October, 03 2008, 04:57pm EDT

For Immediate Release
Contact:
Linda Paris or Matt Allee (202) 675-2312 or media@dcaclu.org
Teresa Borden (213) 977-5242
Bill Ushers in Humane Standards for Immigration Detention Facilities
Long-awaited legislation ensures access to medical care, including protections from forcible drugging and deportation
WASHINGTON
Today
Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) introduced legislation to
adopt humane standards for immigration detention facilities that are
legally enforceable. The ACLU applauds Rep. Roybal-Allard for her
leadership in ensuring that all immigration detainees receive basic
minimum protections including access to medical care, phones, legal
materials, and law libraries. The bill, H.R. 7255, the Immigration
Oversight and Fairness Act, also provides special protections for
unaccompanied children, sexual abuse victims, survivors of torture,
families with children and other vulnerable populations.
In
2000, the federal government established immigration detention
standards, but these standards are not legally enforceable and thus not
consistently implemented. Consequently, thousands of immigration
detainees have been subjected to inhumane conditions that violate basic
minimum standards of due process and decency. The ACLU and other NGOs
have received countless complaints from immigration detainees regarding
deplorable medical care, no working phones and abuse while in
detention. Many of these accounts have been documented by 60 Minutes,
the New York Times, the Washington Post and other news outlets.
According
to Joanne Lin, ACLU legislative counsel, in recent years immigration
detention rates have skyrocketed, rising to over 300,000 people being
deported in 2007 and over 30,000 detained on any given day. According
to Lin, "The absence of legally enforceable detention condition
standards has meant that no one really knows what is happening inside
immigration detention facilities - the family members of detainees
don't know, Congress doesn't know, the American public doesn't
know. This legislation is necessary to introduce transparency and
oversight into an unregulated and unaccountable immigration detention
system."
In
June 2007, the ACLU of Southern California filed a lawsuit on behalf of
two detainees, Raymond Soeoth and Amadou Diouf, who were forcibly
injected with a combination of antipsychotic drugs even though neither
had a history of mental illness. Soeoth, a Christian minister from
Indonesia, sought political asylum based on religious persecution.
Diouf, a native of Senegal married to a U.S. citizen, had a stay of
deportation at the time he was drugged. After the ACLU filed the suit,
the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration Customs Enforcement
(ICE) issued a directive ending its policy of forcibly drugging
deportees, but stopped short of issuing regulations to ensure that the
policy has the force of law.
"This
bill would create important protections for the health and welfare of
those who are incarcerated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement,"
said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants' rights and national
security for the ACLU of Southern California and the lawyer who
represented the immigration detainees subject to forcible drugging.
"In particular, it would definitively put an end to the inhumane
treatment that hundreds of immigrants have been subjected to over the
past four years when ICE agents injected them with anti-psychotic drugs
prior to deporting them."
These
ACLU lawsuits underscore the need for Congress to pass legislation that
brings transparency and oversight to ICE's unconstitutional detention
and deportation practices. With this goal in the mind, the
Roybal-Allard bill would do the following:
- Establish legally enforceable detention condition standards such as access to phones and medical care;
- Ensure that detainees receive appropriate medical care, and creates safeguards against forcible drugging;
- Promote community-based "alternatives to detention" programs that are cost-effective and successful;
- Mandate DHS implement regulations that guarantee immigration detainees are treated fairly and humanely.
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
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As the death toll from Israel's forced starvation of Palestinians continues to rise amid the ongoing U.S.-backed genocidal assault and siege of the Gaza Strip, Rep. Rashida Tlaib on Monday led 18 congressional colleagues in a letter demanding that the Trump administration push for an immediate cease-fire, an end to the Israeli blockade, and a resumption of humanitarian aid into the embattled coastal enclave.
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Since launching the retaliatory annihilation of Gaza in response to the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have killed at least 56,531 Palestinians and wounded more than 133,600 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which also says over 14,000 people are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble. Upward of 2 million Gazans have been forcibly displaced, often more than once.
On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump reiterated a call for a cease-fire deal that would secure the release of the remaining 22 living Israeli and other hostages held by Hamas.
In addition to Tlaib, the letter to Rubio was signed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Democratic Reps. Greg Casar (Texas), Jesús "Chuy" García (Ill.), Al Green (Texas), Jonathan Jackson (Ill.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Henry "Hank"Johnson (Ga.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Chellie Pingree (Maine), Mark Pocan (Wisc.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Paul Tonko (N.Y.), Nydia Velázquez (N.Y.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
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Sen. Rick Scott has introduced an amendment to the Republican budget bill that would slash another $313 million from Medicaid and kick off millions more recipients.
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The existing GOP reconciliation package contains onerous new restrictions, including new work requirements and administrative hurdles, that will make it harder for poor recipients to claim Medicaid benefits.
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The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced the increased rate in 2010 to incentivize states to expand Medicaid, allowing more people to be covered.
Scott has said his program would "grandfather" in those who had already been receiving the 90% reimbursement rate.
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The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that this provision "would shift an additional $93 billion in federal Medicaid funding to states from 2031 through 2034 on top of the cuts already in the Senate bill."
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A chart shows how many people are estimated to lose healthcare coverage with each possible version of the GOP bill.(Chart: Congressional Joint Economic Committee Democrats)
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"Ironically enough, some of the claims against Scott's old hospital company revolved around exploiting Medicaid, and billing for services that patients didn't need," wrote Andrew Perez in Rolling Stone Monday.
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The company entered an additional settlement in 2003, paying out another $631 million to compensate for the money stolen from these and other government programs.
Scott himself was never criminally charged, but resigned in 1997 as the Department of Justice began to probe his company's activities. Despite the scandal, Scott not only became a U.S. senator, but is the wealthiest man in Congress, with a net worth of more than half a billion dollars.
The irony of this was not lost on Perez, who wrote: "A few decades later, Scott is now trying to extract a huge amount of money from state Medicaid funds to help finance Trump's latest round of tax cuts for the rich."
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