Audio via @FamiliesFreedom: War on Immigrants Report, Feb 16, 2012
War on Immigrants Report
February 16, 2012
WBAI Fund Drive Edition
To listen, click on the black arrow (or download here):
HOSTED THIS MONTH BY: Abrahm Paulos and Donald Anthonyson of Families for Freedom and Adem Carroll.
This month’s show focuses on Immigration detention… the conditions, the rationale, the absurdities… all the above, below and then some.
Immigration detention is the practice of jailing people the immigration authorities are trying to deport. The detainees are imprisoned as if they are being punished for a crime. But being in the United States without permission is not a crime. It is a civil violation-the only one punishable by confinement. The courts argue that administrative detention is not punishment. Detainees are often subjected to arbitrary punishment, including shackling, solitary confinement, neglect of basic medical and hygienic needs, and verbal, physical and even sexual abuse.* (The Politics of Immigration, J.Guskin. D.Wilson)
The people held in immigration detention has exploded. On any given day, ICE detains over 33,000 immigrants; this is more than triple the number of people detained in 1996. In the last 5 years alone, the annual number of immigrants detained and the costs of detaining them has doubled: in 2009, 383,524 immigrants were detained, costing taxpayers $1.7 billion at an average of $122 a day per bed. Nearly 2.5 million individuals have passed through immigration detention facilities since 2003.**(DWN)
Tonight we will bring voices of directly affected people who are both inside and out of this system along with guests who will also try and shed light on some of the more egregious ways that detainees are treated.
