Plans to reform immigration detention management and oversight, announced today by the US government, should quickly be translated into actual policy change and accountability. The plans focus on centralizing control of facilities used to hold detained immigrants.

As a feminist and as an American working on immigration policy, I have a clear line in the sand when it comes to the treatment of women who immigrate to this country: “defending our borders” should not be at the expense of defending our values. But when I interviewed women in immigration detention facilities all over the country last year and heard their stories of neglect and abuse, it became clear to me that this line has been crossed.

The US government should reform immigration enforcement policies that inflict needless suffering on immigrant women and their families, rights advocates said today. A former immigration detention center nurse, a former detainee, and a group of leading human rights advocacy and research groups will testify to Congress at a Capitol Hill briefing on June 24, 2009.

Thank you all for coming today and for taking part in this discussion. My name is Meghan Rhoad and I am the US researcher for the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. I was the principal researcher and author of the March 2009 report, Detained & Dismissed: Women’s Struggles to Obtain Health Care in United States Immigration Detention.  It is a privilege to be here and to have the opportunity to share our findings and recommendations about these important issues in our nation’s capital. And it is an honor to be introducing Kathleen Baldoni, who, despite the adverse consequences for herself, has come forward to speak out on behalf of the women and men she cared for as a detention center nurse.

The new report and standards on prison rape – released today by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission – challenge prison officials to end this devastating and all too prevalent human rights violation.

Last week, New York legislators passed landmark legislation on an issue that has received far less public attention and debate than waterboarding and sleep deprivation, but that involves the same core issues of human dignity and protection from cruel treatment: the shackling of incarcerated women during pregnancy and childbirth.

Human Rights Watch writes to express our strong support for NYS 1290, which would restrict the shackling of women in New York state prisons in transportation for childbirth, during labor and delivery, and in the post-natal recovery period.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is known by many who deal with it by its acronym: ICE. The name is well-deserved for its treatment of the immigrant women locked up in its detention system.