Little-Known Congressional Quota is Placing LGBT Immigrants in Grave Danger
Center for American Progress
Congress' Costly Detention Quota: A Little-Known Congressional Quota is Placing LGBT Immigrants in Grave Danger
By Sharita Gruberg
May 9, 2014
Beginning in 2009, Congress directed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, to detain a set number of immigrants each day in an attempt to force the department to increase deportations. Today, this arbitrary congressional quota requires that DHS maintain bed space to jail 34,000 immigrants every day—regardless of DHS’s actual need to detain immigrants and at a cost of more than $2 billion per year. An estimated 70 percent of immigrants in detention facilities fall into the mandatory detention category; this means that 30 percent of the 34,000 immigrants detained each day would be eligible for release if not for the quota. Removing the quota would save taxpayers at least $600 million per year and prevent tens of thousands of people from being unnecessarily imprisoned.
As discussed in previous Center for American Progress reports, LGBT immigrants in detention facilities are especially vulnerable to abuse and mistreatment. The bed quota restricts Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s, or ICE’s, ability to make individualized custody determinations, such as release on bond or placement in less restrictive and less costly alternatives to detention, that take into account the particular vulnerabilities of LGBT immigrants. The result is that LGBT immigrants—including those fleeing danger to seek asylum—are placed in jails where they are at risk of sexual and physical abuse, simply so ICE can meet this arbitrary quota.
LGBT people in detention face numerous risks
Immigrants in detention face many of the dangers prevalent in prisons; in fact, many are detained in actual prison cells, rather than immigration-specific facilities. Instead of finding safety in the United States, asylum seekers who fled persecution and imprisonment in their home countries, often due to their LGBT status, are subjected to further trauma when they are handcuffed and placed in immigration detention facilities.
Several reports by nongovernmental organizations and investigative reporters have uncovered incidents of sexual assault, denial of medical care, prolonged use of solitary confinement, verbal and physical abuse, and even death among immigrants in detention facilities. The situation is particularly dangerous for LGBT immigrants, who are 15 times more likely than other detainees to be sexually assaulted in confinement. A Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Center for American Progress found 200 reported incidents of abuse against LGBT immigrants in detention facilities since 2008....
MORE at http://americanprogress.org/issues/lgbt/news/2014/05/09/89370/a-little-known-congressional-quota-is-placing-lgbt-immigrants-in-grave-danger/