Amid coronavirus, ICE should release all detainees who aren’t a public safety risk
Earlier this spring, shortly before such a visit became impossible as we all shelter within our homes to slow the spread of COVID-19, I visited the Northwest Immigration and Customs Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington. The Christian organization I lead, World Relief, provides support to those inside of and being released from immigration detention.
Among our other services, World Relief staff and volunteers operate eight worship services in six different languages on a typical weekend: a church of several hundred people within the walls of nondescript building just outside the city of Tacoma which the parishioners are not allowed to leave.
The past several Sundays, of course, volunteers and other visitors have understandably not been allowed to enter the Northwest Detention Center, in an effort to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus into the contained detained facility. Our church services and window visits have been cancelled. Volunteers are now sending letters – a contemporary version of Pauline epistles – to those still detained, who cannot effectively practice social distancing and thus are at significant risk.
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Were these detainees violent criminals who might, if released, re-offend, I could understand that the public safety concern might outweigh the public health threat of ongoing detention. But the reality is that detained immigrants in the U.S. are very rarely violent criminals. In fact, most individuals detained by Immigration & Customs Enforcement are not criminals at all: according to government records obtained by Syracuse University Freedom of Information Act requests, 64% of the nearly 50,000 immigrants detained nationally as of last April had no criminal conviction whatsoever. Even among those with a criminal conviction, the most common offense was the misdemeanor offense of unlawful entry into the country, not a violent crime.
So who are these immigrant detainees? Many are asylum seekers, individuals who reach the U.S either on a temporary visa or by journeying to the border, then requested permission to stay lawfully because they face a credible fear of persecution in their countries of origin.
A sizable share – about 30% of the detained asylum seekers who got a decision from the immigration court in Tacoma last fiscal year – are eventually granted asylum, at which point World Relief and our partner churches can help them to rebuild their lives in the Seattle area. Others lack sufficient evidence or legal knowledge to persuade the judge, in which case they are usually deported (roughly 40% of detainees in Tacoma last year were representing themselves, without an attorney, because pro bono legal representation is limited).
Others in detention are longtime residents of the United States who either entered the country unlawfully or overstayed a visa years or even decades ago. Many have a spouse and children, more often than not U.S.-born citizens, whom they have been taken away from – a family who would be desperate to have them home, particularly in this troubling time for many American families.
The rationale most often given for detaining individuals without a serious criminal record is a concern that, if released, they may not show up for court, absconding into the United States. But the data suggests this is relatively rare: over the past decade, 83% of those placed in removal proceedings and released have appeared at their court hearings.
That’s in part because many of these individuals want to respect our legal processes, but also because our government utilizes a range of effective alternatives to detention, including GPS-tracking ankle bracelets that allow ICE to follow up on anyone who does not show up for court as required.
The appearance rate for released immigrants who are represented by an attorney is 97 percent, suggesting providing legal counsel might be a more cost-effective (and humane) way to maximize compliance than detention, which ICE says costs – on average – $134 per detainee, per night. Taxpayers have picked up the tab for more than $4 million per night just for these detainees with no criminal conviction whatsoever. Many of those funds go to private corporations like the one that operates the Northwest Detention Center.
Our nation’s detention of immigrants, which has grown from detaining roughly 19,500 people nightly in 2000 to about 49,500 people detained nightly last year, has long been a fiscally irresponsible, unjust system.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, the injustice and imprudence of detaining non-violent asylum seekers and other immigrants are exacerbated by the public health threat both to them and to those who work in these facilities. Already, over 400 ICE detainees across the country have tested positive for COVID-19. I fear that the numbers will rise as the virus makes its way into additional facilities and as testing capacity expands.
That’s why I’ve joined leaders of various other evangelical ministries and denominations in signing an Evangelical Immigration Table letter thanking the Department of Homeland Security for having already begun to release some vulnerable detainees and urging them to release all who do not pose a threat to public safety. To do so would both be in the interest of public health and would save taxpayer funds.
Our government could also use a fraction of the cost savings to partner with churches, community agencies and other non-profits to ensure that those released can identify a place to go. Most already have family or friends, but may need help with transportation, while some others would need help finding a safe place in which to practice social distancing.
As I join many other Americans who will be worshiping online or in their homes with family this weekend, I am praying for those in the Northwest Detention Center, many of whom I have come to know are fellow Christians. I’m praying that those with the authority to do so will release them, and all detainees who do not pose a public safety threat, from an environment almost certain to fuel the pandemic.
Scott Arbeiter is the president of World Relief, a global Christian humanitarian organization that serves immigrants throughout the United States.
