September 21, 2017
The Honorable Edmund G. Brown, Jr.
Governor of the State of California
State Capitol, Suite 1173
Sacramento, CA 95814
Re: Support for SB 29 – Immigration Detention
Dear Governor Brown:
We write on behalf of Human Rights Watch to express our strong support for SB 29 (Lara), a bill that would place crucial limits on the expansion of an abusive immigration detention system and improve transparency in a notoriously secretive system.
California, after Texas, holds more immigrants in detention than any other state in the United States. On any given day, there are about 5,000 people held in more than 50 detention centers around California, from large facilities run by for-profit companies to small jails run by local counties. Based on analysis of data from ICE, Human Rights Watch estimates nearly half – 42 percent – of people detained in California have US citizen children.[1]
The conditions in these facilities are often abusive and sometimes deadly. Human Rights Watch has long-documented a range of abuses in private and public immigration detention centers.[2] In May 2015, we documented the severe psychological impacts of detention upon asylum-seeking mothers and their children.[3] In March 2016, we uncovered widespread abuse against transgender women in immigration detention.[4]
Most recently, in May of this year, we published a report with Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement (CIVIC), in which independent medical experts found evidence of severely inadequate medical care throughout the US immigration detention system, including seven cases in which such substandard care contributed to the person's death.[5] Some of the most egregious cases involved private and public immigration detention centers in California. Throughout the cases we examined, we found evidence that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has a woefully inadequate system of oversight. Even when problems are identified by ICE, ICE is dangerously slow or completely remiss in addressing these problems.
One of the primary reasons we originally supported SB 29 was its requirement that detention centers in California adhere to the most recent federal immigration detention standards. Although the bill has been amended to drop this provision, we still strongly support this bill because SB 29 places limits on the undue expansion of an abusive detention system in California by prohibiting local government actors from entering into any new contracts with private companies to detain immigrants, and prohibiting the modification of existing contracts to expand detention capacity. SB 29 also clarifies that facilities contracting with a local actor must comply with the California Public Records Act (PRA), which will help to shed light on an opaque system.
The budget you approved in June took a strong stand against President Donald Trump's detention and deportation agenda by placing limits on local governments signing new or expanded contracts for immigration detention and creating an important new monitoring mechanism in the California Attorney General's office. SB 29 would represent a crucial, complementary step toward protecting the rights of immigrants caught up in devastating deportation and detention system.
We strongly encourage you to sign this bill into law. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can provide further information.
Sincerely,
Alison Parker
Director, US Program
CC: State Senator Ricardo Lara
[1] Human Rights Watch, “I Still Need You”: The Detention and Deportation of Californian Parents, May 15, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/05/15/i-still-need-you/detention-and-deportation-californian-parents.
[2] Human Rights Watch, Detained and at Risk: Sexual Abuse and Harassment in United States Immigration Detention, August 25, 2010, https://www.hrw.org/report/2010/08/25/detained-and-risk/sexual-abuse-and-harassment-united-states-immigration-detention; Detained and Dismissed: Women’s Struggles to Obtain Health Care in United States Immigration Detention, March 17, 2009, https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/03/17/detained-and-dismissed/womens-struggles-obtain-health-care-united-states; Chronic Indifference: HIV/AIDS Services for Immigrants Detained by the United States, December 5, 2007, https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/12/05/chronic-indifference/hiv/aids-services-immigrants-detained-united-states.
[3] “US: Trauma in Family Immigration Detention,” Human Rights Watch news release, May 15, 2015, https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/05/15/us-trauma-family-immigration-detention-0.
[4] Human Rights Watch, “Do you See How Much I’m Suffering Here?”: Abuse Against Transgender Women in US Immigration Detention, March 23, 2016, https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/03/23/do-you-see-how-much-im-suffering-here/abuse-against-transgender-women-us.
[5] Human Rights Watch and Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement, Systemic Indifference: Dangerous and Substandard Medical Care in US Immigration Detention, May 8, 2017, https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/05/08/systemic-indifference/dangerous-substandard-medical-care-us-immigration-detention.
