There is something terribly disturbing about it all. Since 2003, the US has imprisoned 43,000 people seeking asylum. The Department of Homeland Security has increased immigration detention beds by 78% says Human Rights First.
Jailed in Texas. Why does that not seem surprising? A teacher who fled the persecution and beatings in Burma arrived in El Paso asking asylum. Mistake. The US immigration authorities locked him up for 7 months.
In the United States, torture survivors, victims of human trafficking, can be locked up for months and even years without any recourse to individual judicial review according to Amnesty International. This includes children.
Some of the cases and testimonies are incredulous and says more about America’s deep rooted fears and paranoia of the Other than its concerns for the well-being of its citizens.
One man was tortured for 5 years in an Albanian prison camp. He had been charged with anti-communist activities – a ‘crime’ that should appease the US conservatives.
He was granted asylum and spent the next 12 years in the United States until US Immigration and Customs Enforcement decided to throw him in a deportation center in California for having purchased a stolen vehicle.
In those 12 years he had married and had three US born children.
He was released 4 years later. In that time he had feared for his life. Had he returned to Albania he would have been tortured and possibly killed (see Amnesty International report PDF here).
