Immigration detention is an inhuman and unjust practice of locking up immigrants when they are awaiting detention of their status as an immigrant or potential deportation.
In the FY or fiscal year 2019, the government of the United States detained more than 500,000 people in a reclining system of more than 200 jails throughout the country. And all of them are run by ICE or Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Detention Center Of ICE Deprive You Of Everything
Well, when we are talking about this particular abuse, ICE has an appealing response in this specific sector. Many of us will be shocked to know that in the detention centers of ICE, people are deprived of liberty, separated from their loved ones and family, and even denied access to lawyers.
They are also subject to serious medical neglect. Since the year 2003, more than 200 people had lost their lives when they were in ICE custody. Both with local governments and private prison companies, for example, CoreCivic, GEO Group, Inc, ICE contracts.
And all these are for operating the majority of its vast network of facilities. This also includes dedicated immigration detention centers along with state and also local jails, which is a model for developing a perverse financial incentive in order to keep people locked up.
Through lucrative federal contracts, while the private prison companies make a profit, and the governments make money for padding their shrinking budgets. On the other hand, Georgia Immigration Detention Center does not allow any kind of inhuman practice.
Immigrants in detention can be either documented immigrants or undocumented immigrants. And it also includes those people whose immigration status is expired, or not current, or is under review.
How America Treat People In Immigration Detention
The United States of America locks up survivors of torture, visa holders, people asking for asylum, people who already have lived here for several years, and might also have American citizen children and spouses, people who get the grant of permanently residing in the United States of America, individuals with mental health and medical conditions along with some other vulnerable groups which also include families with children, even babies, pregnant women.
But in reality, it does not have to be this way. And the Georgia Immigration Detention Center also believes the same.
It can be put really simply. Instead of taking them behind bars in immigration detention, people who are navigating their immigration case with their loved ones should be capable of doing so, and that too in the community.
Detention Numbers For The Fiscal Year 2019
Here is a chart with the necessary pieces of information that will help you to understand the detention in the fiscal year 2019. Let’s have a look at it.
| ADP or Average Daily Population in detention. | 50,165 |
| The number of people who are detained for the particular year. | 510,854 |
| Average Cost Per Day | Adult Detention – $126.52
Family Detention – $318.79 |
| Detention Budget | $3.2 billion |
| Number of facilities | 215 |
| People are held in facilities that are operated by private companies. | 81% |
| Number of deaths since the year 2003. | 214 |
A Brief History Of Immigration Detention In The United States Of America
Thousands of Haitian and Cuban refugees, who were arriving on the shore of Florida every year in the early 1980s, were swept into the newly opened detention facilities. In the late 1980s, the immigration policy had started to imitate the criminal justice system.
During this particular time, during the height of the War on Drugs, Congress modified immigration along with the Naturalization Act to require the mandatory detention of immigrants who have some specific criminal convictions.
This implies that their detention was compulsory and automatic, without even a single hearing or any kind of consideration of their circumstances. This is the main reason behind the resistance of the Georgia Immigration Detention Center.
The history of immigration detention is a never-ending story. There are a bunch of incidents and cruel decisions that were taken or are still being taken by the states. Here I have told you the starting story of it.
Bottom Line
So, these are all that you need to know about immigration detention. In short, it is not only a way of restricting the immigrants from getting the facilities that others are getting but also torturing some of them to the extreme when found with a criminal record.
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