USA:s hemliga fängelser
för flyktingar - del 1
Rapport i två delar från RT om USA:s hantering av sina illegala flyktingar, som ofta förvaras under fängelseliknande förhållande. Texten på engelska.
Illegal US immigrant detention practices questioned. Part 1
RT 2010-03-12
Barack Obama has vowed this week to overhaul the American immigration system, and with half a million people entering the US illegally every year, the number being deported is growing.
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There is criticism that officials dealing with the issue often resort to questionable detention methods.
Back in October 1994, the US started “Operation Gatekeeper” by building a wall to prevent people crossing from Mexico to the United States as they had previously done.
By some estimates, half a million people cross into the United States through Mexico illegally every year, and when some are caught they come to a “best in the nation” Otay, San Diego, detention facility before they are kicked out of America.
“If they're a citizen of Mexico, they're going to get a bus to the border,” outlined Field Office Director Robin Baker. “Or if they're from say, Europe, we're going to get them a plane ticket, and they're going to go back home.”
Run partially by the US federal agency known as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the detention facility for illegal immigrants holds nearly 700 foreign detainees at any given time. ICE publicly calls it a "field office", but there are also facilities that ICE may not want you to know about.
“Such facilities are like every other building. They look like offices, strip malls, federal buildings, anywhere – except inside, the immigration services imprison people,” revealed Ahilan Arulanantham from the American Civil Liberties Union.
They are called “subfield offices” and nearly 200 of them are believed to be stashed in plain sight throughout the country.
Even government officials that work for immigration services learn this information only in due course.
"- It's a set of holding facilities, basically prison tanks, to hold people, immigration detainees in there,” Arulanantham explained.
“Even though it was meant to keep people there about 12 hours, in fact, the government was keeping people there for weeks, sometimes even for months.
As a result, people were going without showers, without brushing their teeth, without access to talk to their lawyers, without being able to talk to their families, sometimes months at a time stuck in limbo,” exposed Ahilan Arulanantham.
For obvious reasons, those subfield offices are essentially “secret”, particularly in relation to how detainees even get there.
USA:s hemliga fängelser
för flyktingar - del 2
Illegal US immigrant detention practices questioned. Part 2
RT 2010-03-13
RT is investigating allegations that US immigration officials are using harsh detention methods against those suspected of violating visa rules.
It is alleged that people are being locked up in secret facilities – for weeks and even months – before being deported.
One of the notorious detainee facilities is Otay Segregation Center in San Diego, CA.
It is partly run by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement or ICE. The place is very stark. Detainees here are also called “illegal aliens”, “anchor babies” and “criminals”.
Officials here say this is perhaps the best place for the so-called “criminals” – a facility independently monitored, strictly watched and publicly acknowledged by ICE. This is a far cry from the alleged secret detention facilities called “subfield offices” scattered through the country holding illegal aliens.
- Some claim that sometimes people who are US citizens are also held there.
“My name is Alla Suvorova. I am 25 years of age… From around December 23, 2008, until around January 6, 2009, ICE detained me at B-18… ICE never provided me with any change of clothing… During the entire time that I was in B-18 and in the jails:
I was never allowed to go outside.” – such is the personal account of someone who says she was held in “B-18”, an alleged subfield office, tucked in the bowels of a downtown Los Angeles Federal building.
The account claims less-than-humane conditions of detention.
"One of the toilets was stopped up the whole time that ICE held me at B18…The detainees could see me when I was going to the bathroom…I think I slept between 2 to 4 hours each night," Alla says.
Ahilan Arulanantham of the American Civil Liberties Union says they filed a lawsuit against “B-18". Five months later, ICE settled with ACLU to change the conditions.
RT’s crew decided to pay a surprise visit to the famed facility. The center employees let the crew in, but were told that, for reporting on the changes, the head of the media service should be contacted.
"- It always acts in a culture of secrecy.
- It's always a fight to get information,” says Ahilan Arulanantham, “And the detention system is never as transparent as it should be."
But the Otay detention facility was somewhat opened to the filming crew. They gave the journalists a small excursion inside, showing a strictly up-to-code and well self-covered detention center.
"A lot of people don't agree with what we do, but it's a necessary party of the process of enforcing our nation's immigration laws,” says Robin Baker, field office director.
However, the question about the other facilities, the subfield offices and the people who continue to disappear is still to be answered.
"- On any given night there will be 40,000 people who will sleep at an immigration detention center somewhere in the country," says Ahilan Arulanantham from American Civil Liberties Union
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