Rachel Browning’s Legal Blog

            In a signal that the Obama Administration and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are serious about responding to the criticisms of immigrant and human rights advocates, the Assistant Secretary of DHS announced this week that the DHS will be undertaking a series of reforms, effective immediately, to overhaul U.S. immigration detention system.  These reforms will attempt to address the myriad complaints about the current system, and implement the steps necessary to transform immigration detention from a criminal to a civil system and improve conditions at detention centers.

            According to the Secretary’s announcement, “the present immigration detention system is sprawling and needs more direct federal oversight and management. While ICE has over 32,000 detention beds at any given time, the beds are spread out over as many as 350 different facilities largely designed for penal, not civil, detention.”  The secretary also noted that ICE employees are not the ones running these facilities.  Instead, detention operations are handled by county authorities or private contractors, making the entire system very ad-hoc, inconsistent, and lacking in effective oversight.

            Through these reforms, ICE will move away from the present decentralized, jail-oriented approach to one designed for and based on ICE’s civil detention authorities.  Over the next several years, ICE will design facilities located and operated specifically for immigration detention purposes, and address specific detention issues in need of reform:  detainee access to medical care, overall conditions of custody, and ICE oversight of the detention system.

            Effective immediately, the following steps will be implemented:

·         The Creation of an Office of Detention Policy and Planning (ODPP), the function of which will be to plan and design a civil detention system tailored to ICE’s needs.

·         Hiring an expert in healthcare administration and an expert in detention management to staff the ODPP.

·         Hiring a medical expert to provide an independent review of medical complaints and denials of requests for medical services.

·         Recruiting and hiring 23 ICE detention managers to work in 23 significant facilities –facilities which collectively house more than 40 percent of our detainees.

·         Establishing of an Office of Detention Oversight (ODO) within the Office of Professional

Responsibility (OPR) to ensure agents and personnel have better access to facilities to conduct routine and random inspections more frequently.

·         Forming two advisory groups of local and national organizations interested in ICE’s detention system to provide feedback and input to the assistant secretary – one focusing on general procedures, and the other on healthcare.

            Additional details on the roles and responsibilities of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning, the Office of Detention Oversight and the Office of Professional Responsibility within the context of the Department’s proposed reforms, can be found here.

            If you or someone you care about is detained by ICE, contact an immigration attorney to find out your rights while in detention and any potential avenues for relief from removal.  The Immigration Attorneys of Garg & Associates, PC in Houston, The Woodlands, Texas and Long Beach, California can assist you in protecting your rights and obtaining the relief you desire.  Contact us for a Consultation.