WASHINGTON, DC -- One of the worst messes facing the Obama administration is the disgraceful state of the federal government's immigration detention centers.



There are 350 of these centers around the country, housing almost 30,000 men, women and even children waiting for the Department of Homeland Security to decide whether or not they will be deported. Some have been in custody for years. The centers are overcrowded. Newspapers and academic and civil liberties studies tell of physically and mentally ill inmates being denied help.



Given that they are in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, you'd think these people would be suspected terrorists, threats to national security. Many, however, are guilty of nothing except seeking asylum from their native lands. Plenty have been swept up in the increasing number of raids by immigration officers. Some of these are actually here legally but are detained until they can prove it. Others have committed crimes, although some of the violations are so small they would have rated only a light fine or jail sentence in the criminal justice system.



Tens of thousands of people languish in U.S. immigration detention facilities every without receiving a hearing to determine whether their detention is warranted, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) said in a report released today. The report, Jailed Without Justice: Immigration Detention in the USA, shows that, in just over a decade, the number of immigrants in detention each day has tripled from 10,000 in 1996 to more than 30,000 in 2008. Numbers are likely to increase in 2009. A majority of the detainees have extreme difficulty retaining a lawyer or help navigating the complex legal process.



In the current system, rife with errors and lacking meaningful oversight, being detained in ...