The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Thursday demanded that President Obama release illegal immigrant families from detention centers, claiming that the conditions in detention are worse than the persecution they face back home.
In a lengthy report on the treatment of illegal immigrants, the commission also called on Congress to stop funding detention centers, citing allegations of sex abuse and poor food and medical services.
Scene from an immigrant detention center. (AP Photo)
“The commission recommends that DHS act immediately to release families from detention. The commission also recommends that Congress should no longer fund family detention and should reduce its funding for immigration detention generally, in favor of alternatives to detention,” said the commission Chairman Martin R. Castro.
But even before the report came out, it was slapped as a sham by two commission members who said that the agency couldn’t prove the allegations and is trumping them simply to push the pro-immigrant, pro-union agenda of the liberal commission members and fatten the bank accounts of immigration lawyers.
“The chairman’s statement suggests that the treatment of detainees is comparable to torture. Lots of ugly rumors are uncritically repeated — like the presence of maggots in the food served by detention center kitchens, sexual assaults, deaths, etc. Some of the rumors were investigated by DHS and others and found to be untrue or very unlikely, but the commission’s report doesn’t bother to mention those investigations. In no case did the commission undertake an investigation to determine the truth or falsity of a rumor it reported,” said commissioner Gail Heriot, a law professor at the University of San Diego.
In her rebuttal, she added, “It is said that where there is smoke, there is fire. But sometimes where there is smoke, there is only a smoke-making machine, busily stoked by publicists working for activist organizations.”
She was joined by another commissioner who criticzed the report.
“Like mold on food left in the refrigerator for too long, the report has spread into an attack on the enforcement of the country’s immigration laws, and perhaps on their very existence. Much of the report is at least intellectually dishonest, other parts simply dishonest. This report is outside the commission’s jurisdiction and therefore most of this report is illegitimate,” said Commissioner Peter Kirsanow.
The huge report made several startling charges, among them:
- Food is served with maggots.
- An AIDS victim was ignored, and died of her illness.
- Transgender individuals are housed in facilities based on their birth gender.
- Children were abused, some sexually.
- Detention centers are operated like criminal penitentiaries.
- Constitutional rights were trampled.
In a letter to the president demanding release of illegals from detention centers, a majority of commission members wrote: “No children, with or without an accompanying adult, should be forced to live in these facilities. The detrimental effect on these children far outweighs the government’s wish to deter others from flee life-threatening conditions in their home countries.”
A comment that summed up the report’s finding was this on Page 2: “While these immigrants migrate to the United States to escape harsh living conditions, once they cross the U.S. border without authorization and proper documentation, the federal government apprehends and detains these individuals in conditions that are similar, if not worse, than the conditions they faced from their home countries.”
Heriot called the charges and report “silly,” noting in her rebuttal that most of the allegations have either been disproved by other agencies or are hearsay.
For example, the allegation that food was served with maggots came from a second-hand witness in 2007.
What’s more, she joined in some of the detention center inspections and found them clean and healthy.
She also noted that the commission mostly criticized privately-run detention centers, where unions have less sway.
“Usually when a particular public policy concern is getting exponentially more attention than it is due relative to other concerns, it makes sense to ask the age-old question: Cui Bono? (Who stands to benefit?) In this case, it is worth noting that there is a longstanding battle between private providers of correctional and detention services and prison/security guard unions. Prison guards at government-run facilities are paid more generously than those at privately-run facilities. Indeed, it is largely because privately-run facilities tend to be more economical that governments find them appealing,” wrote Heriot.
Kirsanow added that the commission’s goal is to get free legal advice, and eventually citizenship, for illegal immigrants all at taxpayer expense.
He wrote: “The majority’s Recommendation 13 urges that taxpayers pay for attorneys for illegal immigrants. Exactly why a nation that is 18 trillion dollars in debt should pay for attorneys for people who broke its immigration laws is unclear, particularly given that most of those heavily burdened taxpayers want recent border crossers packed off to their countries of origin posthaste. Taxpayer funding for immigration attorneys would, however, be a boon to the immigration bar and to open borders advocates. This report is primarily motivated by the interests of those two groups and the need to provide political cover to the administration’s lawlessness, so perhaps that is the only explanation needed for a recommendation that would extend plundering of taxpayers and gutting of immigration enforcement into a new realm.”
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
