Incarcerating immigrants is too costly, unjust to continue

Immigration has been a hot topic for the past few years, but lately has been pushed out of sight in light of the current economic crisis. However, it is important that everyone in the United States, immigrant or citizen, know the consequences of the current system of detaining immigrants. The problem has been festering for a while, beginning before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Although not technically citizens of the United States, there is no reason why these people should not be afforded the rights that are not exclusive rights, but human rights. One in particular, is freedom.

According to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database, as of Jan. 25, 2009, there are 32,000 immigrant detainees. Nearly 19,000 of these detainees have never been convicted of a crime and are being held with merely a shred, if even that, of suspicion. The majority of these immigrants are here legally, as well. So why is it that people we have allowed into our country are being held without the due process and trials they deserve?

Due to ambiguity in detention laws, about a third of these immigrants have been held already for a month. These people are often asylum seekers or long-term residents whose cases have been mishandled. In the meantime, they are jailed without second thought. The ICE claims this is the best way to ensure that the immigrants appear at court hearings, but in reality incarceration is costly, inefficient and unfair.

For an average daily cost of $13, immigrants can be paroled on ankle monitors and the compliance rate is just as high, if not higher, than when they are incarcerated. On the other hand, detaining immigrants costs around $141 a night. Clearly, detainment is not the most cost-efficient way to handle these immigrants' cases.

In addition, these immigrants are often on their own. They become lost in a system that cannot keep track of them, unwanted by the United States government while also refused by their home country. Fifty-eight percent of the immigrants have no legal representation or anyone advocating on their behalf. In a foreign country, faced with foreign laws, they are abandoned when they need help the most. Their own country has forsaken them and they have nowhere to turn. The ICE merely puts them away - out of sight, out of mind -and hopes that by detaining them, the problem will eventually go away.

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free," but only when we feel like it.

Ironically, since immigration violations are considered civil, they have fewer rights than those granted to accused criminals. And interestingly enough, the ICE is overseen by the Department of Homeland Security. Clearly, the department cannot be a wholly impartial judge of matters of immigration. Blanket assumptions are made for illegal and legal immigrants, criminal and noncriminal immigrants alike. The ICE becomes, as stated by Associated Press writer Michelle Roberts, the "police officer, arraignment judge, jailer and prosecutor." Is it right to have all of these roles tied up neatly in a package for the immigrants? Should they not be granted a neutral, disinterested judge?

This form of detainment needs to stop. Even those accused of the worst crimes have the rights to a fair trial and due process in the law. These immigrants, some guilty of nothing more than having been born in a different country, deserve at least these same rights.

There are many misconceptions floating around about immigrants and the detainment of immigrants. Immigrants are people, just like any others. The majority of them simply want to be offered the same chances, the same opportunities as the rest of society. And as citizens of the United States, the supposed melting pot of the world, we should be advocating on their behalf.