Deported and Detainees: ‘Stepchildren’ of Immigrant Rights Movement?

NEW YORK – For immigrant rights advocates who work with families in detention, this year’s immigration reform debate stirs as much fear as it inspires hope.

A principal concern among detainee and detention advocates is that this year’s debate will repeat what some call a “tradeoff” problem: a Congressional dialogue that focuses largely on legalization and ignores the growth of “repressive” policies targeting immigrant detainees. These advocates say that viewed from behind the bars and barbed wire fences of the many new detention centers built along the border in the last year, the next round of speeches, legislative proposals and large-scale marches urgently need to address the rights of immigrants most vulnerable to deportation and detention.

“My biggest fear is that there’s not enough political will to look at policies that decrease detention and deportation,” says Andrea Black of the Detention Watch Network, a coalition of organizations that deals with detention and deportation, issues deemed by some groups to be the “stepchildren” of the immigrant rights movement. The “continued consensus on detention and ‘so called’ enforcement provisions” causes Black the most consternation. “The bulk of both House and Senate (immigration reform) legislation last year was about detention and deportation,” Black says. “But it wasn’t discussed by the politicians. These issues were simply an accepted part of the legislation.” According to Black, there is already a bipartisan consensus on enforcement so that issues of deportation and detention, like the thousands of immigrants now wearing orange jump suits in detention, won’t be brought before the public.

Black points to proposals like the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006, authored by former Judiciary Chairman Senator Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) who many consider a political moderate. According to Black, among the more disconcerting parts of Specter’s proposal were numerous provisions that would have made it easier to jail, detain and deport hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of immigrants, in essence making it a federal crime to be undocumented. Senator Specter’s proposal also included provisions that facilitate Guantanamo-like, indefinite detention of immigrants and create a “guilty by association” provision that punishes those even suspected of being gang members.

Anticipation of this year’s debate has again given rise to tensions within the immigrant rights community. Subhash Kateel of Families for Freedom, a Brooklyn-based network of immigrants and immigrant organizations fighting deportation, says that groups like the National Immigration Forum (NIF) and others in Washington seem to be making a tradeoff: legalization in exchange for heightened enforcement. “The last debate didn’t talk about how the government is tearing up families. We’re watching the growth of the government’s unchecked power to deport and detain undocumented – and legal – immigrants. If you visit the detention facilities, and talk to the people being held there, you’ll see how the immigration system is becoming increasingly Kafkaesque. Why aren’t these issues talked about?” Kateel asks.

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