Law Students

Tales from Detention

By Andrea

PT-Law Mom's post reminds me that I haven't posted about immigration in a while - spending all those hours writing my 3L paper about it kept it off the blog inadvertently. Although I did mention the general crappy state of the court and detention system in my last Record column ever last week.

Rest assured things have not gotten any less outrageous. Here are a just a few charming stories I learned while writing my paper:

- In Jan 2007, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against overcrowding at the Otay Mesa detention facility in So Cal; and in response, officials transferred 200 detainees out. Good, right? Except they were allegedly awoken at 3 AM, put into a holding tank so small they had to take turns sitting for 20 hours, and then bused to San Diego or Arizona, and there was evidence they hand-picked the transferees as the ones who had spoken with the ACLU.

- In a youth detention center in Texas, children were beaten and sexually abused, and then when they tried to report it, officials allegedly transferred the lead whistleblower teenager away and punished others with lack of food and sleeping on the floor. One guard was already sentenced to seven years in prison, but a lawsuit filed in Feb is trying to prove it went much deeper than just her abuse.

- Just yesterday, ICE actually admitted negligence in the death of a detainee (and asylum seeker) from untreated penile cancer. The doctor at the facility disagreed with an outside oncologist's recommendation he be hospitalized for a biopsy because the procedure would be "elective" since he wasn't in imminent danger of dying.

Yeah, I think we've got some work to do.

Full post as published by Peanut Butter Burrito on April 30, 2008 (boomark / email).