Forty new privately run jails established by the Trump administration since 2017 to hold captured migrants appear designed to isolate inmates from due process appeals that are normally part of the US legal system, according to a joint report compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Human Rights Watch and the National Immigrant Justice Center that was released on Thursday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th April, 2020) Forty new privately run jails established by the Trump administration since 2017 to hold captured migrants appear designed to isolate inmates from due process appeals that are normally part of the US legal system, according to a joint report compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Human Rights Watch and the National Immigrant Justice Center that was released on Thursday.
"The report looks at how the immigrant detention system has grown since 2017, the poor conditions and inadequate medical care - even before the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak - and the due process hurdles faced by immigrants held in remote locations," a press release summarizing the report said.
The report claims that 40 new detention facilities have opened in the past three years, with more than 81 percent of migrant detainees now held in facilities run by private companies amid administration plans to expand daily capacity to hold up to 60,000 migrants on any given day.
Facilities opened under the Trump administration primarily located in isolated rural areas have a quarter of the number of immigration attorneys available within a 100-mile radius as those opened before 2017, the report said.
The report also accuses jail officials of lying to inmates about available legal options, such as the right to seek parole while waiting for court hearings on applications for admission to the United States, based on interviews with more than 150 inmates at migrant prisons in the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arizona.
Since 2017, 39 adults have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody or immediately after being released, 12 by suicide, the report said.
The report also detailed substandard conditions at some facilities, including the absence of a mental health professional on staff, delays in medical care, a lack of medicine such as asthma inhalers and shortages of soap for bathing and cleaning supplies for their cells.
The report called on Congress to stop funding private detention centers to protect migrant inmates from continued human rights abuses.
