Religious Leaders Deplore Use of Detention Centers for Those Seeking Political Asylum
Episcopal News Service. May 7, 2001 [2001-103]
James Solheim
(ENS) A high-level group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish religious leaders emerged from a tour of an immigration detention center in a warehouse district near New York's JFK airport and expressed shock that those seeking political asylum in the United States are held in conditions they described as "worse than prison."
"What I saw today was un-American," declared the Rev. Michael Kendall of the Episcopal Diocese of New York, after the two-hour tour through the winding corridors of the windowless, 200-bed brick and concrete block building run by the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation under contract with the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Detainees are locked in their dormitories where a uniformed guard keeps close watch as they sleep, read, watch television, use the open-stall toilets, shower, take their meals and play games to pass the time. They are allowed 60-90 minutes of recreation in cramped indoor and outdoor spaces.
"I was shocked by what I saw," said the Rev. Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. "Imprisoned criminals have more freedom, access and opportunity" than these detainees, he added.
"If it looks like a jail and acts like a jail, it's a jail," Kendall said. "In the name of God, let's open our arms and treat these people like human beings."
"This is a clear moral issue here," argued Richard Parkins, executive director of Episcopal Migration Ministries and one of the group. "Why treat those seeking freedom from persecution as though they are criminals, assuming guilt without due process?"
According to Esther Ebrahimian of Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Services, an organizer of the visit, statistics on the number of asylum seekers are not easy to obtain. LIRS estimates that approximately 200,000 immigrants are detained each year, and 1200-1500 are seeking asylum. "Genuine refugees are getting turned away," she said, largely because low-level INS officials are not careful about the claims.
INS spokesman Bill Strassberger said that it was often difficult to determine the identity of those seeking asylum. "Once we determine who they are, we have to determine if they are a flight risk and if they are a danger to the community," he said. Immigration officials said that the tougher 1996 law sought to reduce the number of baseless claims INS had to litigate. Some are detained longer because their initial claims are denied. Strassberger denied claims that INS policies discriminate against African immigrants. "Asylum claims are treated equally," he said.
Credible fear of persecution?
Under the 1996 immigration law, those seeking asylum must convince a low-level immigration officer that they have a "credible fear of persecution" if they were returned to their home countries. If they are not successful in that claim they are deported immediately. The others are shackled and taken to INS detention centers and county jails to await decisions on their claims--a process that can take weeks, months or even years.
If a hearing establishes meets the "credible fear" criteria, INS district officials could release asylum seekers on parole but that rarely happens in the New York district, according to church leaders who monitor the situation.
In a message shared at a May 3 Senate Immigration Subcommittee hearing on U.S. policy, the religious leaders called on Congress and the Administration "to take immediate steps to correct the policies enacted into law in 1996 that are causing such severe human suffering. (For text and signatories click here)
The statement said that the policies "seriously undermine our nation's commitment to refugee protection... As a just and generous country that has traditionally stood for the protection of human rights around the world, we can and must do better."
At the subcommittee hearing, the Washington representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees urged the U.S. to provide full access to asylum processes, to treat them in a fair and consistent way, and to end the current practice of imprisoning them. "People fleeing wars and persecution to save their lives and freedom deserve respect and fair and humane treatment," said Guenet Guebre-Christos. "These often-traumatized individuals--many of whom may have suffered torture or other abuses in their home country--should not have to overcome unnecessary obstacles to tell their stories. They should have access to legal help to navigate the complicated U.S. asylum system and should not be locked up in jails like criminals," the representative said.
Seeking alternatives
The group had a conversation with a 15-year-old girl from the Congo who was intercepted at JFK as she attempted to join her mother, an asylum seeker in Canada. INS claims that, according to a dental x-ray taken when she arrived, she is 18 and therefore not a minor.
"The notion of detaining a youth who had no intention of being in the United States and who clearly was not a criminal was appalling to us," said Parkins. "She was one of the most vulnerable people you would ever meet, conveying a deep sense of fear," he said, pointing to a frightening level of isolation, lack of any support system. Unlike other detainees, the girl did have legal advice.
Parkins and others are convinced that the churches could support those seeking parole. "There are alternatives to detention," he said. "We want to see the 1996 law repealed or substantially altered." The visit to the detention center is part of what he hopes will be an emerging strategy to "throw a spotlight on these detention centers and a pattern being repeated across the country."
He noted the contradiction between the maintaining such an inhumane detention center only a few miles away from the Statue of Liberty that welcomed generations of "huddled masses yearning to breathe free."