D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
December
2008
Sister Kathleen Erickson
Page: 2She visited the place with a lawyer friend. "We were sick to our stomach," she says. "She thought she had seen everything."
The Chaparral facility was built by the largest private builder and manager of ICE-sponsored immigrant detention facilities in the US, the Management and Training Corp. The center holds 1,048 male undocumented immigrants. Privately built detention facilities are highly unregulated, according to prison activists.
The Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services (DMRS) of El Paso has also complained about conditions at the detention center, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. Ilian Olguin, DMRS executive director, says there are reports that non-criminal inmates have been put in solitary confinement for up to a week. Detainees report difficulty getting legal assistance.
Another report describes one inmate who lacked access to medical care. The man had been detained without medication, and "the family was frantic," according to Olguin. "His health was really deteriorating." DMRS workers appealed directly to ICE for assistance.
"There's not enough activism," says Erickson. She would like to see more local activists monitor the detention centers and counsel the inmates legally and spiritually — "people who have enough Spanish to be helpful."
Perhaps the overriding problem is that "it's a broken system. It's backlogged hugely," says Erickson.
Congress may be taking up comprehensive immigration reform again in its next session, Erickson adds. She hopes legislation will tackle providing a track toward citizenship, the right of foreign workers to bring their families, and labor rights.
"What is in it for the US to incarcerate these people?" Erickson asks. "What does all this have to do — if we're talking truth — with homeland security?
"If our only response is the militarization of the border," she says, "what does that say about us as human beings?"
Marjorie Lilly writes the Borderlines column.