Legal and illegal immigrants in California prison facilities often endure the conditions of criminal life without ever having access to a public defender or legal services.
This is due to a legal catch that considers violations of immigration law to be civil (rather than criminal) cases, said Julia Vazquez, co-president of the Immigration Law Society and chair of the UCLA Detention Center Clinic.
Detention has tripled in the last decade, and as of Sept. 1, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that 31,075 immigrants are currently held at more than 300 detention facilities across the United States.
The lack of access to legal services represents only one of the reasons immigrant advocates and members of the current administration have come to see immigration detention as a vital area for reform.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released an outline of its goal for reformation of the detention system in early October. Changes will include the centralization of contracts underneath customs enforcement, the exploration of alternatives to detention, the use of alternative facilities, such as converted nursing homes to reduce costs, and the implementation of a system to ensure that detainees receive appropriate medical care.
“Local and national problems are astronomical,” said Judy London, directing attorney of the Public Council Immigrants Rights Project and an adjunct professor at the UCLA School of Law.
London’s project works to provide legal counsel to detainees in the Santa Ana jail.
In particular, she said she views the increased detention of individuals who pose no direct threat to society in centers that do not provide significant access to legal or medical resources as significant problems.
She also said she worries about the impact of detention on the children of immigrants, many of whom end up in the foster-care system.
“To date, we haven’t seen those problems be addressed in a more humanitarian way,” London said. “We would applaud any efforts to reduce the frequency (of the detention of immigrants) … what we need is a change in policy where less restrictive alternatives to detention are used.”
The belief in the need for reform is not uncommon among policy-makers and activists, but its ability to lead to concrete results is somewhat in question.
Though the Obama administration has begun reviewing some of the processes of immigrant detention and has proposed some goals for reform, it has not yet made any concrete changes, said David Hernandez, assistant professor in the Cesar Chavez Department of Chicano and Chicana Studies.
Hernandez said he believes reforms need to be made to decrease the size of the detention system, improve and ensure the enforceability of detention standards and create more avenues for release from the detention system.
“Even with reforms, the government still plans to expand detention in the United States,” he added. “Comprehensive immigration usually include some sort of legalization or guest worker program and heavy enforcement and very little on detention reform.”
The lack of changes made at the policy level has inspired some UCLA students to embrace activism and take on the responsibility of providing essential services.
Vazquez and the other 27 UCLA Detention Center Clinic volunteers devote their Fridays to working with individuals from the Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project at the Miraloma Detention Center to provide a free orientation that gives an overview of immigration law and to work with the detainees on a more personal level to determine methods for relief.
Vazquez said she met with one individual who left his nation of birth as a result of political persecution. Though he entered the country legally on a tourist visa, he overstayed and was detained. He could not fight his case because he did not know how to acquire an attorney.
“There are lots of structural barriers,” Vazquez added. “We need to look at what resolutions and policies are in place for monitoring the conditions of the detention centers.”
She added that she believes the reforms need to facilitate the creation of a more efficient model that deals with the large number of immigration cases, gives immigrants the opportunity to defend their cases in courts, and meets the needs of those detained.
Hernandez said that most of the changes that have occurred, such as shutting down the Hutto Detention Center in Texas as a family detention center, resulted from political pressure from immigrant advocates of lawsuits sought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Despite the sentiment that the necessary reforms have not yet been implemented, many advocates do not see immigration detention as a hopeless system.
“A lot of organizations have faith that the Obama administration will make some changes,” he said.