Asylum Seekers Often Mistreated, Study Funds

People seeking asylum in the United States are held in detention centers where they are frequently handcuffed and restrained with belly chains, put in solitary confinement for disciplinary reasons, and forced to share quarters with more dangerous inmates facing criminal prosecution, according to a study released yesterday by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. The study by the bipartisan commission, created by Congress in 1998 to monitor religious freedom in other countries, concluded that the Department of Homeland Security's system for processing asylum seekers is often harsh, long and arbitrary. The study concluded that asylum is granted or denied "depending on where the alien arrived, and which immigration judges or inspectors addressed the alien's claim." Refugees who landed in New York were much less likely to be granted asylum than those who landed in Miami, where the population of those with asylum is largely Cuban. Refugees who retain attorneys are about 11 times as likely to be granted asylum as those with no legal representation. The report was released just days before the Senate is set to review legislation proposed by House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) that would make it more difficult to gain asylum. Mark Hetfield, director of the study and immigration counsel for the commission, said the conditions at detention centers "were totally inappropriate." "They were exactly like jails," he said. "These are people who are fleeing persecution, many from unjust imprisonment in their own countries, and we are treating them like common criminals."  [more]