Inspector general says Justice needs to fix alien detention problems more quickly
By CURT ANDERSON
The Associated Press
9/8/03 4:09 PM
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The government is not moving quickly enough to address problems revealed in a report documenting mistreatment of some of the hundreds of foreigners detained after the 2001 terror attacks, Justice Department investigators said Monday.
Glenn A. Fine, inspector general of the agency, also said investigators have discovered additional evidence of "verbal and physical abuse" of some detainees at the Metropolitan Detention Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York. No details were included. A final report on that investigation will be released soon.
In the analysis released Monday, Fine found that the Justice and Homeland Security departments had fully implemented only two of 21 recommendations made in the earlier report.
"We are pleased that both agencies are taking the recommendations seriously," Fine said. "However, a number of the recommendations are not addressed with sufficient specificity, and significant work remains."
The earlier report, released in June, found that many of the 762 illegal aliens were held until cleared by the FBI of any terrorism connections. That process sometimes took months despite a law requiring most aliens to be deported or released within 90 days.
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