Are a Prison’s Financial Interests Preventing Immigrant Detainees From Getting Legal Advice?
Tuesday, November 03, 2009 at 6:30 am
Buried in this sad-but-otherwise-unsurprising story in Monday’s New York Times about the sorry state of the immigrant detention system is this rather curious fact: when the City Bar Justice Center in New York asked the warden of the Varick Street detention center to forward lawyers’ letters of legal advice to the immigrants who’d been transferred from there to other facilities, “the warden balked, saying he had to consider the financial interests of his private shareholders: 1,200 members of a central Alaskan tribe whose dividends are linked to Varick’s profits under a $79 million, three-year federal contract.”
Setting aside the question of why the Immigration and Customs Enforcement relies on private prisons to begin with, or how it is that Alaskan tribes came to invest in them, the story doesn’t really explain how forwarding the lawyers’ letters would hurt the financial interests of the private prison’s shareholders. The only way I can imagine is if the letters were advising detainees on how to challenge their detention, which would jeopardize the company’s ability to keep its inmates, and to keep charging the federal government for them. It would have been helpful if the reporter, Nina Bernstein, had asked the followup question.
The main point of her story, though, is that none of the inmates at the Varick Street prison have a right to legal representation. The prison population consists of illegal immigrants, applicants for political asylum and legal immigrants who are deportable because of past criminal convictions. According to a new article in the Fordham Law Review, 58 percent of immigrants in deportation proceedings don’t have legal representation. Meanwhile, a new report from the City Bar Justice Center, which has just launched a new program to try to get lawyers for them, finds that almost 40 percent of detainees interviewed had potentially meritorious claims to remain in the United States.
5 Comments
Comment posted November 3, 2009 @ 2:20 pm
INCARCERATING PEOPLE “FOR PROFIT” IS IN A WORD….WRONG!
Even if one does not ask or pretends not to see the rope and the flashing red flag draped around the philosophical question standing solemnly at attention in the middle of the room, it remains apparent that the mere presence of a private “for profit” driven prison business in our country undermines the U.S Constitution and subsequently the credibility of the American criminal justice system. In fact, until all private prisons in America have been abolished and outlawed, “the promise” of fairness and justice at every level of this country’s judicial system will remain unattainable. We must restore the principles and the vacant promise of our judicial system. Our government cannot continue to “job-out” its obligation and neglect its duty to the individuals confined in the correctional and rehabilitation facilities throughout this nation, nor can it ignore the will of the people that it was designed to serve and protect. There is urgent need for the good people of this country to emerge from the shadows of indifference, apathy, cynicism, fear, and those other dark places that we migrate to when we are overwhelmed by frustration and the loss of hope.
My hope is that you will support the National Public Service Council to Abolish Private Prisons (NPSCTAPP) with a show of solidarity by signing “The Single Voice Petition”
http://www.petitiononline.com/gufree2/petition….
Please visit our website for further information: http://www.npsctapp.blogspot.com
–Ahma Daeus
“Practicing Humanity Without A License”…
Comment posted November 3, 2009 @ 4:19 pm
Sure, illegals could have some legal representation, as long as they pay for it. American taxpayers already put out too much money for illegals and welfare for their anchor babies, so we absolutely should not pay for lawyers for them. If they followed our laws and did not enter our country illegally, then they wouldn't be in a detention center in the first place.
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Comment posted November 30, 2009 @ 1:03 am
I wonder what bitter, miserable persons such as yourself would do without the existence of these unfortunate scapegoats to whom you assign blame for everything from crime to global warming. And the fact that you conveniently left out the other 2 groups at the focus of the article, legal permanent residents and political asylum seekers, did not go unnoticed. It's not a coincidence that 0.77% (and growing) of the US population is behind bars at any given time, while national crime rates have been in a steady decline for the past decade or so. The increasingly powerful prison system and police unions cannot continue to get rich without manipulating the opinions of the self-righteous mainstream fools, and it's so funny to see how quickly people play right into their hands. You are the perfect example. Or, perhaps I'm underestimating you. Maybe you are one of the blood sucking social parasites that's doing the manipulating. It doesn't bother you to spend over $50 billion per year–or the $78 mil. cited in the article–to incarcerate people? Hmm, but you have a problem with the possibility of taxpayers throwing some peanuts to help represent these people. It's clear where your priorities lye.
Comment posted November 30, 2009 @ 6:03 am
I wonder what bitter, miserable persons such as yourself would do without the existence of these unfortunate scapegoats to whom you assign blame for everything from crime to global warming. And the fact that you conveniently left out the other 2 groups at the focus of the article, legal permanent residents and political asylum seekers, did not go unnoticed. It's not a coincidence that 0.77% (and growing) of the US population is behind bars at any given time, while national crime rates have been in a steady decline for the past decade or so. The increasingly powerful prison system and police unions cannot continue to get rich without manipulating the opinions of the self-righteous mainstream fools, and it's so funny to see how quickly people play right into their hands. You are the perfect example. Or, perhaps I'm underestimating you. Maybe you are one of the blood sucking social parasites that's doing the manipulating. It doesn't bother you to spend over $50 billion per year–or the $78 mil. cited in the article–to incarcerate people? Hmm, but you have a problem with the possibility of taxpayers throwing some peanuts to help represent these people. It's clear where your priorities lye.
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