This new report from Bloomberg details the abuse of asylum seekers within U.S immigration detention facilities. Despite legislation intending to scale down incarceration, some previously closed facilities have reopened to serve as immigration detention centers, often run by for profit companies. Individuals in these facilities face punitive conditions and lack access to translation, legal, and medical services.
RFKHR Staff Attorney Sarah Decker says, “It’s virtually indistinguishable from criminal detention, with the exception that people in civil immigration detention actually aren’t provided with a right to an attorney, as they are in the criminal system. They’re subjected to the same abusive conditions of confinement, but the vast majority are going through it completely alone.”
Decker adds, “The pattern repeated especially in the privately run facilities is that the companies are actually profiting by offering substandard quality of food, clothing and medical care. Less than the bare minimum.”