Feds to oversee immigration detention facilities - good!

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2009/08/05/20090805immig-detention05-ON.html


The Obama administration plans to place federal employees in the largest immigration detention facilities in the country to monitor detainee treatment.

Under the new plan, 23 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials would be placed at the largest jails to directly supervise how the detention centers are managed, according to people briefed on the government's plan. Private contractors have been doing the monitoring since 2007. Before that, it was federal employees.

-snip-

The government has been criticized for its treatment of immigration detainees, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has made detention policies a top priority for her department.

-snip-

A report released last month by the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center found that detainees have faced limited access to phones, mail and law libraries in violation of federal standards. The authors based their findings on more than 18,000 pages of documents that showed facilities across the country limited detainees' access to legal materials and transferred them without proper notice.

The agency also has been criticized for failing to provide proper medical care to detainees resulting in the deaths of some detainees and congressional hearings.
-snip-
---------------------------