Immigration Reform Research Paper

Reform of Detention System for Immigrants

Immigration policy is a multi-faceted problem that is incredibly costly to the United States every year. One problem involved in immigration policy is the costly use of detention centers which house immigrants detained by the United States government and are waiting to have their case for staying in the United States reviewed, many of whom are applying for asylum status. Each year, approximately 441,000 illegal immigrants are detained and may of them are sent to these detention centers. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency(ICE) is has a quota of maintaining 34,000 beds at any given time. Currently, there are over 200 immigration jails throughout the country. The government, and by extension …show more content…
Another major flaw is that many people in the centers are treated against the values of the Constitution. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution states, “No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law”(U.S Constitution Amendment X). The mandatory detention system that is used to detain individuals violates this law of due process. Mandatory detention does not give them any chance for release before their hearing, as the criminal justice system does. In most cases, the immigrants who are in detention centers do not have a record and are far less dangerous than those who are up for criminal proceedings. Despite this, immigrants are treated with a much more strict system where detention is the expectation and anything else is an exception. As the American Civil Liberties Union points out, “In other pre-trial settings, the courts have found that the Constitution clearly prohibits mandatory detention absent proof of danger or a flight risk. Federal courts in New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, and California have come to the same conclusion in the immigration context.”(ACLU, Analysis). While there are certainly some people in immigration detention centers who are a flight risk or have committed serious crimes and are a danger to society, that is not the case for everyone or even most people. Denying these people, the ones who are seeking asylum or some other legal status in the United States who have done very little wrong besides potentially the illegal immigration case they are fighting, due process goes against the Constitution and therefore needs to be

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