locked up but not forgotten

8/9/2019 Locked Up But Not Forgotten

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Locked Up but not

forgotten opening access to family & communityin the immigration detention system

New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic

In cooperation with: American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees

april 2010


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Locked Up But Not Forgot t en

page ii

Bergen

Essex

Hudson

Monmouth

DETENTION

CENTERS IN

NEW JERSEY

Bergen County Jail (Hackensack)

Essex County Correctional Facility (Newark)

Elizabeth Detention Facility (Elizabeth)

Hudson County Correctional Center(Kearny)

Monmouth County Correctional Institution (Freehold)

Sussex County Jail [Keogh Dwyer Correctional Facility] (Newton)

Elizabeth

Sussex

Permission to reproduce material from this report is granted with attribution to:

New York University School of Law Immigrant Rights Clinic, 2010.


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organizations

American Friends Service Committee (AFSC)

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is

a Quaker organization that has worked for over 90 yearsto uphold human dignity and respect for the rights of allpersons. Since its inception, AFSC has worked on behalfof immigrants and refugees around the world, includingrelief and reconstruction work in Europe after WorldWars I and II. In keeping with this history, AFSCs NewYork Metropolitan Regional Immigrant Rights Program,based in Newark, New Jersey, addresses the needs ofthe most vulnerable immigrants and promotes a visionof trust, fairness, and a deep regard for the dignity andrights of all people. The program provides legal coun-seling and advocacy services on behalf of immigrantsin New Jersey, including those in detention; it provides

leadership training to encourage members of immigrantcommunities to participate in actions to support morehumane policies; and it addresses policy issues and rootcauses of migration.

For more information, visit: http://www.afsc.org.

New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees

New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detaineesis a coalition of organizations and individuals, includingAmerican Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Immigrant

Rights Program; Casa de Esperanza; the Episcopal Im-migration Network; Lutheran Ofce of GovernmentalMinistry in NJ; NJ Association on Correction; NJ Forumfor Human Rights; Pax Christi NJ; Middlesex CountyCoalition for Immigrant Rights; Peoples Organization forProgress- Bergen County Branch; the Reformed Churchof Highland Park; Sisters of St. Joseph of Chestnut HillESL; Unitarian Universalist Congregation at Montclair;and First Friends.

NYU Immigrant Rights Clinic

The Immigrant Rights Clinic is a leading institutionin both local and national struggles for immigrant rights.Students engage in direct legal representation of immi-grants and community organizations, and in immigrantrights campaigns at the local, state, and national level.Students have direct responsibility for all aspects of theircases and projects.

authors & acknowledgments

Authors: Ruben Loyo & Carolyn Corrado

Ruben Loyo and Carolyn Corrado are J.D. candi-

dates (2011) at New York University School of Law andare the primary authors of this report. They conductedthis work as student advocates in the Law Schools Im-migrant Rights Clinic.

Contributors: Amy Gottlieb, Immigrant Rights

Director, AFSC & Karina Wilkinson, New Jersey

Advocates for Immigrant Detainees

Amy Gottlieb and Karina Wilkinson facilitated theeldwork for this report, and provided valuable insightand assistance during the writing and editing process.

Layout/Design: E.Tammy Kim

E. Tammy Kim is a NYC-based social justice lawyeand freelance writer/illustrator, [email protected].

Photographs: Sterling Yee

Sterling Yee is a B.F.A. candidate (2010) at NewYork University Tisch School of the Arts.

Graphics: Gza Gnther Schenk, GGS

Communication, LLC

Acknowledgments

The authors of this report would like to acknowledgeall of the detainees, former detainees, and families whohad the courage to share their struggles and triumphswith us. We would also like to thank all of the New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees as well as the

Sojourners Visitor Program for inviting us into their com-munity and for their commitment to recognizing the hu-manity of all immigrants in detention.

The authors are grateful to Professor NancyMorawetz of the Immigrant Rights Clinic for her guid-ance, direction, and support throughout this entire pro-cess.


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Executive Summary 1

Introduction 3

Part 1: Visitation Alleviates the Human Costs of Immigration Detention 7

A. Lessons from the Criminal Justice Context 7

i. The Human Costs of Connement 7

ii. Visitation Mitigates the Human Costs of Connement 7

B. Family Visitation: Barriers to Maintaining Family Ties 9

i. Angela Josephs Story: Thirty-Minute Visits for Three Years 9

ii. Pauline Ndzies Story: Raising Children While in Detention 10

C. Community Group Visitation: Community Responses to Immigration Detention 13

i. The Reformed Church of Highland Park: Family Disaster Relief 13

ii. Middlesex County First Friends: Community Visitation 15

Part II: Visitation Mitigates the Unfairness of Immigration Detention 19

A. Detainees Must Navigate a Complex Legal Maze 19

B. Restrictions on Access Interfere With the Tasks of Self-Representation 23

C. Access is Necessary for the Development of Legal Claims 24

Part III: Visitation Provides a Source of Accountability 27

A. Visitation as a Source of Information: Documenting Detention Conditions 27

B. Visitation as a Source of Improvement: Advocating for Humane Conditions 32

i. Medical Care: Delays in the Provision of Medications 32

ii. Allegations of Physical Abuse 33

iii. General Conditions 33

Conclusion: Policy Recommendations 35

A. Proposals for Immediate Reforms 35

B. Proposals for Long-Term Reforms 38

Appendix: Glossary of Terms 39

Endnotes 41


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table of contents


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page 1

executive summaryThe Obama administration has committed itself to

reforming the nations expansive and controversial im-migration detention system. In August of 2009, De-partment of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary JanetNapolitano and Immigration and Customs Enforcement(ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton announced thatthe agency would be taking steps towards the creationof a civil detention system tailored to the agencys as-serted needs and purposes, a plan that will likely takeyears to come into fruition. Details about what the sys-tem might look like have emerged in recent news stories,

with the agency signaling that it is looking into convert-ing hotels and nursing homes into immigration detentioncenters. As it works toward implementing its long-termplan, the administration must not lose sight of what it cando immediately for the people currently trapped in a sys-tem that is a complete failure and that does not considerthe individual in each case and ask whether detention isnecessary at all.

This report examines access to family and commu-nity, a part of the day-to-day immigration detention expe-rience that is severely restricted in the current system yetcan be improved immediately. For the thousands of peo-

ple that ICE holds in jails and detention centers acrossthe countrymany of whom pose no ight risk or dangerto the communitydetention amounts to near total isola-tion from the outside world, often for prolonged periodsof time. In a system where ghting against wrongful de-tention and deportation can take months and sometimesyears, severing people from their homes and restrictingaccess to family and community through unreasonableand inhumane rules contradicts the notion that the im-migration detention system is civil or administrative in na-ture. In effect, immigration detention is punishmentnotjust for the immigrants in detention, but for their familiesand communities as well.

Facts for this report were gathered through visits tocounty jails and the Elizabeth Detention Facility in NewJersey, and dozens of interviews with current and for-mer detainees, families of detainees, church members,advocates, and community groups that strive to providedetainees with companionship at the New Jersey facili-ties. Our eldwork demonstrates that in the current im-migration detention system, detainees fortunate enough

to have access to family and community rely on familyand community visitors to ll critical gaps in the systemand provide them with much needed moral support andadvocacy. Detainees who have no one on the outside onwhom they can rely, on the other hand, easily lose hope

of staying in the countryregardless of the strength otheir claims to remain in the U.S.

Key Findings

Immigration detainees in state and local jailsare given minimal access to family and community, andthe degree of access is dependent upon the rules of theparticular facility. Frequent and arbitrary transfers acrosfacilities and exorbitant telephone rates further impaidetainees ability to maintain communication with familyand community members.

Visitation from family and community membersboosts morale among detainees and provides them withthe hope needed to pursue legitimate claims for reliefVisitation also promotes detainees transition either backinto their community in the U.S. or their country of origin

In cases where family members are too afraid tovisit a loved one in detention for fear that they too maybe detained, visitation by community groups provide detainees with a vital link to family.

Restrictions of non-legal visits to brief periods otime (usually 30 minutes) are arbitrary and detrimental in

a detention system where 84% of people are unrepre-sented. Detainees rely on visitors for tasks as diverse asarticulating a theory of relief, securing letters of supporfrom the community, and gathering funds for bond andrelief applications.

The current immigration detention system impairs positive community participation by relying on a detention standard that treats visitation as a security con-cern meriting substantial restriction.

Visitors help detainees navigate complex andunclear grievance procedures. In a system that lacks accountability, visitors are an important source of informa-

tion about day-to-day conditions at detention facilities.

Family and community visitors help mitigate deficits in the level of care that detainees receive in facilities. Visitors help ensure that detainees are receiving appropriate medical care and pressure facilities to improvedetention conditions.

From the experiences of family and community members in New Jersey, this report seeks to articulate a vision


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tion by community and volunteer groups by pressing jailsto relax restrictions on access.

ICE should issue a new standard, to be followedup by a binding regulation, which captures all of the val-ues and benets of visitation explored in this report.

ICE should issue a new standard, to be followedup by a binding regulation, which would mitigate themany disruptive effects of transfers. As a matter of pol-icy, ICE should ensure that detainees are given advancenotice of a transfer and ample opportunity to inform fam-ily, friends, and lawyers.

ICE should ensure that detainees receive freeor low-cost telephone access, which is necessary for thedifcult tasks of self-representation and for maintainingcommunication with family and community.

ICE should provide trainings for detention facil-

ity staff on the importance of access to family and com-munity in the immigration detention system.

ICE should use detention only where an immi-grant poses a ight risk or danger to a community.

proposalsforlong-termlegislativereforms

Congress should repeal the mandatory deten-tion law, which creates a culture that disregards anddenigrates humanity and liberty.

Congress should provide detainees with legal

counsel.

of what visitation with family and community should looklike, and what ICE should do now in order to apprecia-bly improve the day-to-day reality of detainees trappedin a system that deprives them of their basic dignity andhumanity. It seeks to provide ICE with an opportunity to

learn from the on-going struggles of detainees, families,and community members in attempting to maintain nec-essary social relations. ICE must abandon the concep-tion of visitation as a privilege and adopt a conception ofvisitation that takes into account the emotional and legalneeds of immigration detainees. We propose several im-mediate reforms and long-term legislative recommenda-tions aimed at capturing the values that visitation servesin the immigration detention context and providing con-tent for a new standard or regulation regarding visitationand access to family and community. We do not explorelegal and religious visitation, which are much more estab-lished forms of visitation.

Key Recommendations

proposalsforimmediateagencyreforms

ICE should cease detaining immigrants in stateand local jails, starting with those facilities that undulyrestrict detainees access to family and community.

ICE should provide visitors at all facilities with atleast one hour for general visits and more generous lim-its for families that have to travel long distances to visit arelative in detention.

ICE should require all facilities to provide week-end and holiday visitation opportunities.

ICE should prohibit the use of restrictive visi-tor lists and quotas and should monitor shared-usefacilities to ensure that lists and quotas are not appliedagainst immigration detainees.

ICE should provide detained parents immediateaccess to contact visits and cease detaining people atjails that prohibit them or impose long waiting periods forcontact visits.

ICE should permit all family members to visit arelative in detention, regardless of their immigration sta-tus.

ICEs visitation standard should recognize thatunrepresented detainees need ample access to fam-ily and community members in order to build their legalcases.

ICE should promote rather than impair participa-


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needed for effective self-representation. The currenfederal detention standards, however, are themselvesbased on correctional incarceration standards meant toguide the operation of jails and prisons, standards thatreat restrictions on access to family and community as

an incident of punishment.6

In the current immigrationdetention system, visitation with family and community istreated both as a privilege that can be greatly curtailedand a security matter that merits substantial restrictionFor the most part, the facilities we visited in our eldworkonly permit visits through no-contact visiting booths. Im-migration detainees who want contact visits with lovedones must often wait months before they can get acontact visit, if contact visits are permitted. Visitation istypically limited to brief visits lasting half an hour or lessFurther restrictions imposed on immigration detaineessuch as the use of visitor lists that limit the number of ap-proved visitors, impede the little access that immigration

detainees have to the outside world. And in these facili-ties, immigration detainees face additional limitations onaccess to the outside world, including prohibitively ex-pensive phone charges.

And if we look at who ICE detains in this systemthe narrow justications for immigration detention fur-ther lose their persuasiveness. ICE detains people withstrong claims for relief against deportation; mothers andfathers of young children; people with U.S. citizen par-ents, children, and siblings; people who came to the U.Sin their youth and have little to no recollection of theircountry of birth; people who are long-time lawful perma

nent residents and may even be eligible for citizenshippeople eeing persecution who know no English andhave no family or friends in the U.S.; people who workgrueling jobs in order to support extended familybothin the U.S. and abroad; people who are valuable mem-bers of their communities; people who have served in theU.S. Armed Forces; people who have worked in the U.Sfor many years, own homes, businesses, and pay taxespeople who suffer from medical and mental illnesses orsupport others who do; elderly people in need of regu-lar medical attention; and countless others who pose noight risk or danger to the community.

To the extent that ICE considers the individual, imostly does so on the basis of criminal history.7 The cur-rent system distinguishes between three categories ofimmigrants non-criminal aliens, non-violent criminaaliens, and violent criminal aliensan illogical classica-tion system considering the diversity of people ICE de-tains and the fact that a majority of them are classied asrequiring a low level of custody.8 Even if viewed throughthe lens of criminal history, the immigration detainee pop-

introductionIn theory, immigration detention serves a limited pur-

pose, distinct from the punitive function served by thecriminal incarceration systemto hold, process, and pre-pare individuals for removal.1 It is justied as a neces-sary means of ensuring the appearance of deportableimmigrants at their removal proceedings, and protectingcommunities from immigrants who might pose a publicsafety risk.2 The constitutionality of the most severe formof detentionmandatory detention without the possibilityof an individualized bond determinationis premised onthe idea that immigration detention is so l imited in scope,

purpose, and duration.3The reality of immigration detention, however, is

quite differentthe image of a system limited in purposeand scope simply isnt true. The current system holdspeople for extensive periods of time, while typically re-quiring them to defend themselves in complex legal andfactual proceedings. Many people eventually win theircases and are released back into their communities inthe U.S. But throughout this indenite and challengingprocess, they are trapped in a system that isolates themfrom the public, their families, and their communities, of-ten in facilities designed for punitive purposes.

In Immigration Detention Overview and Recom-mendations, a report meant to guide the overhaul of theimmigration detention system, Dr. Dora Schriro notesthat with only a few exceptions, the facilities that ICEuses for immigration detention were built or operate asjails and prisons for the connement of pre-trial and sen-tenced felons.4 In Fiscal Year (FY) 2009, ICE held amajority of immigration detainees in shared-use countyjails pursuant to intergovernmental service agreements(IGSA).5 As the stories in this report highlight, theseshared-use facilities impose harsh and arbitrary restric-tions on access to family and community that are notgermane to the administrative, non-punitive purposes ofdetention and which greatly interfere with the tasks ofself-representation. Frequent and arbitrary transfers toand from jails and detention centers further disrupt andlimit detainees access to family and community.

Federal detention standards provide an opportunityto ensure that at the very least, the custodial setting pro-vided immigration detainees mirrors the limited purposesof immigration detention and provides the type of access


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ulation escapes easy classications. Some detaineesare taken straight into custody after serving a criminalsentence or when released on probation, while othersare in detention for convictions incurred many years ago,convictions that may not have even carried any jail or

prison time. ICE detains people who have been reha-bilitated, accepted responsibility and completely trans-formed their lives after being convicted of crimes. Putsimply, the current immigration detention system fails totake into account the experiences and circumstances ofeach person it detains and ask why they are being de-tained and whether they should be detained.

In spite of this dissonancebetween who ICE saysit detains and who it actually detains, and between howit says it will detain and how and where it actually de-tainsICE ofcials continue to signal that the agency willdetain on a massive scale,9 without any assurances thatICE will take signicant steps in the interim to ensurethat immigration detainees get fair treatment now as theagency moves towards the creation of a more civil sys-tem. In the last fteen years, ICE has increased its dailydetention capacity fourfold, from fewer than 7,500 bedsin 1995 to over 30,000 in 2009.10 The share of ICEsbudget devoted to custody operations has also consis-tently increased. In FY 2005, ICEs budget for custodyoperations was $864,125,000, nearly a quarter of ICEstotal budget.11 For FY 2010, ICEs custody operationsbudget is $1.77 billion, nearly a third of its total budget.12Such rapid growth has far outpaced actual administra-tive capacity, resulting in the agencys over-reliance on

excess capacity in penal institutions.The disconnect between the asserted purposes of

immigration detention and its reality imposes burdens ondetainees beyond those they already have to contendwith by virtue of being in detention. Detention deprivespeople of the social intercourse necessary to sustainmental health, families of a necessary source of income,and children of their parents affection and support. De-tention disadvantages detainees who have no attorneywhile there is a right to counsel in criminal proceedings,there is no right to counsel in immigration proceedings.13Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of immigra-tion detainees represent themselves. Trying to prepareones own immigration case while in detention, withouta lawyer, without knowledge of immigration law, withoutsufcient access to an adequate law library, and withoutEnglish language uency, is an almost impossible task.Visitation from family, friends and community memberscan ameliorate the unfairness of this system, but the cur-rent immigration detention system fails to maximize thepotential of visitation and fails to recognize the ways in

which the systems civility is dependent on the degreeof access to the outside world given to immigration de-tainees.

Structure of the ReportThis report examines the way that visitation with fam-

ily and community functions in the current immigrationdetention context and the way it should function in orderto afrm the humanity and dignity of immigration detain-ees and maximize fairness and transparency in a systemlacking in both.

Part I of this report examines how visitation withfamily and community alleviates the human costs of im-migration detention. Immigration detention directly im-pacts the mental and physical health of the person beingdetained but it also carries unintended consequences for

the relatives and communities of immigration detainees.Visitation helps both immigration detainees and theirfamilies cope and adjust to the harsh reality of detention.Visitation helps ease the transition from detention eitherback to ones home in the U.S. or ones country of origin.

We draw on social science literature about visitationin the criminal justice context, and its purposes and ben-ets. We then discuss how visitation serves these andother functions in the immigration detention context. Vis-itation helps address initial feelings of isolation, sadness,and trauma. For those who are granted relief and arereleased back into the community, visitation helps detain-

ees maintain crucial ties to their community and providesa safety net. For those who will be deported, visitationhelps detainees tie up affairs in this country and providesthem with opportunities to say goodbye.

In Part II we look at the functions visitation servesin the absence of a right to counsel. Visitation gives de-tainees a way to gather documents, research legal theo-ries, coordinate witnesses, and perform other necessarylegal tasks. Restrictions on access to family and com-munity are arbitrary and inhumane in a system where avast majority of people are unrepresented. While LegalOrientation Programs (LOPs) provide detainees with in-

formation regarding the removal process and immigrationcourt system, they do not provide detainees with the as-sistance needed to actually prepare their cases.

In Part III, we examine visitation as a means of pro-moting the values of accountabilityoversight, transpar-ency, and improvement. Visitation allows family, friendsand community members rst-hand access to the day-to-day conditions of detention. Because ICE has contracted


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away so much responsibility, concerns about conditionsof detention are currently at the forefront of the nationaldialogue. Visitors can help keep ICE and the communityinformed of what the conditions at detention centers ac-tually are, help immigration detainees navigate complex

grievance procedures, and improve detention conditionsthrough advocacy.

We conclude with proposals for immediate and long-term reforms. National immigration detention standards(and regulations) provide an opportunity to address theunnecessary difculties that immigrants in detentionface. However, those standards must reect the uniquepurposes of civil detention. In particular, the standardsshould recognize the value and urgent need for generousaccess to family, friends and community members. Stan-dards should prohibit the use of restrictive visitor listsand quotas, provide for increased hours of visitation, andprovide for more humane transfer procedures. In orderto be effective, compliance with such standards must bemandatory for all facilities. ICE can take other immedi-ate measures in order to eliminate barriers to family andcommunity. ICE should ensure that detainees get accessto free or low-cost telephone service, it should encouragejails to relax restrictive visitation policies that isolate de-tainees from the outside world, and it should encouragerather than impair participation from community groups.And in the long-term, Congress should repeal mandatorydetention, a draconian measure that devalues humanityand liberty. It should also provide detainees with legalcounselimmigration detention imposes barriers on ac-

cess to the outside world that make effective self-repre-sentation nearly impossible.


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part 1 : visitation alleviates the

human costs of immigration

detention

the ability to contact family or just

to have someone to talk to, to hear

that someone cares, is crucial. You

are so dehumanized inside that you really

need that human contact.14

Amy Gottlieb, Immigrant Rights Director,American Friends Service Committee (AFSC),

Newark

Lessons from the Criminal Justice Context

i. thehumancostsofconfinement

The connement or detention of personsin jails,prison, or detention centersis a costly endeavor, bothin economic and human terms. For taxpayers, conne-ment, incarceration, and detention amount to millionsof dollars in discretionary spending$1.77 billion in FY2010 for immigration detention.15 For the person beingconned or detained, the experience is largely dened bynear total isolation from the public, family, and friends.16Reactions to connement and incarceration often en-compass feelings of loneliness, isolation, guilt, anger, anddespair.17 Though people are conned for specic gov-ernment purposesadministrative and punitiveall toooften their connement accomplishes much more thanthose objectives and produces unintended and counter-productive consequences, especially for the family andcommunity members of those being locked up.

In the criminal justice context, social scientistshave identied many spillover effects incarcerationreverberate[s] through kinship and social networks bytriggering psychological or physical changes, reducing

economic opportunities, and altering social relations.18Economic strains, deprivation of socialization opportu-nities, and stigma in turn deplete the social capital ofthe children of incarcerated parents.19 Some have la-beled families impacted by incarceration survivor familymembersthese are people who have to contend witha number of daily struggles, including emotional stress,social stigma, and nancial strain.20

Although immigration detention is not punitive inpurpose, many have begun to explore its negative unin-tended consequences on survivors of the systemspill-over effects that can be analogized to the vast terrainof punishment that has been explored in the crimina

justice context.

21

As is the case in the criminal justicecontext, the target of enforcement is rarely the only per-son impacted by that enforcement. The Urban Instituterecently issued a report on the effects that immigrationenforcement and detention has on children, for exampleThe children proled in the Urban Institute study expe-rienced signicant hardships and behavioral changestriggered by immigration enforcement and detention.22

These concerns are also reected in legislative proposalsaimed at alleviating the harms that immigration enforce-ment exacts on families and particularly on children.23

There is a rich body of literature that seeks to pro-mote alternatives to connement and detention, pre-cisely because connement and detention create somany intangible and unintended human costs, both forthe person being deprived of liberty and for those in thatpersons wider family and community network. A needfor alternatives to connement and detention has beenidentied in the context of juvenile delinquency, for ex-ample.24 The detention or connement of youths whocommit or have committed serious crimes is justied asnecessary for the protection of public safety.25 Howeverlocking up youths may widen the gulf between the youthand positive inuences such as family and school.26

Problems like overcrowding in facilities for juvenile of-

fenders can create dangerous situations and compro-mise the successful rehabilitation and development ofyouths.27 A need for alternatives has also been identiedin the context of adult criminal offenders, where somehave called for decarceration, questioning the efcacyof prisons in fullling fundamental purposes of the crimi-nal lawthe rehabilitation of offenders and protection ofcommunities.28 And increasingly, advocates are callingon DHS to use more humane alternatives to detentionpointing to the immigration detention systems manyshortcomingsits failure to provide adequate medicacare, to prevent needless deaths, and to consider theindividual circumstances of the people it detains.29

ii. visitationmitigatesthehumancostsof

confinement

In the criminal justice context, scholars, social scien-tists, and prison and jail administrators have also recog-nized that promoting visitation with family and commu-nity provides a powerful and effective way of mitigating


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the many human costs associated with connement.Connement severs individuals from their families, com-munities, and friends. It makes sense that increasingaccess to the outside world would provide an antidote tosome of the stresses that isolation and separation cre-

ate both for those being conned and their families andcommunities.

Womens rights advocates, for example, have calledattention to the emotional toll that incarceration exactson imprisoned women and their children. Attention tothe needs of incarcerated mothers has led to modica-tions of visiting rules that permit incarcerated mothers tospend quality time with their children.30 The ChildrensCenter at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility forWomen in Bedford Hills, New York, for example, offersa variety of programs aimed at alleviating the devastat-ing impact of incarceration on families. These programsinclude summer week-long retreats for children that pro-vide families with a temporary sense of normality.31

An important benet of generous visitation policiesis that visitation with family and friends allows inmates tosustain a safety net that will be valuable and availableupon release, especially for tasks made difcult by theonus of a criminal record, like securing employment.32Some studies have also found that greater amounts ofvisitation . . . have greater effects in reducing recidivism,providing a powerful incentive to encourage the mainte-nance of social bonds through connement.33

Many, however, have noted that the criminal justice

system has failed to maximize the potential of visitationwith family and community. Various factors undercut thispotential.

Logistically, the need for access to the outside worldhas to be balanced with the need to maintain securityand discipline.34 But facilities often err on the side ofrestriction, even where relaxing certain restrictions andregulations would not compromise objectives like main-taining security and order within a facility.35 In fact, somerestrictions are not germane to legitimate concerns re-garding facility security and order, including restrictionsthat limit the number of people one can receive visitsfrom. The administration of criminal justice is also verysusceptible to politics, and visitation is often viewed as afrill or privilege in tough-on-crime jurisdictions.36 Suchattitudes ignore the broader benets that the promotionof social and family ties in prisons and jails can have forcommunities, especially when inmates are released.

The process, time, experience, and regulations in-volved with visiting can also amount to a form of sec-ondary prisonization for visitors.37 Writing about wait-

ing periods at Californias San Quentin State Prison thatundercut the amount of time visitors get with inmates,Megan L. Comfort notes: it is this disparagement of thesanctity of visiting time that wounds most deeply. Indeed,those who arrive hours in advance at the prison gates

accept long waits as a logical precondition, part of theagreement that must be made when free people wish toenter the institutional walls.38 For many people, visitationis a time and resource intensive process. Visitors mustbe willing to travel, endure a nancial burden, devotethe needed time and energy, bring children to visit, andsubject themselves to an expected amount of scrutinyto participate in a visitation program.39 These consider-able costs can outweigh the benets of frequent visits.40Furthermore, visitation is often complicated by the factthat many facilities dont make information regarding visi-tation policies and schedules as accessible to the publicas possible. One study of a random sample of local jails

found that a substantial number of jails did not makevisitation information available.41

The research on visitation in the criminal justice con-text is instructive for two main reasons. First, it highlightsthe values that visitation serves for those conned andtheir family and community members, from which we canextrapolate what benets and values visitation serves inthe context of immigration detention. Second and moreimportantly, the shortcomings and concerns highlightedin the criminal justice context provide an example of whatmakes the administrations continued reliance on penalinstitutions and correctional standards for immigration

detention so problematic. As Dora Schriro points out inher report, correctional standards impose more restric-tions than are necessary for the purposes of immigra-tion detention, a presumably limited, administrative, andmore civil restraint on a persons liberty.42 (Some wouldargue that they impose more restrictions than neces-sary in the criminal justice context, a contention beyondthe scope of this report). And as the research indicates,these restrictions have undeniable spillover effects not just for those being conned but for their communitiesand families as well. Social scientists see these effectsas an unintended extension of the punishment imposedupon the offender. But where immigration detention only

serves an administrative purpose, similar spillover effectscall into the question the propriety of the administrationsapproach to immigration detention and the adequacy ofits standards.

Indeed, the eldwork and interviews done for this re-port reveal that detainees are denied an adequate level ofaccess to family and community by rules that restrict thenumber of people they can visit with, restrict the number


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of times they can modify visitor lists, restrict the numberof visits they can get per day, limit the amount of time theycan get with a visitor to 20 to 30 minutes, prohibit visitson weekends, and restrict opportunities for visits duringevening hours. And, this restrictiveness carries over even

into facilities that do not primarily function as jails, or werenot built as correctional institutions. At Elizabeth Deten-tion Facility, for example, though detainees are affordedmore time with visitors than at the county jails, they stillcan only visit through glass and opportunities for contactvisits for parents of young children are limited.

Family Visitation: Barriers to Maintaining Family

Ties

Despite the benets of visitation highlighted in schol-arship from the criminal justice contextthe stress-relief,

the hope, and the safety net that visitors can providethereality of the current immigration detention system is thatit impedes access to the outside world and fails to pro-vide immigration detainees a level of access to family thatcan help them maintain the morale needed to withstandthe human costs of immigration detention and pursue le-gitimate claims for relief against deportation. As thesestories illustrate, visiting a relative in immigration deten-tion is a time and resource intensive process, one that re-quires constant sacrice, patience, good health, and theability to persevere through the disappointment causedby harsh visitation policies. All of the families that weinterviewed for this report attested to the emotional and

spiritual benets that visitation provided their detainedrelativeseven visits that were unreasonably difcult toobtain and short in durationbut they also attested thatvisitation and struggle often go hand in hand.

These stories also highlight that immigration deten-tion is more than just a restraint on an individuals liberty,a means of ensuring appearance in immigration courtor expediting deportation, or a tool necessary to protectcommunities from dangerous immigrants. In countlesscases, detention amounts to the loss of a parent, a sib-ling, a partner, or of a source of income. For familiesliving thousands of miles away in impoverished countries,

it amounts to the temporary loss of a critical lifeline. Forchildren, visiting a parent in detention can be a trau-matic experience, particularly where visits are conductedthrough glass in a penal setting and there is no opportu-nity for contact. Immigration detention inicts emotionalcosts that live with detainees and their loved ones fordays, months, and sometimes years.

i. angelajosephsstory: thirty-minutevisitsfor

threeyears43

For Angela Joseph, struggle and sacrice were partof her familys daily reality for the three years that her

brother spent in immigration detention before he was -nally released back into the community.44 A Trinidadian-American and a decorated veteran of the Persian GulfWar of 1991 who served in the Army for 8 years, WarrenJoseph received weekly visits from his sister during thetime that he was detained at the Hudson County Correc-tional Facility (Hudson County jail). I started going twotimes a week, after a while three times a week. If I couldhave gone for the whole week I would have gone for thewhole week, said Angela. A mother who worked a 9 to 5job and took evening classes, Angela recalled that visit-ing her brother frequentlyin order to provide him withhope and pray with himalways came at a cost to her and

her family, a cost that she was willing to bear in order toprovide her brother with much needed encouragementI used to miss a lot of school; I went to school in theevening, so that made it hard for me.

Like many veterans returning from conict zonesMr. Joseph suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder(PTSD) and depression. He was depressed in the be-ginning and used to say This is the end for me and Imgoing home. Beyond providing encouragement, Angelaprovided a necessary link to other family members. Mymom used to go, never twice or three times a week, butafter a while she had problems walking so I said OK I wil

go for you. It was very sad for her because she alwayswanted to communicate in person and it was too expen-sive to phone from the jail. Angela would occasionallybring her young daughter, who used to make jokes tohim and always keep his hopes up. They have a veryclose bond and I know she felt it the most cause shewould cry and ask When is uncle coming out? Unableto bring her daughter to every visit, Angela noted thather visits meant many missed opportunities to bond withher daughter at home. By the time I nished at Hud-son County and made it home it was 10 oclock and mydaughter was sleeping. During those days I would hardlycommunicate with her, it wasnt an easy thing.

During Mr. Josephs detention, visits were not per-mitted on the weekends, and people who worked duringbusiness hours had to rush to the facility in order to geta visit before the end of the afternoon and evening ses-sion, which lasted from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m., Mondaythrough Thursday. Visitors had to arrive by 6:15 p.m. inorder to get a visit. Visits are usually capped at 30 min-utes. 30 minutes is a short time, but we got a lot in, the


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prayer was the most important part. But there are timeswhere they cut your minutes short. And sometimes theguards are nasty. Though the visits were so brief, Mr. Jo-seph was keenly aware of how fortunate he was to havecontact with the outside world. Angela recalled how Mr.

Joseph asked her to visit a friend in detention who hadno one visiting him. He didnt want his friend to feel leftout, so he said I will have my family come and you cansee my sister and my mother, said Angela. We bothcame down and we switched places15 minutes withhis friend and 15 minutes with my brother.

Angela, who lives in New York City, rememberedthat the commute was often an ordeal, particularly onevenings when she had to rush from work in Manhat-tan. From there I took a PATH train to Journal Squarein New Jersey and waited for a bus. And if you missthe bus another one dont come for another 45 minutes.On evenings where she was cutting it close to the endof visiting hours or missed a bus, Angela would take a$15 cab to the jail. There was this one cab driver who Iwould always take and he had given me his cell numberand I called whenever I was late. Sometimes I didnt havemoney for the cab and I would tell him can I pay you nextweek? and he said OK. And if my mother went I calledhim and asked him to drop her off at the jail and I paidhim the next week.

Three years after her brother was rst taken intoICE custody and after an emotional hearing in whichfamily, community members and other veterans packedthe courtroom, Angela remembered getting a call from

her mother. She said, Angie can you come home be-cause there is somebody here to see you? When I gothome, I was looking around and it was my brother andhe hugged me and I started to cry because I was notexpecting him to be released right then. For the Josephfamily it was a bittersweet victoryMr. Joseph was notdeported, but for three years he was needlessly detainedand isolated from his family. Though the Third CircuitCourt of Appeals ruled in October of 2006 that Mr. Jo-seph had not been convicted of an aggravated felony,45a category of crimes that triggers mandatory detentionwithout the opportunity for an individualized bond deter-mination, and was therefore eligible for cancellation ofremoval and naturalization, ICE continued to detain Mr.Joseph, who was not released until May of 2007.46

* * * *

The Joseph familys story highlights a fundamentaldifference between civil detention and criminal incarcer-ation that makes the need for generous access to family

and community extremely urgent for immigration detain-eesthe indenite and uncertain nature of immigrationdetention. In a system where the default rule is deten-tion, where people are detained rst and questions areasked later, immigration detainees can get caught up in

protracted and intense legal battles in order to challengethe basis of their detention and defend against wrongfuldeportation. Like Mr. Joseph, many immigrants eventu-ally emerge triumphant and are released back into theircommunities. Yet this is a process that can take monthsand sometimes years. Throughout the entirety of thisprocess, families are forced to contend with restrictionsthat severely limit detainees opportunities to maintaincontact with their families and communities.

In the case of the Joseph family, the restrictions onaccess imposed by a facility designed for criminal incar-ceration and pre-criminal trial detentioncoupled withthe restraints imposed by family, work and school obliga-tionsmeant that for three years, family interaction wastypically limited to a mere hour to an hour and a half perweek. This adds up to just a handful of days worth oftime over the course of three years. For any person, muchcan change in three yearschildren grow up, relativesfall ill, pass away, or relocate. In a system where ght-ing against wrongful detention and deportation can takemonths and sometimes years, severing people from fam-ily and community and restricting access to family andcommunity to just a few minutes per week contradictsthe notion that the current immigration detention systemis civil or administrative in nature. In effect, immigration

detention is punishmentnot just for the immigrant indetention, but for their families and communities as well.

ii. paulinendziesstory: raisingchildrenwhilein

detention47

For a parent in detention, restrictive jail visitationpolicies interfere with parenting responsibilities and forcetough choices upon families. Detained for 5 months inthe Hudson County jail, Pauline Ndzie spoke about howthe jails visitation policy provided her with little oppor-tunity to stay in touch with her children and caused her

much indignity. Born in Cameroon, Pauline has lived inthe U.S. for over 20 years and has three U.S. citizen chil-dren. Pauline was detained in the fall of 2008, rightwhen the kids were starting school. Detained in a dor-mitory where visits ended in the evening and were onlypermitted on weekdays, Pauline was effectively cut offfrom her children, all of whom were attending school atthe time. I received visits from my oldest son who was in12th grade but he couldnt come quite often. Most of the


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time there is a lot of trafc after school, very heavy, andyou can spend sometimes 1 or 2 hours on the bridge. Ifhe went to pick up my other kids after school he wouldnot make it to the jail on time. For Pauline, taking intoaccount the needs of her children meant making tough

decisions, including limiting her childrens exposure tothe immigration detention system and to an intimidating jail environment. My little one, I was afraid for her tocome because I know it would break her heart.

Pauline recalled that her son would always haveto rush after school, because they didnt have visits onweekends and I didnt want my kids to miss class to seeme. He tried to come once every two weeks but it wasnot enough. Although the current federal detentionstandard on visitation provides for weekend and holi-day visitation,48 weekend visits were denied at HudsonCounty jail during the time Pauline was detained, a rulethat imposed hardships on relatives who are busy withwork or school during the week. If they had weekendvisits, he could come every weekend to see mehe couldmake all of them. As a result of increasing communityinvolvement and advocacy against restrictive jail visita-tion policies, Hudson County now permits immigrationdetainees access to contact visits on Saturday evenings,3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.49

Because she wasnt able to visit with her entire fam-ily, Paulines oldest son provided her with a much neededconnection to her family. He told me how his siblingsare doing and I encouraged him to be strong. But asother people interviewed for this report attested, the vis-

its were always too brief, usually lasting no more than 30minutes. It was very, very quick. It feels like 5 minutes.I cant even tell him everything I have to tell him in thattime. If she wanted more news from her family, Paulinehad to pay the jails exorbitant phone rate to give her chil-dren a call. It was very difcult because for the phonecard I have to charge $25 and its only 15 minutes. Veryquick the money is gone, is nished. I tried to call themonce, sometimes three times a week but each time itwas $25.

The most dehumanizing aspect of the jails visita-tion policy was the requirement of a strip search after a

contact visit, which was applied against Pauline the fewtimes she had a contact visit with her oldest son. Theworst part of that is after the contact visit. They take youto a room and strip you naked. They make you feel likenothing. Why after a contact visit with your son they haveto strip you down and remove everything? And then theymake you bend down and cough! The humiliation andindignity that she suffered deterred her from requestingmore contact visits with her son. It was torture, said

Pauline. For a visit where they see you sitting down andthe guard is right there! Why they make you go throughthat? When you go through that you dont even wantthat anymore because you know what you are going togo through after. The federal detention standard on de-

tainee searches provides that strip searches should onlybe conducted where there is reasonable suspicion thatcontraband may be concealed on the person, or whenthere is a reasonable suspicion that a good opportunityfor concealment has occurred.50 It also provides thatsearches of detainees should be conducted in ways thatpreserve the dignity of detainees.51

Further deterring Pauline from requesting a contactvisit with her son was the fact that contact visits wereonly made available in the mornings, meaning that herson would have to miss school in order to visit his moth-er in a more humane environment. Hes going to missschool and on top of that I have to remove all my clothes?Who would want their mother treated like that? For Pau-line, the visitation schedule, the brief 30 minute visits, theexpensive telephone rates, and the requirement of a stripsearch after a contact visit were all symptomatic of a cul-ture that fails to consider the individual and fails to con-sider the needs of parents especiallythe need to hearfrom their children and provide them with reassuranceand encouragement. They know you have kids! Andthey know those kids need you. They should try to look atevery case different because every case is not the same.


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figure 1

In the current immigration detention system, the degree of access that detainees have to family and community mem-

bers depends on the rules of the particular facility and not on guidance from ICE, as demonstrated by the gure belowwhich samples visitation policies at four facilities in New Jersey. The federal detention standard on visitation sets a oorthat is borrowed from restrictive criminal incarceration standards.52 The Elizabeth Detention Facility, a facility administeredby the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), provides a degree of access that meets the minimums in the standard.The shared-use county jails, however, tend to provide a degree of access that fails to meet the minimal expected outcomesof the standard and the emotional, psychological and legal needs of immigration detainees.

ICE 2008Performance-BasedDetention Standard:

Visitation

Elizabeth DetentionFacility

Essex CountyCorrectional Facility

Hudson CountyCorrectional Center

Monmouth CountyCorrectional

Institution

General VisitationPolicies

Requires a minimum

duration of 30minutes for visits53Visits are limited to aduration of one hour

Visits are limitedto a duration of 30minutes and oftenfall short of that

Visits are limited

to a duration of 30minutes

Visits are limitedto a duration of 30minutes and oftenfall short of that

WeekendsRequires weekendand holidayvisitation54

Permits weekendand holiday visitation,9 am to 5 pm

11:15 am to 2:45pm or 3:15 pm to6:45 pm Saturday orSunday dependingon housing unit;visitor must arrive 45min. before the endof the session

Does not providegeneral weekendvisitation hours, butdetainees can nowreceive contact visitson Saturdays, 3 pmto 7 pm

Provides limitedweekend morningvisitation hours

Evenings

Leaves eveningvisitation hours to thediscretion of facilityadministrators55

Weekday visitationhours are 5 pm to10 pm

Permits visits 11:15am to 2:45 pm or3:15 pm to 6:45pm Wednesday orThursday dependingon housing unit

Various morninghours and 3 pm to7:00 pm Mondayto Thursday; visitormust arrive by 45minutes before the

end of the session

Does not provideevening generalvisitation hours

Visitor lists

Does not authorizethe use of restrictivevisitor lists andinstead providesfor visitation fromimmediate andextended family,children, andcommunity serviceorganizations56

Does not requiredetainees tocompose visitor lists;visitors only needthe immigrants Alienregistration number

Limits detainees tovisits from people ontheir visitor lists (only7 names permittedon a list)

Hudson recentlyabolished a policyof limiting detaineesto visits from peopleon their visitor lists(up to 5 names werepermitted on a list)

Does not requiredetainees tocompose visitor lists;visitors only need thedetainees name orcounty ID number.But detainees arerestricted to one visitper day and visitorscan only visit onemale and one femaledetainee in a day

Contact VisitationPolicies

Leaves policies

to the discretionof facilityadministrators57

Contact visits

are permitted onThursdays 5 pm to10 pm, but only onceper month

Does not permitcontact visits

for immigrationdetainees (exceptin extraordinarycircumstances)

30 minutes contactvisits were permittedon Tuesday morningsfor people on

detainees visitinglists; in April the jailmoved contact visitopportunities toSaturday evenings, 3pm to 7 pm

Immigrationdetainees canrequest a contact

visits after 90days of detention,provided they havea clean disciplinaryrecord


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Community Group Visitation: Community

Responses to Immigration Detention

On the inside, without people on

the outside, you feel totally lost,

all alone. Those people want

to sign the deportation papers and just go

home, because they have no hope.58

Harry Pangemanan,Reformed Church of Highland Park

An obstacle for many family members who have arelative in detentionindeed a deterrentis fear of vis-

iting a jail or detention facility, particularly if they haveno immigration status. In our eldwork, we learned ofmany families who reached out to otherscommunityorganizations and employersin order to maintain a linkto a relative in detention. At the Monmouth County Cor-rectional Institution (Monmouth County jail), we met aman visiting a former employee in detention, while thedetainees brother waited in the jail parking lot. Rita Den-tino, a coordinator at Casa Freehold, an immigrant rightsadvocacy organization located just a few minutes awayfrom the Monmouth County jail, works with many familieslooking for an update from a family member in detention.The people in the jail need our visitation desperately,

said Dentino. Some dont have anyone who can visitthem, and have family outside the jail that really need toknow that they are OK.59

For countless other families, visiting a relative in de-tention on a regular basis is simply impossible. Familieshave to juggle many obligationschild care, school, andworkand visiting a relative in detention can require cut-ting back on commitments, by missing work or school, forexample. Some immigrants are detained in facilities sofar away from their families and communities that theydont get any visits at all while in detention. Against thisbackdrop of family hardship and extreme isolation from

the outside world, various community groups in New Jer-sey strive to provide immigration detainees with compan-ionship through visitation programs. Community groupscan serve a gap-lling role by providing disaster relief60for families who have lost a parent and a breadwinner.And community groups can provide a human connectionto immigration detainees who have no one in the outsideworld.

One such organization is First Friends, which runs avolunteer visitation program at Elizabeth Detention Fa-cility. Originally started in 1997 by the Jesuit RefugeeService, First Friends primarily provides companionshipto immigrants detained at the Elizabeth Detention Facility

particularly asylum seekers who have no connections tolocal communities. Visitation improves their morale, saidGreg Sullivan, the programs current director. It gives de-tainees someone they can explain their circumstances towithout feeling threatened. It gives them some hope thatthe whole world isnt against them. It counters the nega-tive effects of detention, which causes depression, espe-cially after four or ve months in the detention center. 61

Unlike the county jails proled in this report, the Eliza-beth Detention Facility provides more generous visitationhours, including evening and weekend hours. Detaineesget up to an hour per visit, unlike the 30 minute norm inthe county jails. But for years, the Elizabeth Detention

Facility has been a detention site for people claiming asy-lum at nearby ports of entry, and many of these peoplehave no one that can provide companionship on a regularbasis. Programs like the First Friends visitation programthrough which volunteers go to the facility and visit withdetainees for up to an hour, ll this gap and seek to rem-edy the isolating effects of immigration detention.

The coordinated efforts of community groups likeFirst Friends and others proled in this report, howeverare the exceptional efforts of exceptional people. Theyrequire organizing, outreach, high community participa-tion, and a willingness to devote considerable time, en-

ergy, and resourcesin many cases on behalf of totastrangers. It can require persistent attempts to get meet-ings and negotiate with both local government and ICEofcials. Many families, on the other hand, do not havecomparable resources or the time to coordinate a com-munity response to a relatives detention. Most familiesmust accept the status quominimal access to the out-side world for immigrants in detention. Instead of creatinghurdles for positive community participation, ICE shouldactively promote community involvement, particularly byputting pressure on facilities to amend restrictive policiesand provide community members with access.

i. thereformedchurchofhighlandpark: family

disasterrelief62

For Harry Pangemanan, visits from members of hischurch community helped him and his family survive thehuman costs of immigration detention. Daily visits fromfellow church members boosted his morale and gave himthe hope necessary to ght against imminent deporta-


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tion. Recognizing the void that detention had created inHarrys family, fellow congregants also helped his familysurvive and avoid the consequences of losing a fatherand a source of income. Exposure to the isolating anddevastating effects of immigration detention in turn mo-

tivated church members to reach out to others in deten-tion who had no similar source of moral, community, andeconomic support.

A father of two U.S. citizen daughters and a resi-dent of the suburban town of Avenel, New Jersey, Harryimmigrated to the U.S. from Indonesia in 1993. Alongwith tens of thousands of other men from predomi-nantly Muslim countries, Harry was required to complywith the National Security Entry-Exit Registration Sys-tem (NSEERS), a program created in the aftermath of9/11. After years of unsuccessfully pursuing an applica-tion that would have given him permission to stay in theUnited States, Harry was taken into ICE custody at theElizabeth Detention Facility in January of 2009. ThoughHarry had anticipated that ICE would take action on hiscase, nothing could have prepared him for the full rangeof emotions that he went through the rst few weeks indetention. Foremost on Harrys mind was his familyswelfare and his many nancial obligations, which wouldnow have to be met on his wifes earnings alone. Therst 24 hours were very difcult, trying to gure out, isthis the end of my journey here? Thinking about my kidsand my wife, how was I going to be able to support them,pay the bills, pay the rent? Like hundreds of thousandsof other immigrants in the U.S., Harry and his wife were

supporting relatives back in their home country. Wesupport as many of our nieces and nephews as we can,and our parents, and siblings. The rst week or monththat I was detained was very hard, because I was worriedabout the nancial stuff.

Compounding Harrys nancial worries was theemotional toll that his detention had on his family, an im-pact that Harry witnessed during his familys rst visit tothe Elizabeth Detention Facility. The memory of that rstvisit is still vivid for Harry and his family, more than a yearlater. His oldest daughter, now a second grader, remem-bers the cold, impersonal process of visiting her father inthe detention facility: we had to choose a number andwait until the red thing says the number and then therewas a door thing, which slides open, and then there wasso many people we had to choose one spot.63 Thoughthe Elizabeth Detention Facility was not built as a cor-rectional facility, the visiting area is not unlike visiting ar-eas in many jails. Three glass walls separate the visitorsfrom the detainees and visitors much choose one of overa dozen booths. Each booth has a telephone, set to a

low volume, through which visitors communicate with thedetainees. Low barriers on either side of a booth providelittle in the way of privacy, and conversations taking placein neighboring booths are often audible and clear to theroom at large.

I dont remember if it was the second or third day Iwas there, my family came to visit. Jocelyn tried to hugme through the glass. She knocked the glass so hard try-ing to hug me, or at least touch me. Everyone looked atus, shocked. She was hitting the glass hard. Through thetelephone she said Daddy, why they put you in? I want tohug you. That time was very hard for me, because a littlekid, 7 years old, tried to break the glass to hug me. It wasvery hard, and very hard for her. Detained for approxi-mately three months at Elizabeth Detention Facility, Harryreceived weekly visits from his family, always through theglass and the telephone.

In response to the crisis confronting the Pangem-anan family, fellow congregants took immediate action.Franco Juricic, a RCHP congregant recalls the churchsrapid response: immediately we started daily visits, atleast one person from church every weeknight. His wifewouldnt get to go often because they had two youngkids so she went on the weekends.64 The visits from hiscommunity provided Harry with the moral support neces-sary to overcome the toll that immigration detention hadtaken on him physically and mentally. Since the churchgot involved, it got my spirit up, and I said, I have to ghtfor this. I have to stay here, not just for myself, but for mychildren. When church members noticed that detention

was creating a lot of emotional and psychological stressfor Harry, they encouraged him to do something insidethe facility that would keep his spirits up. So I starteda Bible study group. After the rst four weeks somefriends and I started to pray and read the Bible together,to keep each other strong.

Outside of the Elizabeth Detention Facility, Harryscommunity stepped up to take care of his biggest sourceof stress in detentionhis concern that his wife wouldhave to meet their parenting and nancial obligationson her own. Without the church, I would have given up.Because they are the ones putting everything together,

supporting me and my family, they paid the rent, tookthe children to play in the park, and watched them whilemy wife was working at night. I was not worried aboutmy family because they were in good hands. His com-munity made sure that he always had the means neces-sary to stay in touch with his friends and loved onesbycontributing money so that he could purchase expensivephone cards. As in countless other detention facilitiesand jails across the country, phone cards are a luxury at


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the Elizabeth Detention Facility. Like ten minutes for$20, Harry recalled. His communitys generosity in turnmotivated Harry to do something for other detainees whohad no one in the outside world that could provide similarforms of support. Harry received enough donations to be

able purchase phone cards for other detainees trappedin a system that not only detains without providing legalcounsel, but also charges a hefty price for communica-tion with the outside world.

In Elizabeth, Harry also befriended asylum seekerswho were put into detention as soon as they arrived inthe U.S. One of these men spoke no English at all. Harryreached out to his church network to nd out if there wasa French speaking congregant. At rst it was really hardfor him in detention, because he was not able to talk toanyone. A fellow RCHP congregant answered Harryscall and soon began to visit Harrys friend. For Harrysfriend, the link to Harrys community provided him withan important human connection. When he was released,the church provided him with shelter. He learned how togo to the store, how to use the bus, take the train. Thechurch helped him with those things. Now he is in Michi-gan and is living ne, added Harry.

Harrys community helped mitigate even some of themost disruptive aspects of the current immigration de-tention system. When he was transferred to a detentioncenter in Tacoma, Washington on March 31, 2009, hischurch again took action. The transfer came as a com-plete surprise to Harry, who was not given any advancenotice or opportunity, at the very least, to inform his family

and community. Harry was instead woken up early in themorning and told that he had fteen minutes to pack hisbelongings. Before he left, Harry was able to call PastorSeth Kaper-Dale of the RCHP. I said I dont know whereI am headed, but I am going to the airport right now. Thefederal detention standard on transfers reects a policyand culture that devalues the importance of access tofamily and communityit provides that detainees shallnot be informed of the transfer until immediately priorto leaving the facility and that specic plans and timeschedules shall never be discussed with the detainee.65Though Harry was fortunate enough to be able to makea phone call before the transfer, the standard further pro-vides that the detainee shall normally not be permitted tomake or receive any telephone calls . . . until the detaineereaches the destination facility. 66

The transfer to Tacoma, Washington could havebrought Harry one step closer to the end of his journeyherehe could have been deported without getting achance to say goodbye to his family and church commu-nity. And thousands of miles away from his home state,

Harrys last days in the country could have been incred-ibly lonely. Once Pastor Seth informed the congregationthat Harry was being detained in Tacoma, Washingtonhowever, several congregants got in touch with relativesand friends in Washington state and spread the word

that a valuable member of their community was in im-migration detention in Tacoma. Within the rst weekthey got someone to visit me over there. That made myspirit brighter and gave me more power. I cannot saythe words or anything to describe that, but for someonetotally lost, and no hope at all . . . it shows them it is notthe end and that you can ght it.

Back in New Jersey, Pastor Seth Kaper-Dale wasbusy advocating to ICE ofcials in order to bring Harryback to New Jersey and to his family. His persistencepaid offnot only was he able to secure Harrys releaseand return to the community, but he also obtained ap-proval for a supervised release program in which othercommunity members who had recently been detainedcould participate.67 Harry and fellow congregants of theRCHP who were detained in Elizabeth who have ben-etted from their communitys good will and generosityknow that they were lucky. As Harry learned inside theElizabeth Detention Facility, many people inside haveno one outside on whom they can count on for theirtime, moral and nancial support, let alone advocacyAnd they spend months without visitation, because theyhave no one.

ii. middlesexcountyfirstfriends: communityvisitation

there was conrmation that there are

decent people everywhere, that all

of America isnt evil, that they are

not alone, that this is a terrible injustice

that they are caught up in.68

Kathleen FeeneyMiddlesex County First Friends volunteer

Another New Jersey community achieved some-thing that is rare and in fact routinely denied at detentioncenters and shared-use jails across the countrycontactvisits with members of the community. The genesis ofthe Middlesex County First Friends visitation programwas the death of an elderly immigration detainee at theMiddlesex County Adult Correction Center (MiddlesexCounty jail) in March of 2008 that sparked heated de-


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bate and advocacy in the community.69 There were nu-merous protests at our county board meetings about thedeath and the lack of any independent investigations,said Karina Wilkinson, an organizer and co-founder ofMiddlesex County First Friends. We knew that the coun-

ty was making over $6 million per year from immigrationdetention, so we felt that we werent going to get thedetention contract cut. But there were a number of uswho thought that we needed access to be able to knowmore about what was going on in the jail.70

Despite failed negotiations with county ofcials andfailed attempts at setting up a meeting with the ICE FieldOfce in Newark, the organizers of the program persist-ed and in May of 2009, got approval from county ofcialsfor a visitation program. Concerned about the many re-strictions that county jails place on detainees access tothe outside worldincluding strict quotas on the numberof people that detainees and inmates can receive visitsfrom and strict time limitations on visitsthe organizersachieved a program that did not count against visits fromfamily members or any quotas imposed on the detainees.

The set-up of the program afforded visitors and de-tainees a more personal and civil environment, distinctfrom the environment that is standard for most familyand community members who visit people in immigrationdetentionbooths that impose a physical barrier. Thevolunteers were given a classroom space in which theycould meet and speak with detainees in an open setting.Twice a week for two hours, volunteers met with detain-ees and provided a space in which detainees could vent,

voice their frustrations, or just speak about their lives andexperiences outside of detention. It felt like a gathering,said Daniel Cummings, a high school history teacher andvolunteer. For about 50 minutes we met with one groupof 10 detainees and then with a different group for thesecond hour.71

Diana Melendez, a social worker who volunteeredwith the program, recalled that the program provided[detainees] with a feeling that someone from the out-side was interested in their story.72 Melendez and manyof the other volunteers were struck by how lonely andhopeless the detainees had become after months in de-

tention, many without legal counsel. So many of themgive up hope, even if they have families here, and justsay you know what, deport me, at least there Ill be ableto call my family and write them freely. A lot of themhad spent years and years in the U.S., had families andchildren here, had businesses, and they were driven tothe point of desperation. Kathleen Feeney, a lawyer whoalso volunteered with the program, recalled one detaineein particular who had been driven to the point of despera-

tion. One Pakistani mans father died while he spentmonths in detention, begging for deportation. He wasdeported to Islamabad, eventually made it to Karachi. Bythe time he made it home his mother did not rememberhim, she had suffered from some type of brain aneurysm.

His neighbors told him that up until the moment his fa-ther died, he was looking for his son, asking for a hugfrom him, said Feeney, who kept in touch with this maneven after he had been deported.73

Almost no topic was off-limits. Detainees and vol-unteers talked about the detainees legal cases, theirhome countries and families, music, languages, amongother things. It gave them a human connection, add-ed Melendez. It validated their experience, made themfeel that they werent alone and that somebody cared.The visits even provided the detainees an opportunity tomake light of what was on otherwise dehumanizing situ-ation. There was laughter about the clear and obviousproteering, the expensive trash food that you could pur-chase from the commissaryslimy, obviously smashedcakes, worse than Twinkies. There was laughter aboutthat, said Feeney. And there were often tears in thoseshort encounters.

The laughter, the conversations, and even the com-plaints about detention, relieved a lot of stress for thedetainees and provide them with a brief but importantrespite from the everyday reality of detention. RogerSchwarzschild, a Middlesex volunteer and linguisticsprofessor at Rutgers University, took a keen interest inthe detainees home countries, languages and their intel-

lectual interests. I tried not to dwell too much on theircases, because that is the suit they are in all day long. Iwanted them to be somewhere else for a few minutes,said Schwarzschild.74 Cathy Stanford, a union organizerwith Rutgers AAUP-AFT (American Association of Uni-versity Professors/American Federation of Teachers)and a lay leader of the Trinity United Methodist Churchof Highland Park, added, One guy was really funny. Hesaid . . . after you guys come I just sleep like a baby.75

Just a few months after community activistsachieved the Middlesex County First Friends visitationprogram, however, the program came to an abrupt end

when Middlesex County ofcials voted to terminate itscontract with ICE in October of 2009.76 In the weeksfollowing the termination of the contract, immigration de-tainees were transferred to other county jails in New Jer-sey, including Essex County Correctional Facility (EssexCounty jail), Hudson County jail, and Monmouth County jail. The bonds that the immigration detainees formedwith members of the community were disrupted not justby the fact of the transfers to nearby county jails, but also


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by the fact that the status quo of the current immigrationdetention systemminimal access to family and com-munityhad been restored. Stanford, who correspondedwith a number of the Middlesex detainees after they hadbeen transferred to other facilities, commented that a for-

mer Middlesex detainee wrote her letting her know thatthe immigration detainees in Essex County were shockedwhen they learned about the Middlesex program and thatregular everyday American citizens are against puttingimmigrants in jails. No similar programs existed at thethree other jails, and just as at Middlesex County Jail,general visits were tightly regulated and limited.

* * * *

Taken together, the stories in this section call atten-tion to the many challenges that immigration detaineesface in attempting to maintain family and communitytiesif they are fortunate enough to even have peopleon the outside that can provide support, moral or other-wise. In the current immigration detention system, thelevel of access to family and community afforded detain-ees varies widely across facilities. Families that have arelative detained at Elizabeth Detention Facility, for ex-ample, have the benet of being able to visit for an houron weeknights and also have the option of weekend vis-its. Working families with relatives detained at the countyjails, on the other hand, are afforded half the amount oftime per visit and must contend with unreasonable visi-tation schedules that often conict with important com-

mitments like school, daycare, and work. Unreasonableschedules make visitation a time and resource intensiveprocess. Additional restrictions on access, such as pro-hibitively expensive rates for telephone service, furtherhamper detainees ability to maintain connections to theoutside world.

The restrictiveness endemic in the current immigra-tion detention system is disconcerting for a number ofreasons. Harsh restrictions on access to the outsideworld create negative and often devastating conse-quences for families and communities that belie the nar-row justications for immigration detentionthey call intoquestion whether the current system truly is civil. Harshrestrictions on access to family and community are alsotroublesome given the indenite and uncertain nature ofimmigration detentiondetainees never really know howmuch time they will spend in detention, and some will getmired in complex legal cases that may not be resolved foryears. Detainees face prolonged separation from family,friends, and the public, and this in turn diminishes theirspirit and their humanity. Moral support is needed not

just to withstand the effects of being isolated from theworld, but also the challenges of self-representation, thesubject of the next section of this report. Moral supporthelps detainees pursue legitimate claims for relief andstave off deportation.

In light of the systems excessive restrictions on ac-cess to the outside world, tapping into the many benetsof visitation often requires the mass mobilization of com-munity members. Community members can organize toprovide disaster relief for a particular family, or they canorganize in order to provide companionship to detaineestrapped in an isolating environment through volunteerprograms. Both scenarios, however, require a lot of timeenergy, resources, and a willingness to negotiate withgovernment actors who may not be receptive to commu-nity proposals. Not all detainees belong to a communitywith the resources needed to mobilize on their behalfMost detainees and their families are forced to accept astatus quo that denies them a level of access inherent inthe idea of civil detention.


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part 2 : visitation mitigates the

unfairness of immigration detention

Detainees Must Navigate a Complex Legal

Maze

iwould nd it hard to make a case

for myself out of detention. I dont

know how I would do it from a

detention center.77

Roger Schwarzschild,Middlesex County First Friends Volunteer

Immigrants facing deportation confront enormouschallenges in preparing what may be complex legalcases. Those with creditable attorneys can rely on theirlegal representatives to supply the building blocks re-quired for their cases.78 Among immigrants in detention,however, 84% do not have counsel.79 They must nda way to represent themselves, undertaking every taska trained immigration attorney ordinarily would perform,and do so from within facilities that afford limited ac-cess to the outside world.80 For many, particularly thosenot entirely comfortable in English, detention makes their

self-directed casework a potential mineeld.The rst question detainees must contend with is

whether they are eligible for bond. This can be a com-plex legal question that depends on an analysis of whythe person is detained and how his or her detention tsinto the federal detention scheme.81 Those denied bondmay be subject to mandatory detention based on certaincriminal convictions. Or they may have a right to bondbut not have been given a bond determination. Whethera detainee is subject to mandatory detention is oftencontested, so detainees need to determine whether theyfall correctly into that category, or whether they want a

hearing to contest that determination.

82

If a detainee is eligible for bond, the next step is to

prepare for a bond hearing. Those seeking bond needto show that they are not a ight risk or a danger tothe community. To make this showing, they typicallyneed such things as letters of support from the com-munity, family members and employers, as well as otherdocuments showing ties to the U.S., such as tax records,marriage certicates, birth certicates and immigration

papers of family members, school records, or records ofvolunteer work.83 Documents are very important in bondproceedings, both for the initial decision before an im-migration judge and any appeal, since the record on ap-peal will consist of those documents. Many judges wil

also look to detainees eligibility for relief as a measure oftheir risk of ight. As we explain below, eligibility for re-lief is itself a highly complex legal issue. Thus, detaineesmust present a very global picture at this early stageapicture that touches upon legal issues that will not bedecided until much later on in this process.

Detainees also have difcult strategic choices tomake in seeking bond. In immigration detention casesICE will set an initial bond, or determine that a detaineeis subject to mandatory detention and thus ineligible foan individualized bond determination.84 A detainee gen-erally only has one chance to challenge a bond that was

set or not set by ICE.

85

Bond can be increased after ahearing instead of lowered, so in some cases it is besnot to request a bond hearing. For example, detaineesmay not see a particular crime listed on their Notice toAppear (the charging document issued to them by thegovernment) but the government is likely still aware ofthat conviction, which may cause a judge to raise theamount of the bond.

The next issue detainees face is whether they are infact removable and whether they should be in proceed-ings at all. There may be a question as to whether theyare actually citizens. Whether one is a derivative citizenfor example, may be difcult to determine. It is inuencedby such factors as whether a parent was a U.S. citizenwhether that U.S. citizen parent was the mother or fatherwhether the parents were married, and how long the U.Scitizen parent resided in the U.S.86 There may also bequestions as to whether a certain criminal history sub-jects the detainee to removal without the possibility of re-lief. This is a very complicated legal issue, which requiresextensive research, and often leads to intense litigationinvolving multiple appeals at various court levels, includ-ing at the Supreme Court level.87

Detainees then need to determine whether they areeligible for relief from removal. Each type of relief re-

quires an understanding of the legal issues involved aswell as factual support for eligibility, and a demonstrationof why the judge should grant relief. Respondents needto determine whether they are legally eligible for a cer-tain type of relief and what type of evidence they needto show in support of those claims. They then need togather documents and testimony to support their claims

(continued on page 22)


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figure 2 (onpage 21)

Unrepresented detainees with legitimate claims for relief against deportation must navigate a complex legal maze,undertaking all the tasks that an immigration lawyer ordinarily would perform. At every stage of the process, access tofamily and community is criticalfrom gathering money in the event that bond is set, to researching a theory for relief, todemonstrating substantial ties to the U.S. Restrictive jail visitation policies are arbitrary and unfair in a system where 84%of detainees are unrepresentedthey interfere with the difcult tasks of self-representation and discourage detainees frompursuing legitimate claims for relief.


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Initialdecisiontodetain

Areyoueligible

forbond?

Areyouremovable?

Areyouin

mandatory

detentionbasedon

criminalhistory?

Thisisacomplicated

issuewhichrequires

extensiveresearch.

Ifso,youneed

toshowthat

youarenota

flightorsafety

risk.

Thisisanissuethat

requiresextensive

legalresearch.

Do

youhaveaclaimto

citizenship? Isa

priorconvictiona

removableoffense?

Ifyouareremovable,areyoueligiblefor

relief?

Eligibilityfor

relief

requires

extensivelegalandfactualresearch.

(e.g.areyoueligibleforreliefbasedon

substantialtiesinthiscountry,an

employmentorfamilypetition,fearof

persecutioninyourhomecountry,

conditionsinyourhomecountry,or

yourexperienceasacrimevictimor

victimoftrafficking?)

Theimmigration

judgethendecides

whetheryouwillbe

removedfromthe

U.S.ornot.Ifthejudgeorders

youremoved,you

have30daysto

appealtotheBIA.

IfBIAaffirmstheremoval

order,youcanappealtothe

Federal

Court

of

Appeals

within30days.

Ifyouappeal,applyforastayofremoval

(supportedbylawandfacts)pending

resolutionofyourcaseintheFederal

CourtofAppeals.

Areyoueligibleforreliefbasedon

fearofpersecutionorconditionsin

yourcountryoforigin?(e.g. asylum

ortemporaryprotectedstatus).

Canyoushowpersecutiononthe

basisofthe5protectedcategories?

Doyoumeetthestandardsfor

withholdingor

CAT?

Ifso,forsomeofthese

claimsyouwillneedto