Asylum Seekers Treated Poorly, U.S. Panel Says, NYT

[imenja]

Asylum Seekers Treated Poorly, U.S. Panel Says
By NINA BERNSTEIN and MARC SANTORA

Published: February 8, 2005 New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/08/nyregion/08asylum.html?hp&ex=1107925200&en=ba7f5c2ad1168da5&ei=5094&partner=homepage

"housands of people who come to the United States saying they are seeking refuge from persecution are treated like criminals while their claims are evaluated - strip-searched, shackled and often thrown into solitary confinement in local jails and federal detention centers - a bipartisan federal commission found in a report to be released today.

The report, by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, an agency created by Congress in 1998, describes an ad hoc system run by the Department of Homeland Security that has extreme disparities in who is released or granted asylum, depending on whether someone seeks refuge in Texas or New York, comes from Iraq or Haiti, or is represented by a lawyer.

The New York metropolitan region ranks among the harshest in terms of the conditions of detention centers, with constant surveillance, stark quarters and degrading treatment. Those awaiting a court decision on asylum are also less likely to be freed. For example, 3.8 percent of asylum seekers were freed from the detention center in Elizabeth, N.J., compared with 94 percent in San Antonio. There were 8.4 percent released from the detention center in Queens, while in Chicago 81 percent were let go.

One of the experts who examined the centers for the commission, Craig Haney, a psychologist who briefed the Senate Judiciary Committee on the subject yesterday, said he was shocked by what he found.
"I was taken aback by the severity of conditions, the severity of deprivations and, frankly, the expense," he said in an interview. He said that one of 19 centers examined handled asylum seekers differently from criminals - in Broward County, Fla., where many seeking refuge are from Cuba and where former Cuban refugees form a potent political force. At $83 a day, the Florida center costs less than half the $200 per detainee of the Queens detention center, though both are run by the same company."

[TwentyFive]

1. Some of the most talented Americans in history

came here seeking asylum. Our country is much better off, but Bush will put an end to that.

[imenja]

2. New York, the article notes, is the worst of all

I added in a paragraph that talks about how New York is worse than the rest of the nation in terms of granting asylum. Obviously Bush's policies frame the policy, but there seems to be some discretion at individual detention centers.

[primavera]

3. Oh, the shit is going to hit the fan on the Hill over this

I just attended a roundtable discussion featuring the commission members in which they laid out a summary of their findings, which they are presenting to Congress right this minute. The cool thing is, they basically found that we already have one of the most restrictive and inhumane asylum systems of any industrialized nation, and that asylum seekers go through the most absurdly rigorous security checks of any category of immigrants entering the US.

Now what makes this interesting is that, this very week, Mad Dog Sensenbrenner is introducing his latest nightmare bit of legislation, in which he advocates pretty much lining asylum seekers up against a wall and shooting them on sight, on the grounds that our asylum system is a backdoor to terrorists. His proposition is patently ludicrous, as I'm sure he knows: if you were a terrorist and had to chose between subjecting yourself to months worth of security checks and clearances and detention as an asylum seeker, or could simply board a plane from any one of the countries participating in the visa waiver pilot program and could enter without visa or security checks, which would you choose?

But since this incredibly well researched and documented 500 page report spanning a five year study directly contradicts Sensenbrenner's bullshit rationale for his police state proposal, he and the other nazi thugs like Tancredo and Davis on the GOP's immigration reform caucus are going to have to do their damndest to discredit this report. I wish them luck.