SocraticGadfly: U.S. immigration jails become more Kafkaesque

May 05, 2008

U.S. immigration jails become more Kafkaesque

People dying without their families even knowing they’ve been arrested, let alone later hospitalized. No oversight and central control of the broader process:
No government body is required to keep track of deaths and publicly report them. No independent inquiry is mandated. And often relatives who try to investigate the treatment of those who died say they are stymied by fear of immigration authorities, lack of access to lawyers, or sheer distance.

Many of these immigrants die in state jails, where they are being held indefinitely before the highly INefficient (except when trampling on environmental legislation) Department of Homeland Security’s subconsulate, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, decides whether to deport or not.

And, in many cases, the reasons these people became “illegals” in the first place is itself Kafkaesque.

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