Home : Immigrants' Rights : Detention

Due process is one of the cornerstones of the American system of justice. However, people caught up in the Kafkaesque world of detention and deportation proceedings are cheated of this basic right if they are immigrants, even if they are here legally.

Within hours of their arrest, many immigrants caught up in raids are transferred to remote out-of-state detention centers and pressured into signing removal orders, often without being able to tell anyone where they are; as a result, family and lawyers have no time or ability to provide support and a legal defense. Inhumane and cruel conditions of confinement in the immigration detention centers are pervasive.

Immigrants lawfully in the United States who have committed minor infractions have little legal recourse to fight their deportation. They are denied the constitutional right to a day in court and judges must automatically deport them regardless of how minor the infractions, how long ago they were, how long they have lived here or whether they have a citizen spouse or children.

Because of the increasing reliance on detention as an immigration enforcement strategy, immigrants of any legal status have been detained for prolonged periods, sometimes several years, without any finding that they are either a danger to society or a flight risk.

San Diego Correctional Facility

Medical Care in Immigrant Detention
Nearly 300,000 men, women, and children are detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) each year, the majority of whom have no criminal history whatsoever. Thousands arrived on our shores fleeing persecution and torture, only to be locked up like criminals in one of over 400 detention facilities around the country.
> Medical Care in Immigration Detention

ACLU Challenges Illegal Detention of Children Held in Prison-Like Conditions
On March 6, the ACLU brought several lawsuits against Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), on behalf of 10 children detained at the T. Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor, Texas. The lawsuit contends that the conditions inside Hutto violate numerous provisions of Flores v. Meese, a 1997 court settlement that established minimum standards and conditions for the housing and release of all minors in federal immigration custody.
> Conditions for Immigrant Children and Their Families in the T. Don Hutto Detention Center

ACLU of Arizona Sends Letter to ICE Opposing Expansion of Immigration Detention Facility on the Tohono O'odham Nation (06/10/2009)
PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security expressing its strong opposition to the proposed plan to place a large-scale detention center in Southern Arizona possibly within the San Xavier District of the Tohono O'odham Nation. This follows recent media reports that plans are underway for the construction of a facility that would detain up to 1500 immigrants in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

ACLU Urges Supreme Court To Hear Case Of 17 Uighurs Detained Indefinitely At Guantánamo (05/07/2009)
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union urged the United States Supreme Court in a friend-of-the-court brief to hear the case of 17 Chinese ethnic Uighurs who have been detained without charge for over seven years at Guantánamo Bay and whose continued detention was found unlawful by a federal district court. The district court ordered the Uighurs, who the government concedes are not "enemy combatants," released into the U.S. because they cannot be returned to China given the threat of torture there, and because no other country has agreed to accept them. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit reversed that decision in February when it held that federal courts are powerless to order the men released into the U.S. even if their continued detention is illegal. In its friend-of-the-court brief filed yesterday, the ACLU urged the Court to review the D.C. circuit decision.

Immigration Officials Sued for Holding Detainees in Appalling Conditions at L.A. Detention Facility (04/02/2009)
LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A team of legal organizations announced today that it is suing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency in federal district court for detaining immigrants in egregious, unsanitary conditions in a downtown Los Angeles facility without soap, drinking water, toothpaste, toothbrushes, sanitary napkins, changes of clothing or showers. The lawsuit – filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, the National Immigration Law Center, and the law firm of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker LLP – also charges that the unsanitary conditions have led ICE to deprive immigrants of due-process rights such as access to mail or attorneys while in detention.

Lake County Sheriff's Office Investigation Of Immigrant Mother's Unlawful Arrest And Detention A Whitewash, Says ACLU (04/02/2009)
LAKE COUNTY, Fla. – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida today charged that the Lake County Sheriff's Office (LCSO) report of its internal investigation of the February arrest of Rita Cote, a wife and mother of three small children, was a whitewash of the Department's unlawful arrest and detention.

ACLU of Arizona Hires Former FIRRP Executive Director to Head Immigrant Detention Advocacy Project (03/31/2009)
PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona today announced the appointment of Victoria Lopez, the former executive director of the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, to lead its Immigrant Detention Advocacy Project. The new initiative will investigate the treatment of persons confined in Arizona by immigration authorities including Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol, and local agencies enforcing federal immigration law. Recent studies have indicated significant failures in the operation of short and long term detention facilities, many of which are run by private for-profit corporations.

Conditions of Confinement in Immigrant Detention Facilities (06/27/2007)

Human Rights Abuses Under the Material Witness Law Since Sept. 11, 2001 (06/27/2005)

America's Disappeared: Seeking International Justice for Immigrants Detained after September 11 (01/26/2004)

Alli et al v. Decker - Class Action Complaint (05/27/2009)

ACLU v. Department of Homeland Security, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement - Complaint (06/25/2008)

Kiniti v. Myers - Settlement Agreement (06/04/2008)

Khouzam v. Chertoff - Brief of Amici Curiae: Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture and The Redress Trust (04/22/2008)
Amici Curiae Brief for Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture and The Redress Trust in Support of Petitioner-Appellee Sameh Sami S. Khouzam, and For Affirming the Judgment of The District Court

Khouzam v. Chertoff - Brief of Amici Curiae: Human Rights Watch, et al. (04/22/2008)
Brief of Amici Curiae: Human Rights Watch, etal. Amnesty International, Center for Constitutional Rights, International Commission of Jurists, and International Federation for Human Rights

Coalition Letter to DHS Inspecter General Mann (02/06/2009)
At our meeting in September, your staff requested that we develop written recommendations on how to address the due process problems presented by DHS’s practice of transferring immigration detainees, especially those detainees transferred to facilities in other states. Based on our discussions at that meeting, we have crafted the following recommendations organized around three due process guarantees:

ACLU Comments on Bureau of Prisons Regulations on Psychiatric Treatment (08/12/2008)
Comments of the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Southern California regarding RIN 1120-AB20, Proposed Revision to Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP’s) Regulations on Providing Psychiatric Treatment and Medication to Inmates.

ACLU testimony before House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees at a hearing regarding immigrant detainee medical care (06/04/2008)

Testimony of Tom Jawetz, staff attorney for the ACLU National Prison Project, before the US House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law (05/21/2008)

ACLU Statement for Senate Judiciary Committee Oversight Hearing on Department of Homeland Security (04/02/2008)

ACLU Talking Points on Attorney General Mukasey's Compean Decision (02/17/2009)
In a highly unusual move at the very end of the outgoing administration, Attorney General Mukasey issued the Compean decision on January 7, 2009, holding that there is no constitutional or statutory right to effective assistance of counsel in immigration proceedings. The Compean decision was rushed through without input from many groups and individuals—such as the American Bar Association and more than 25 partners from some of the most prestigious law firms in the country—who sought but were denied a meaningful extension of time to file briefs. Attorney General Mukasey’s last-minute decision overrules the agency’s longstanding position—first announced in 1988 (In re Lozada) and reaffirmed after careful consideration in 2003 (In re Assaad)—and renders immigration proceedings fundamentally unfair.

Medical Care in Immigration Detention (06/25/2008)

ACLU Calls on Congress to Improve and Codify Immigration Detention Standards (07/10/2007)

Testimony of June Everett on Immigration Detention Conditions (07/09/2007)
Testimony of June Everett, whose sister, Sandra Kenley, died in ICE custody. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN), member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, hosted the briefing.

Testimony of Tom Jawetz on Immigration Detention Conditions (07/09/2007)
Immigration Detention Staff Attorney Tom Jawetz's testimony on immigration detention conditions. Representative Keith Ellison (D-MN), member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law, hosted the briefing.

Alli et al v. Decker (05/27/2009)
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Pennsylvania filed a class action lawsuit on May 27, 2009, charging that the government is violating the law by incarcerating people for prolonged periods of time, sometimes for years, while they fight their immigration cases, without providing them with the most basic element of due process – a custody hearing to determine if their prolonged detention is justified. The lawsuit is filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on behalf of two immigrants, both longtime lawful permanent residents of the United States, who have been imprisoned for prolonged periods of time in Pennsylvania prisons while they pursue legitimate legal challenges to pending removal proceedings Although one has been detained for nine months and the other for more than a year and a half, neither has received any custody hearing to determine if their prolonged detention is warranted. They seek to represent a class of other similarly detained immigrants in Pennsylvania, who are being detained without the kind of custody hearing they are entitled to under both the immigration statute and the constitution.

Cases Challenging Indefinite Detention of Immigrants (10/29/2007)
The ACLU is challenging the incarceration of immigrants in detention centers for prolonged and indefinite periods of time while they fight their immigration cases.