Detained immigrants could soon face harsher conditions
For more than 15 years, jails that hold immigrants facing deportation have had to follow a growing list of requirements: notify immigration officials if a detainee spends two weeks or longer in solitary confinement; check on suicidal inmates every 15 minutes and evaluate their mental health every day; inform detainees, in languages they can understand, how to obtain medical care. In disciplinary hearings, provide a staff member who can advocate in English on the detainee’s behalf.
But as the Trump administration seeks to quickly find jail space for its crackdown on illegal immigration, it is moving to curtail these rules as a way to entice more sheriffs and local officials to make their correctional facilities available.
According to two Homeland Security officials who had knowledge of the plans but declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly, new jail contracts will contain a far less detailed set of regulations.
They will make no mention of the need for translation services, for example. A current rule that detainees’ requests for medical care be evaluated by a professional within 24 hours will be replaced by a requirement that the jails merely have procedures on providing medical care.
The new contracts will require that the jails maintain policies for suicide prevention, solitary confinement and other concerns, but will not specify what those policies should contain.
The changes, which will coincide with the closing of an office that develops regulations, will essentially hold these jails to the same standards they must follow for criminal inmates. That is a break from a long-held philosophy that people held on immigration violations, who are considered by law to be “civil” detainees, should be treated differently.
The officials said the changes were being made to make the contracts more palatable to local officials who run the jails, who have sometimes bristled at the additional accommodations for immigrants.