New Report Sheds Harsh Light on Immigrant Detention System

By Seth Hoy, Immigration Impact. Posted September 17, 2009.

Transparency and oversight have never topped Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) priority list—especially during the post-9/11 Bush administration when ICE’s detention system nearly tripled in size. Last month, however, ICE director John Morton announced a new plan to overhaul the flawed immigration detention system and broaden federal oversight. Sure, the new plan was announced shortly after ICE was forced by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to release a “comprehensive list of all deaths in detention” (which now totals 104 since 2003), but still, John Morton’s intention to make ICE more transparent and efficient seems sincere. The question, however, is whether or not ICE will actually be able to restructure its sprawling detention system after years of scant oversight and zero accountability.

It’s going to be an uphill battle as two recent events indicate. First, Dr. Dora Schriro, director of the newly established Office of Detention Policy and Planning (ODPP), resigned her position after only a month, citing family reasons.

Second, in a new report released last week, Immigration Detention: Can ICE Meet Its Legal Imperatives and Management Responsibilities, the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) lays out just how daunting detention reform will be, focusing on the woefully inadequate ICE databases and case tracking systems. The report, said Andrea Black, director of Detention Watch Network (DWN), underscores what the advocates have witnessed for years:

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Seth Hoy is a writer at Immigration Impact.

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