ABA Announces INS Detention Standards Implementation Initiative

IMMIGRATION LAW & POLICY

Arrest and Detention

ABA ANNOUNCES INS DETENTION STANDARDS IMPLEMENTATION INITIATIVE
Immigrants' Rights Update, Vol. 15, No. 3, May 10, 2001

The American Bar Association has announced a new project it calls the INS Detention Standards Implementation Initiative, through which it is offering advocates assistance in their efforts to hold the Immigration and Naturalization Service to the agency's new detention standards. The project encourages advocates who become aware of specific problems related to legal access, detainee treatment, and detention conditions to contact the new project's director, Chris Nugent. His email address is nugentc@staff.abanet.org.

The ABA was instrumental in prompting the INS to issue detention standards. In January 2001, after protracted negotiations over the new standards, they took effect at 18 INS service processing centers, as well as at contract detention facilities operated by the Corrections Corporation of America and Wackenhut. Over the next year, the standards will be phased in at other non-INS-operated facilities.

The ABA project has published a new resource for lawyers who work with immigrant detainees: INS Detention Standards Implementation Initiative: A Training Manual for Advocates. The manual provides background information on the INS's new standards, including in-depth fact sheets on the following: rights to legal access; standards regarding medical treatment; rights to religious practice; descriptions of the complaint process; strategies for success in seeking redress under the standards; an advocate complaint form; sample complaints; advocate and detainee questionnaires regarding access and detention conditions issues; detainee legal questionnaires in English and Spanish; and other remedies under administrative and federal law. The manual, as well as a copy of the new detention standards, may be ordered by contacting the ABA at: Immigration Pro Bono Development and Bar Activation Project, American Bar Association, 740 15th Street N.W., 9th Floor, Washington, DC 20005-1022.