The Tragedy Of Detainee Treatment

Recent reporting by The New York Times on the cover-up of immigrant detainee deaths in U.S. detention facilities follows close on the heels of what appears to be a genuine attempt to make security more transparent since Obama’s election.  What happened to immigrants in privately-run security facilities as they were awaiting trial is often described as “horrible” and necessitating “quick action to avert media attention” by detention officials.  Deaths have been estimated to be over 100, and the time-lag between detainee death and family notification is shown to be long, in recently-released government documents.

What is interesting is the process Times reporters underwent to obtain classified documents through the Freedom of Information Act.  The leeway with which public and private detention officials operated for several years appears to extend to an unofficial prerogative regarding decisions about treatment, notification of families, and the legal options available to detainees held in custody.  Even if in the best of worlds we can assume the best prisoner health decision-making, how do we justify the cover-up of death and severe medical problems? Because they did happen.  More importantly, how does the accepted practice of institutional “leeway” over detainee life and health contribute to the definition of what is “legal” in immigration policy and practice?

If immigrants are not really citizens and not entitled, maybe, to the same due process protections that a bona fide American is entitled to, then to what final authority do government officials defer in making decision about a detainee’s life?  The Times‘ video special on Guinean detainee Boubacar Bah suggests that a group of public and private officials “get together” to discuss options when deterioration of a detainee’s health has occurred or is will happen soon.  The decision to deport, extend citizenship, prosecute, or continue to hold is administrated in the context of actual health, family financial status, cost of deportation, etc.  This process amounts to an “administration” of the human body that is held in detention.

What, then, could policy accomplish?  There needs to be some intervention in the status of (il)legal immigrants to prevent suffering.  What may pass as “functional” immigration policy by virtue of the relative silence of immigrant detainees should not be accepted by citizens whose status may erode in a parallel fashion if there exists no public instantiation of what it means to be human in relation to government decision-makers.

–Gabe Tourek