posts and watch the videos, keep in mind that these detainees' stories are not exceptional. Rather, they are indicative of system-wide injustices that must be corrected in order to restore the U.S. traditions of justice and equality.

Solutions to the current situation could be at hand in the near future. Members of Congress will soon be introducing legislation to reform how immigration works in the United States. Bills specifically on detention reform are already making their way through the House and Senate. The Department of Homeland Security has announced that it intends to overhaul the detention system. Will all these changes become a reality?

Your participation in this process is key. This is an issue that affects everyone -- not just immigrants and their families. Once you willingly put up with someone else's rights being taken away, you expose yourself to the possibility that one day soon, yours will be restricted as well.

Listen to these immigrants' stories, share this series with your loved ones and people in your community committed to immigration reform, and let's work together to create a future with dignity and fairness for all people, regardless of immigration status.

Other posts in this series:

Rights and Dignity Denied: One Woman's Story
No Human Being is Illegal: Civil Offenses
Searching for Justice: Mandatory Detention
Inside the Walls: Detention Conditions
In Need of Protection: Vulnerable Populations
There's a Better Way: Alternatives to Detention