[May 15, 2008]

IMMIGRANTS TRANSFERRED AFTER RIOT

AT LANCASTER DETENTION CENTER

Federal officials moved about 40 immigrants out to detention centers in the western United States in April after a riot broke out at a Lancaster detention center in which deputies used tear gas to quell the riot which allegedly involved the South Siders and Paisa gangs, according to a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.   Detainees said that the fight broke out after a deputy allegedly opened a gate allowing gang members into an area that housed rival gang members.
       The transfer is based on interviews conducted by ICE officials and sheriff's deputies, according to a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that oversees detention, and added that the agency is taking a zero-tolerance policy. They want to send a strong message that this kind of action is not appropriate.

More than half of the immigrants transferred were Salvadorans moved to a downtown Los Angeles staging area.  The agency denied reports circulated that some detainees were being deported although they said that if a detainee had a final order of removal and have travel documents, then these detainees were processed for removal.  The Mira Loma facility is the largest detention center in the state, housing nearly 1,000 immigrants.

Deputies used tear gas to quell the riot and deputies from neighboring stations were called to the detention center.   At least 10 immigrants were taken to a local hospital and treated for minor injuries.
            The ICE spokesman said that a federal team was dispatched to conduct an in-depth investigation into the riot.   Last year, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a $10 million plan to expand the Mira Loma facility just days after a detainee was killed while operating a jackhammer, raising questions about the type of work immigrants are allowed to perform.
            Under the agreement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security agreed to pay the county $51 million to house 1,400 immigrants. Mira Loma does not house detainees with serious medical issues or violent criminal convictions.

PULLING BACK THE IMMIGRATION POSSES

Many parts of the nation have tilted severely toward harsh, unyielding policies to catch and punish illegal immigrants, but not everyone has gone over the edge. Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona recently vetoed a bill that would have required all police and sheriff¡¯s departments in the state to join the federal immigration posse, dismissing the bill as impractical and expensive.

She said it would have imposed an undue burden on local law enforcement, calculating that the cost of training that many officers under the federal program known as 287(g) could total $100 million — with no guarantee that the federal government would pay. The 287(g) program is also far too prone to abuse which was already flagrantly clear in Arizona¡¯s most populous county, Maricopa, where Sheriff Joe Arpaio has built the biggest 287(g) posse in the country — 160 officers — and deployed it in Hispanic neighborhoods, pulling people over for broken taillights and other traffic infractions and checking papers.

Defenders of the Maricopa raids deny accusations of racial profiling, but it is hard to see it as anything else. The highly publicized sweeps have reaped fear and anger among Latino Arizonans — citizens and illegal immigrants — who have endured the stops, the flashing lights, the requests for papers. They have been little use in the serious pursuit of criminals. The search for a rational immigration system will not be resolved by simplistic, predatory enforcement schemes.

• U.S. ADMITS NEGLIGENCE IN DETAINEE'S DEATH

  The federal government has admitted that its negligence was responsible for the death of an illegal immigrant who pleaded during 11 months in custody for treatment for a condition that proved to be terminal penile cancer.

              Government lawyers made the acknowledgement last week in a suit that Francisco Castaneda filed before he died at his Los Angeles-area home on Feb. 16 at age 36. Doctors had amputated Castaneda's penis a year earlier to try to stop the spread of the cancer.

              A lawyer for family members who have taken over the lawsuit said Monday the admission followed a government physician's sworn statements that she knew a biopsy was the only way to determine whether Castaneda had cancer but never authorized one - a decision that was approved by officials at the headquarters of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

  The case has laid bare the "complete failure, at multiple levels," of the health care system for 300,000 immigrants in federal detention centers, said Conal Doyle, an Oakland attorney representing the family along with the nonprofit group Public Justice. "We are seeking a policy change" and will not settle the case without one, he said.

              An inquiry to Immigration and Customs Enforcement was referred to the U.S. attorney's office, where spokesman Thom Mrozek declined Monday to explain why the government had acknowledged that its negligence caused Castaneda's death.

              "It's the position of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the Bureau of Prisons and any other federal entity that may have the ability to detain people that we strive to provide proper and adequate medical care for persons in our custody," Mrozek said.

              The admission of negligence makes the government responsible for damages up to $250,000, a limit set by California law for emotional distress caused by medical malpractice. U.S. District Judge Dean Pregerson of Los Angeles could award additional sums, including punitive damages, if he finds that individual doctors and officials were deliberately indifferent to Castaneda's welfare and violated his constitutional rights.

  In a ruling last month that denied the government's request to dismiss the case, Pregerson said Castaneda's allegations, if proved, describe government conduct that was beyond cruel and unusual. The government has appealed his decision to allow claims against individual federal employees.

              Castaneda entered the United States with his mother at age 10 after fleeing his native El Salvador during a civil war. He was convicted in 2005 of possessing methamphetamine and spent eight months in jail, then was held in immigration detention centers in San Diego and San Pedro while awaiting proceedings in the government's attempt to deport him and in his request for political asylum.

  According to his lawsuit, a doctor first noticed a growth on Castaneda's penis in December 2005, while Castaneda was in state custody, and ordered tests that were never conducted. Multiple lesions developed and his pain increased, but doctors and immigration agency officials rejected medical staff recommendations for a biopsy, describing it as an elective procedure, the suit said.

  In response to observations of discharges from his lesions, the agency's health service recommended in November 2006 that he receive a clean pair of boxer shorts each day, the suit said. A doctor finally ordered a biopsy two months later and said Castaneda probably had cancer, but the immigration agency

   released him without treatment 11 days later, and he underwent the biopsy and amputation in a Los Angeles County hospital, the suit said.

              In pretrial deposition last month, Esther Hui, the only doctor at the San Diego detention facility, said Castaneda was under the care of a physician's assistant. Hui said she recalled seeing Castaneda only once, probably in the spring of 2006, when she was shown the penile lesion and thought it might be cancerous.

              But Hui said she does not recall conducting or ordering any tests to rule out cancer. When an outside oncologist told her later that Castaneda should be hospitalized immediately for a biopsy, she disagreed, explaining during the deposition that she considered the procedure elective because Castaneda was not in imminent danger of dying.

              Hui, a defendant in the lawsuit, said she is sad about what happened to Castaneda, but "I don't feel responsible" for his death.

  

  WINNING THE GLOBAL RACE FOR TALENT:

  HOW U.S. VISA & IMMIGRATION POLICIES THREATEN THE NEW YORK

  ECONOMY & COST AMERICAN JOBS — AND HOW WE CAN FIX IT

  America¡¯s ability to maintain the world¡¯s best and most productive workforce in an increasingly competitive environment depends on 1) education and continued training of the domestic workforce, and 2) smart immigration and visa policies that maintain the infusion of top talent from around the world.

  To this end, the Partnership for New York City recently conducted an unprecedented survey of international companies in its membership that have headquarters or major operations in New York in order to better understand how this city is stacking up in the race for global talent. The results were alarming. Thousands of jobs are being lost or relocated for reasons that New York City and State government can do very little about: America¡¯s visa and immigration policies.

  According to the survey, the most serious problem for New York business is the cap on H-1B visas.  One Partnership survey response from a major investment bank drives home the point: ¡°We are a company that invests significant amounts of money in education and training of current and future U.S. workers. However, these efforts are insufficient to meet our company¡¯s immediate needs. The visa cap does not create jobs for Americans; its only effect is to restrict our firm¡¯s development within the U.S. and, consequently, push jobs and tax revenues across our borders. The policy helps rival destinations.¡±

  

  9TH CIRCUIT UPHOLDS BORDER AGENT¡¯S LAPTOP SEARCH

  A federal appeals court panel ruled Monday that border agents didn't violate a traveler's rights when they searched his laptop, finding child porn in the process.

              The California Recorder, reporting on the opinion, notes that O'Scannlain further opined that the defendant "has failed to distinguish how the search of his laptop and its electronic contents is logically any different from the suspicionless border searches of travelers' luggage that the Supreme Court and we have allowed."

              The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit joins the the Richmond, Va.-based 4th Circuit, which upheld a border agent search of a computer in 2005.  "The government needs to have the ability," U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien said, "to restrict harmful material from entering the country, whether that be weapons used by terrorists, dangerous narcotics or child pornography."

  

POSNER BLASTS IMMIGRATION COURTS

AS 'INADEQUATE' AND ILL-TRAINED

Federal judge Richard Posner, one of the most widely cited appellate judges in the United States, blasted the nation's asylum adjudication system as "inadequate" and offered a number of remedies for it recently in a speech before the Chicago Bar Association.

Posner, who sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, said administrative law judges who serve in the immigration courts are ill-trained and insufficient in number. He also said the bar that represents applicants doesn't have enough qualified lawyers, and that the Board of Immigration Appeals, which has 11 members, is too small. In recent years, Posner has offered glimpses of his dissatisfaction in opinions from the bench as well.  "This is a system of adjudication that is clearly inadequate," Posner said in the address to the Chicago Bar Association.

Immigration courts overseen by an administrative law judge give initial hearings on the applications for asylum in the U.S. by people who claim they will be subjected to torture or political persecution if returned to their country of origin. The decisions can be appealed to the board and, if necessary, subsequently to the federal circuit courts.

The board is in the process of increasing its size to 15 members, said Elaine Komis, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, an agency in the Department of Justice that oversees the board and the courts. In addition, the office is "very focused" on increasing resources for the immigration courts and has added 11 judges so far this year, will add another 27 in coming months and has added law clerks as well, she said.

The agency is also requiring the 54 immigration courts to abandon local rules and follow a new uniform manual for all courts as of this July, she said.

Judges should be better trained, especially with respect to the international issues they may be asked to consider; more law schools should offer clinics to help improve the quality of the bar; the Board of Immigration Appeals should add members; and judges should hold a conference to exchange ideas on the state of the system, he said.

The immigration court judges rely too much on information from the U.S. Department of State in educating themselves about international issues and are poorly equipped to understand the body language and facts delivered by the applicant, often through an interpreter, he said. All too often they can end up relying on their personal values and biases, he said.

"There's simply a problem with the immigration judges having the knowledge that they need," Posner said. In addition, the board "does not have the resources to give more than a perfunctory review," he said.

The immigration courts handled nearly 55,000 asylum cases in fiscal year 2007, according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review.