Bipartisanefforts are few and far between these days, but finally, there seems to be oneissue that House Democrats and Republicans can agree upon: no one held in UScustody should be at risk for rape or sexual assault.
This week a bipartisan group of House members is calling on the Obama administration to ensure that the sexual assault prevention measures included in the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) are applied to immigration detention centers as well as to prisons and jails. Tell your Congressman to join the call.
The PREA wasunanimously passed in 2003, and after a lengthy study by the National PrisonRape Elimination Commission (NPREC), the Department of Justice (DOJ) proposedthe necessary regulations to implement the law in early 2011. These regulationsare scheduled to be implemented in February 2012.
Unfortunately, DOJ has so fardeliberately declined to make PREA applicable to people being held in theimmigration detention system, including unaccompanied immigrant children. DOJcited procedural concerns because adults and children detained for immigrationreasons are under the purview of Department of Homeland Security (DHS) andOffice of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), respectively, and not the Department ofJustice.
Say what? Yes, DOJessentially abdicated responsibility for the more than 400,000 people who aredetained for immigration infractions each year with an attitude that says “Wecan’t force our colleagues at other federal agencies to prevent rape at theirfacilities.”
Consequently, PREA will protect convicted criminals in jailsacross the US, but it won’t protect civil detainees such as undocumented immigrantsbeing held for speeding tickets. Even in cases where convicted criminals andimmigration detainees are held in thevery same facility, PREA’s protections will apply only to the convictedcriminals because DOJ, not DHS or ORR, has jurisdiction over those people.
Earlier thisyear, PHR and other human rights organizations sent a letter to PresidentObama asking him toensure PREA protection for all immigration detainees. We also submittedcomments (including a call to implement PREA at all immigration detentionfacilities) on the proposed rule to DOJ Senior Counsel Robert Hinchman andAttorney General Eric Holder.
Although DOJ has not publicly responded orindicated its willingness to reconsider its position, rumblings in DC point toDHS as the main obstacle in getting PREA implemented in the immigrationdetention system.
DOJ’s failure topush for PREA to cover immigration detention facilities may be attributed to itshesitance to step on the toes of fellow executive agencies. But what does DHShave against rape prevention measures? As PHR recently reported, therehave been nearly 200 official complaints of sexual abuse in immigrationdetention facilities since 2007.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), theDHS sub-agency in charge of immigration enforcement and detention, maintainsthat it has a zero-tolerance policy against sexual abuse; yet DHS has notindicated its willingness to adopt regulations under PREA. Instead it clings toits much-delayed Performance Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS),claiming that the eventual implementation of these weak and vague guidelineswill cure all deficiencies in the detention system.
Against this backdrop of territorialsquabbles among federal agencies, Representatives Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Frank Wolf (R-Va) are now askingfellow members to sign a letter to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano urging her toadopt the PREA rules for the entire immigration detention system. You can ask your Representative to sign the letter too.
It does not take an international agreement to know that sexual assaultis a grave abuse of human rights. It’stime for the administration to step in and mandate implementation of PREAregulations at all facilities holding immigration detainees, regardless ofwhich federal agency has jurisdiction.