{"id":113557,"date":"2009-12-27T11:47:44","date_gmt":"2009-12-27T16:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nw0.eu\/2009\/12\/27\/report-ice-using-unlisted-detention-centers-for-immigrant-prisoners.html"},"modified":"2009-12-27T11:47:44","modified_gmt":"2009-12-27T16:47:44","slug":"report-ice-using-unlisted-detention-centers-for-immigrant-prisoners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/113557","title":{"rendered":"Report: ICE using unlisted detention centers for immigrant prisoners"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Stephen C. Webster
\nRaw Story<\/a>
\nWednesday, Dec 23rd, 2009<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding an untold number
\nof people in secretively maintained detention facilities all over the
\nUnited States, according to a report set to be published next year in The Nation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Many of the sites are unmarked and unlisted, going unnoticed in office parks and commercial zones, according to reporter Jacqueline Stevens<\/a>.
\nThe so-called ICE \u201csubfield offices\u201d are mainly used to
\nhouse prisoners in transfer and are not subject to the basic standards
\napplied to ICE and even military prisoners.<\/p>\n

At a subfield office known as B-18, located near a Los Angeles
\nfederal building, ICE keeps immigrant prisoners in \u201ca barely
\nconverted storage facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou actually walk down the sidewalk and into an underground
\nparking lot. Then you turn right, open a big door and voil\u00e0,
\nyou\u2019re in a detention center,\u201d explained Ahilan
\nArulanantham, an ACLU immigration attorney interviewed by The Nation<\/em>.
\n\u201cWithout knowing where you were going, he said, \u201cit\u2019s
\nnot clear to me how anyone would find it. What this breeds, not
\nsurprisingly, is a whole host of problems concerning access to phones,
\nrelatives and counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report continued: \u201cB-18, it turned out, was not a transfer
\narea from point A to point B but rather an irrationally revolving
\nstockroom that would shuttle the same people briefly to the local
\njails, sometimes from 1 to 5\u2005am, and then bring them back, shackled to
\none another, stooped and crouching in overpacked vans. These transfers
\nmade it impossible for anyone to know their location, as there would be
\nno notice to attorneys or relatives when people moved. At times the
\nB-18 occupants were left overnight, the frigid onslaught of forced air
\nand lack of mattresses or bedding defeating sleep. The hours of sitting
\nin packed cells on benches or the concrete floor meant further physical
\nand mental duress.\u201d<\/p>\n

One former prisoner who spoke with The Nation<\/em> said that
\nwhen she inquired how long she would be held, guards laughed at her.
\n\u201cI was thinking these people are going to put me and the other
\npeople in a grinder and make sausages and sell them in the local
\nmarket,\u201d she reportedly said.<\/p>\n

A list of the 186 facilities is available here<\/a> [PDF format].<\/p>\n

Read the full report here<\/a>. The next edition of The Nation<\/em> is due out Jan. 4, 2010.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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