New Jersey Advocates 'Two Year Progress Update' Memo to President @BarackObama

Written by Karina Wilkinson:

In late April 2010, New Jersey Advocates for Immigrant Detainees and NYU IRC  issued a comprehensive report, Locked Up but Not Forgotten:  Opening Access to Family and Community in the Immigration Detention System.

Yesterday, the New Jersey Advocates issued a memo to President Obama to update him on the lack of progress in reforming detention.  Detention capacity in New Jersey expanded by a third since February 2010, while progress on opening access and improving conditions for the majority of detainees has been minimal. In 2011, New Jersey experienced an increased capacity of 750 beds per night, 300 beds in a county jail and 450 beds in a facility, billed as the new model for ‘civil’ detention, but run by Community Education Centers, which has a history of human rights violations and deaths in their custody. Read the memo to Obama here.

Our most recent report with NYU IRC, Immigration Incarceration: The Expansion and Failed Reform of Immigration Detention in Essex County, NJ, which was released on March 23, 2012, details the conditions in the two facilities where the expansion has taken place and demonstrates the disappointing pace of detention reform in New Jersey.

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