American Purgatory

A new project has been launched to take a detailed look at the political asylum system since 9/11. This website offers commentary from all sides, an audio of interviews, and a list of credible resources:

American Purgatory is a rare look into the asylum process from start to finish through the eyes of an asylum applicant. The documentary takes listeners into the process of applying for asylum through the eyes of "H", an asylum seeker from a former Soviet country who came to New York in 2005.

H was represented by lawyers from a large New York law firm that took on his case pro bono (free of charge). Very few asylum seekers are lucky enough to have lawyers. H goes through the process with their help, but throughout, he struggles to pay his rent and support himself without financial assistance or the legal right to work.

H's journey is surrounded by stories from others who have been through the asylum process—some without lawyers, some who were in detention—along with people involved in the system, including asylum officers, lawyers, advocates and critics, as well as the US immigration service and Homeland Security.

Through the voices of asylum seekers, asylum advocates and those responsible for enforcing U.S. asylum laws, American Purgatory explores the contradictions of a process that is there to protect people in distress, but also has to vet fraudulent applications and infiltration by terrorists.

Visit the website.

Immigration Detention Challenged

The New York Times reports that immigrants held in detention while fighting deportation filed a federal suit against the Department of Homeland Security demanding regulations be applied to the facilities, here is the whole story:

Immigrants who spent time in detention while fighting deportation filed a federal suit on Wednesday against Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, demanding that the agency issue legally enforceable regulations for its detention centers.

No enforceable standards now exist for the immigrant detention system, a rapidly growing conglomeration of county jails, federal centers and privately run prisons across the country.

The lawsuit, filed by the immigrants and their advocates in United States District Court in Manhattan, contends that the lack of such regulations puts hundreds of thousands of people a year in substandard and inconsistent conditions while the government decides whether to deport them, leaving them subject to inadequate medical care and abuse.

The suit is based on the Administrative Procedures Act, which allows courts to force agencies to respond to rulemaking petitions. In January 2007, the plaintiffs filed a petition requesting that Homeland Security make its detention standards enforceable, but have received no response.

Homeland Security is one of the largest jailers in the world, “but it behaves like a lawless local sheriff,” said Paromita Shah, associate director of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, one of the plaintiffs in the suit.

Other plaintiffs include Families for Freedom, a New York-based advocacy group for immigrant detainees; Rafiu Abimbola, a Nigerian who was detained for more than six years while seeking asylum; and Camal Marchabeyoglu, now a legal permanent resident living in Corona, Calif.

“The refusal to adopt comprehensive, binding regulations has contributed to a system in which thousands of immigration detainees are routinely denied necessary medical care, visitation, legal materials or functioning telephones,” Ms. Shah said.

Charles S. Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said the agency had not yet seen the lawsuit and could not comment.

In the past, officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees immigration detention within Homeland Security, said the system was held to general detention standards adopted in 1998 and 2000, through provisions in contracts with counties, private companies and other detention providers, and through annual inspections.

The agency “is fully committed to providing safe, secure and human conditions for individuals in our custody,” said Michael Keegan, a spokesman.

The lawsuit contends that those standards are incomplete, do not apply to detained immigrants in all facilities and are not enforceable when they do apply. It cites the findings of Homeland Security’s own inspector general after an audit of five detention centers in 2006, including one in San Diego run by Corrections Corporation of America; the Passaic County and Hudson County jails in New Jersey; the federal government’s Krome center in Miami; and the Berks County Prison in Leesport, Pa.

The audit found all five out of compliance with general standards on health care, disciplinary procedures and access to legal materials. But all five had been rated “acceptable” in the immigration enforcement agency’s annual reviews.

Torture Memos Released.

Yesterday the 81-page "Torture Memo" written by John Yoo was publicly released.

The Justice Department sent a legal memorandum to the Pentagon in 2003 asserting that federal laws prohibiting assault, maiming and other crimes did not apply to military interrogators who questioned al-Qaeda captives because the president's ultimate authority as commander in chief overrode such statutes.

The 81-page memo, which was declassified and released publicly yesterday, argues that poking, slapping or shoving detainees would not give rise to criminal liability. The document also appears to defend the use of mind-altering drugs that do not produce "an extreme effect" calculated to "cause a profound disruption of the senses or personality."

Read the whole story here.