Texas RioGrande Legal Aid has a grant to provide free legal advice to immigrant detainees in the detention center in Raymondville, Texas. During these legal discussions and one-on-one time together with those in detainment we have found many of them to be victims of violent crime in the US, including victims of human trafficking. We have also began to notice the serious human rights abuses that go on in this facility that serves those immigrants who have no other recourse but to succumb to being deported. They are the most vulnerable and poor and they are sent to some of the worst detention centers in the country, like the one in Raymondville. Of course, that is why Legal Aid is there – to give them some relief. We could take tons of cases if we had the resources, but unfortunately we do not have them. We must take the cases we know we can provide serious help. The good thing is that we are able to have our attorneys there who can assess victims and help them with T and U visas and get them on the road to recovery. But far more help is needed.
Detained migrants’ treatment slammed
By Lynn Brezosky – Express News
RAYMONDVILLE — In the three years since the tent city that is the nation’s largest immigration detention center sprouted here, immigration attorney Jodi Goodwin has seen “a lot of new cars in Raymondville, Texas.”
But while the detention center has been a boom to the local economy, providing much-needed jobs, Goodwin says life for those detained inside is far from good.
She’s seen detainees’ toes blackened by fungus, heard of moldy food crawling with mealworms, fought the government for sleeves against bone-chilling air conditioning and witnessed a client lapse into a seizure in the courtroom.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement embarks on a path toward a “civil” detention policy, she and others who have seen beyond the curtains of the current system say it is fraught with problems.
Every client Goodwin has represented has been in the leaky domes at least six months, some more than 18. And those are the fortunate ones. Most never see an attorney; at best, some get a “know your rights” presentation by pro bono and legal aid lawyers.
Goodwin says it’s no accident that a 3,000-bed facility was built in a town of 9,700 or that there are 8,000 beds south of San Antonio.
“These facilities are designed to break down a person,” she said, “so that eventually, they say, ‘You know what, government, I give up. Deport me.’”
On Aug. 6, ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton announced an overhaul of the immigration detention system, starting with the appointment of Dora Schriro as head of the new Office of Detention Policy and Planning.
Morton said the current system was “disjointed and heavily reliant on contracts with correctional facilities and private industry.” He vowed to end what had become penal treatment for civil immigration offenses and emphasized oversight and access to medical care.
He said an underlying premise is that “they need to be located in areas that make operational sense, that make sense for visitation from attorneys and families.”
“We’re aware of the concerns,” he said. “I think one of the things that the new office and Dr. Schriro will be looking at are these questions. Can we come up with a better balance?”
Part of the problem, Goodwin said, is distance.
Raymondville’s Willacy Detention Center was touted as a quick and effective solution to “catch and release,” the practice of releasing non-Mexican unauthorized immigrants with court dates because of a lack of bed space.
But immigration attorneys see many detainees at border facilities who are not recent border crossers. Rather, they are longtime residents of the East Coast and cities elsewhere and come from a host of backgrounds. Their cases may be complex and may involve legitimate claims for relief or asylum. Or they may involve misdemeanor offenses that land them in ICE custody.
As Goodwin noted, they may end up in detention for a year or more as their cases drag on.
Under Operation Endgame, which in 2003 set a 10-year deadline on the “removal of all removable aliens,” the number of detainees has exploded. There are now more than 32,000 detainee beds spread over more than 350 facilities. There were 6,259 beds in 1992.
In July, the National Immigration Law Center, American Civil Liberties Union of California and law firm Holland & Knight issued a scathing report that labeled the system “broken.”
Among other findings in the 170-page report was that the “persistent failures of facilities to respect detainees’ visitation rights severely hamper detainees’ ability to exercise their constitutional and statutory rights of access to counsel.”
Some facilities also failed to provide legal libraries, provide rights presentations and allow privacy during phone calls.
When Southwest Workers Union officials began documenting allegations of abuse, lacking medical care and hunger strikes at the Port Isabel Detention Center, immigrant advocate Anayanse Garza said, they were usually the only outside faces detainees saw.
Attorneys have the widest access to the facilities, but the Rio Grande Valley has only a handful of immigration attorneys who provide free services.
Erica Schommer of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, which started giving rights presentations at Willacy in November, is one of them.
“People who live in New York City or the Washington, D.C., area certainly would have a bigger pool of potential free legal services there,” she said. “In general, there aren’t enough free legal services in the country. But here there’s a very short supply. … Sometimes people do basically give up their rights to fight their case because they don’t have a lawyer.”
Immigration law beats tax law in terms of complexity, said Kathleen Walker of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and it’s even more difficult when legal records are in different states and detainees get transferred without their knowledge.
She said her office in El Paso sometimes gets calls to represent people at Willacy or at the South Texas Detention Center in Pearsall, which are hours away.
“Detainees are not really being properly reviewed to see if they have an opportunity for relief,” she said. “It’s not right the way we treat these detainees.”
