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On Might 20, 2021, Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Safety, directed ICE to instantly discontinue the usage of an immigration detention facility in North Dartmouth, Massachusetts and put together to discontinue the usage of one other detention facility in Ocilla, Georgia. Each amenities have been on the heart of controversy in latest months. On the Massachusetts facility, the Massachusetts Legal professional Basic discovered the sheriff’s workplace used extreme power, together with flash-bang grenades, pepper-ball launchers, and canines, towards detainees when a conflict broke out over COVID-19 testing. And on the Ocilla, Georgia facility, quite a few detainees got here ahead to report {that a} gynecologist who labored at facility carried out pointless and undesirable procedures on them, together with hysterectomies.
In his directive to shut these amenities, Secretary Mayorkas remarked, “Enable me to state one foundational precept: we is not going to tolerate the mistreatment of people in civil immigration detention or substandard circumstances of detention.”
The closure of those amenities highlights the problematic nature our immigration detention system and begs the query of whether or not immigration detention is even essential. Whereas immigration detention is claimed to be “civil” slightly than “prison,” in apply immigration detainees are confined in jail-like settings.
A typical argument in help of immigration detention amenities is that it ensures immigrants attend their court docket hearings. Nevertheless, latest studies point out that the “downside” of immigrants failing to look for court docket hearings is comparatively small, and infrequently could be attributed to lack of discover or challenges in attending to court docket. A latest report revealed by the American Immigration Council analyzed a decade of information offered by the federal authorities and located:
- 83% of all non-detained immigrants with accomplished or pending elimination circumstances from FY08-18 attended all of their court docket hearings.
- 95% of non-detained immigrants represented by a lawyer attended their court-hearings
The closure of two detention amenities is a constructive growth, and hopefully will spur on the conversations concerning options to detention.
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