New report blasts U.S. on immigrant detainees

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch report on world wide cases of abuse, it is shocking that their recent bad reports are about the U.S. immigrant detention program. Sometimes the people detained are U.S. citizens and are not given a chance to tell their stories. This is horrible. - - Donna Poisl

By Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer

More than 400,000 people a year are detained by immigration officials in the United States - including undocumented immigrants, legal immigrants who run afoul of the law and asylum seekers who come fleeing persecution - but according to a report released today by Amnesty International, conditions are often deplorable and detainees are routinely denied due process.

It's the second major human rights report in a week to indict the nation's immigration detention system. The system is attracting increased attention in part because the number of people in detention has grown exponentially in recent years and in part because of dozens of in-custody deaths and a lawsuit over the treatment of children.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last month ordered her department to examine all aspects of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and hired a special assistant, Dora Schriro, to oversee detention and removal conditions.
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