PRAP
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Post*Release*Accompaniment*Project A Collaboration of:
Centro Legal de la Raza, Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity & CIVIC
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est. 2014
What is Immigration detention?
Immigration Detention is the fastest-growing incarceration system in the United States: 3+ million immigrants have been held in detention facilities across the country during the past decade.
A detention facility can consist of anything from a massive, privately run center to a few beds in a county jail. They hold undocumented immigrants who have been caught coming over the border; asylum seekers; anyone with or without a criminal record who has been found to be in the country without documents by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and sometimes legal permanent residents and US Citizens detained on suspicion of being in the country illegally.
Detained immigrants are held in jails or jail-like settings that can re-traumatize asyulum-seekers and pose a barrier to accessing legal representation. Our immigration detention system locks up hundreds of thousands of immigrants unnecessarily every year at massive costs to American taxpayers--$5+ million per day or $ 2 billion per year. Recently, mothers and children, who are mainly asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America, have been detained in family detention centers.
What is an AsyLum seeker?
In the US, the major difference between refugees and asylees is the location of the person at the time of application. Refugees are usually outside of the US when they are screened for resettlement, whereas asylum seekers submit their applications while they are physically present in the United States or at a U.S. port of entry.
In 1980 Congress passed the Refugee Act, establishing protection for refugees, asylum seekers and other vulnerable immigrants and populations. Unfortunately, in the last 35 years, new U.S. laws, policies and practices have undermined the ability of asylum seekers to obtain the protection they need. Migrants and asylum-seekers in immigration proceedings do not have the right to a U.S. government-funded attorney. Legal representation significantly impacts legal outcomes.
WhO IS IN IMMIGRATION
detENTION?
Those detained in immigration detention include asylum-seekers, undocumented workers, and trafficking victims who are awaiting their day in court. Alternatives to detention have shown to reduce the disruption and harm that detention causes to families and communities and also create huge savings for taxpayers. Alternatives to detention have been shown to cost as little as $0.75-$17 per day instead of the $159 it takes to hold someone daily in immigration detention.
