Litigation

Times Spotlights Cover-Up at Immigration Prisons

By Peter Hardin

It is no secret that America’s immigration court system is close to broken. Now the New York Times has spotlighted  disclosures about secretive government-run immigration prisons and has brought alarming stories to light.

Detainees often have disappeared from these prisons, their severe diseases gone  untreated and their fates remained a mystery until after their premature deaths, the Times wrote in an editorial. Even worse, the Times said, it was not known until recently “how strenuously the government has tried to cover up those failings–keeping relatives and lawyers in the dark, deflecting blame, fighting rigorous quality standards, outside oversight and transparency. These deficiencies endure today.”

Evidence was dug up by the newspaper and the American Civil Liberties Union, and published in an earlier Times article, headlined “Officials Hid Truth of Immigrant Deaths in Jail.” You can learn about massive problems facing the nation’s immigration courts system from Justice at Stake’s issues page.

Full post as published by The Gavel on January 20, 2010 (boomark / email).