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The Honorable Zoe Lofgren
Chair, House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law
Dear Chairwoman Lofgren,
We, the undersigned faith-based organizations, submit this joint statement to the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law of the Committee on the Judiciary for the October 4, 2007 hearing on “Detention and Removal: Immigration Detainee Medical Care.”
We join together to condemn the inhumane conditions and treatment of asylum seekers and other immigrants in detention facilities throughout the nation. We are particularly outraged by the lack of adequate medical treatment provided detainees, which has resulted in serious harm and even death in several cases. We call upon Congress and the Administration to work together immediately to reform these conditions, improve treatment, and provide stricter oversight of both privately and publicly operated detention centers across the country.
Our faith traditions instruct us to welcome the stranger and provide comfort to those who suffer. Thus, we strongly believe that the United States should welcome all newcomers to our country by treating them with dignity and respect. Many members of our organizations and congregations provide comfort, friendship, and religious services to men, women, and children who are often denied adequate medical care and other basic human rights in detention facilities. Faith-based groups administer religious services in Arizona, California, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Puerto Rico, and other regions.
Our members have been shocked by the suffering they have witnessed. They have seen pregnant mothers go without prenatal care, children vomiting with stomach pain or suffering from a toothache who must wait days to receive any medical attention, cancer patients denied life-saving chemotherapy in detention, critical AIDS patients left to the care and mercy of their fellow detainees, and others with serious illnesses made gravely worse by lack of medical treatment. In congregations, youth and adult ministry groups, and people’s homes, our communities are asking how such conditions can exist in facilities operating under the purview of the United States government.
Several government and independent reports* have verified that these firsthand accounts are not merely anecdotal: they are a systemic problem. These reports have documented the exceptionally poor conditions and treatment that have resulted in chronic disease, serious injuries, untreated infections, and death due to a lack of medical attention and available personnel. These tragedies, along with the denial of referrals prescribed by medical personnel and the lengthy, bureaucratic process through which detainees must apply for medical care, are of great concern to the faith-based community. Federal guidelines for treatment in detention are currently not legally binding. Conditions are even worse in detention facilities operated by private contractors, which are neither legally bound or required to adopt such federal detention standards in regard to hygiene, exercise, nutrition, religious services, or medical attention.
We thank the members of the Subcommittee for holding this hearing regarding the inadequacy of medical care within detention centers, and call upon them to:
• Properly fund medical, mental health, dental, and vision care services, as well as translation assistance within all facilities detaining immigrants.
• Mandate the codification of standards governing the conditions and treatment of all immigration detainees, including those held in federal, local, county, state, and privately-contracted facilities.
• Mandate that DHS eliminate the overcrowding of facilities, which produces unsanitary conditions, heightens the risk of acquiring and spreading communicable diseases, and overwhelms sparse medical staff.
• Mandate more rigorous internal quality controls for medical screening and emergency care to prevent misdiagnosis and the exacerbation of critical conditions.
• Provide ongoing annual oversight of the medical, mental health, dental, and vision treatment of all immigrant detainees, including oversight of the Division of Immigration Health Services, which has overruled recommendations of facility medical personnel to the detriment of many patients.
• Mandate emergency medical attention for pregnant women, children, and other critical cases.
• Mandate access to detention facilities for religious and other non-governmental organizations which provide services and care to detainees.
• Call for the nationwide expansion of alternatives to detention, including the expansion of release and parole, to ensure immigrants are detained only when necessary.
• Postpone consideration of any legislation that would increase the use of detention facilities until these reforms and alternatives to detention have been fully implemented.
• Support legislation, such as the "Secure and Safe Detention and Asylum Act", that set legally-binding standards for treatment within detention facilities. The detention of asylum seekers should be abolished in all but the most extraordinary of cases, as being imprisoned has proven to compound the mental anguish and trauma they have previously suffered.
As a community of faith, we deplore the conditions present in detention centers in which asylum seekers and other immigrants are confined. All human beings deserve to have their basic human needs attended to – particularly in the case of medical necessities. We urge Congress and all decision makers to consider how detention conditions harm the physical, psychological, and spiritual needs of detainees. We further urge our nation’s leaders to consider the impact that widespread use of detention has on American communities and our society as a whole. In order to respond to this grievous harm, decision makers must mandate better care and reexamine the necessity of detaining those who seek a better life in the United States.
Sincerely,
Arab American and Chaldean Council
Catholic Charities Office for Social Justice, St. Paul and Minneapolis
Church Communities International
Church World Service, Immigration and Refugee Program
Episcopal Migration Ministries
Franciscan Friars (OFM) Holy Name Province Office for Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
Hispanic Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform
Immigration Working Group of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Paul Province
Jesuit Refugee Service/USA
Jubilee Campaign USA
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service
Mennonite Central Committee U.S. Washington Office
National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd
National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
*Conditions of Confinement in Immigration Detention Facilities. The American Civil Liberties Union. June 2007.
Detention Watch Network: multiple case studies
Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families. Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children. February 2007.
Report on Asylum Seekers in Expedited Removal. United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. February 2005.
Treatment of Immigration Detainees Housed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Facilities. Office of Inspector General, U.S. Department of Homeland Security. December 2006.
“United States: Immigration/Treatment on Non-Citizens.” Human Rights Watch. (multiple case studies 2004-2007)
