CaribWorldNews, NEW YORK, NY, Thurs. Mar. 26, 2009: Caribbean migrants, including a Guyanese national and greencard holder who came to the U.S. at an early age are among those being `jailed without justice` by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, a rights organization says.
Trevor Drakes, migrated to the U.S. when he was 11 years old but was arrested after signing traffic tickets using a false name. He later pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery.

On March 2, 1999, he was sentenced to two years of imprisonment, which was suspended for time served, followed by two years of probation. He was then transferred into immigration detention. His case went through several appeals, but on February 20, 2001, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that his convictions were aggravated felonies and under immigration law and that he should be deported.

Drakes currently remains in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center. Amnesty International called the U.S. detention system `broken and unnecessarily costly` and found that the dramatic increase in the use of detention as an immigration enforcement mechanism in the USA results in a number of human rights violations.

`The conditions under which immigrants are held violate both US and international standards on the treatment of detainees,` stated the report.

Over 30,000 immigrants are detained every day. This is triple the number detained just ten years ago, the report found. It costs about $95 in tax payers money per day to detain someone.
Immigrants can be detained for months or years without any meaningful judicial review - this despite international human rights standards requiring judicial review.

Among them is a 37-year-old lawful permanent resident, who had lived in the United States for 18 years, but was deported to Haiti for two convictions for possession of stolen bus pass transfers. The immigration court found that these convictions constituted two crimes of moral turpitude, a decision that led to his deportation.

Other Caribbeans in detention are Volsaint Doissaint who was granted asylum and became a lawful permanent resident in 1995. Volsaint was convicted of second-degree assault in 2000 and served 70 months in prison, expecting that he would be released thereafter. Instead, he was held in immigration detention for three years and denied the opportunity to contest his detention while fighting deportation to Haiti.

Amnesty claims ICE failed to adhere to its own custody review procedures by failing to review documents supporting his request for release and by failing to notify his lawyer about the decision.

On August 26, 2008, the US District Court granted Volsaint’s petition for writ of habeas corpus; found that the failure of ICE to provide him with adequate opportunity to contest his detention in his custody reviews constituted a denial of his right to due process; and ordered that he be entitled to a bond hearing before an immigration judge.

Amnesty is urging the Department of Homeland Security to make U.S. immigration detention standards enforceable, and to use alternatives to detention in a meaningful way.

`If the government chooses to detain an immigrant, that person must be held in conditions that meet both domestic and international standards, and before a person is detained, all available alternatives to detention must be considered in each individual case,` said the report.

The suggested alternatives to detention include reporting requirements or a bond. And they urge the US Congress to pass legislation to ensure that all immigrants and asylum seekers have access to individualized hearings on the lawfulness, necessity, and appropriateness of detention.

The report found the in the last decade the number of immigrants in detention has tripled from 10,000 in 1996 to over 30,000 in 2008, and this number is likely to increase even further in 2009.
Amnesty also says the US detains asylum seekers, survivors of torture and human trafficking, lawful permanent residents and the parents of U.S. citizen children.

And immigrants can be detained for months or years without any form of meaningful individualized review of whether their detention is necessary.

The vast majority of people in immigration detention - 84 percent - are unable to obtain the legal assistance necessary to present viable claims in an adversarial and complex court process.
The US contracts with approximately 350 state and county criminal jails to house approximately 67 percent of all immigrants in detention, the report said.

Meanwhile, while detention facilities are required to comply with ICE detention standards, however, these standards are not legally binding, and oversight and accountability for abuse or neglect in detention is almost nonexistent, leading to practices in violation of international standards, Amnesty stated.

`Immigrants are often put in excessive restraints, including handcuffs, belly chains and leg restraints, and are detained alongside individuals incarcerated for criminal offenses,` according to the report and  individuals in detention find it very difficult to get timely - and at times any - treatment for their medical needs. 74 people have died while in immigration detention over the past five years. – By CWNN Staffwriter