afternoon and thank you mr. chairman and members of the commission. ice detention is a sprawling network of 34,000 detention beds and approximately 250 facilities composed of county facilities county jails and private prisons. it is intended to be civil and nonpunitive. it's purpose is not to punish but simply to secure appearance at immigration proceedings and transfer for removal when applicable applicable. ice overwhelmingly consist of jail and jail facilities. over half of detainees are literally kept in jail. my statement addresses the short term custody facilities operated by a custom and border protection. cbp has a serious need for greater accountability. the scale of its short term

detention existsystem is unknown and oversight authority within the agency is unclear. my written testimony identifies specific oversight and transparency mechanisms that the commission could push cbp to implement. since others have commented extensively on the obama administration's cruel and unnecessary policy of detaining central american immigrant families i will just emphasize one of the inevitable consequences of this policy something that was only public a announced by ms. lucas today. sadly, a baby girl in a ice detention facility will turn 1 month old. she and her mother have been in homeland security custody since she was 11 days old. the administration's decision to massively expand the detention of immigrant families with children means that many more

newborns toddlers and young children will experience milestones like this while incarcerated. the commission can play an important role by calling for an end to these family detention policies. when ice does not implement its detention reform initiatives , there are consequences. sexual abuse for example is far too come. in 2013 detained individuals face serious challenges in reporting sexual abuse. although we introduced regulations, they said no deadline for implementation at almost half of all ice detention beds. the commission can use its power to push ice to swiftly implement the rule across the board and

enforce contracts if they fail to comply. this isn't enough though. here is one recent example that has not yet received coverage beyond a small local newspaper. just two weeks ago, a pennsylvania district attorney filed charges against a charge for self accounts, the victim is a 20-year-old woman who fled from honduras with their 3-year-old son after her father beat her to cause her a miscarriage and threatened her with torture and death. when she was sent to jail, a guard gave favors to her and her son and told her that he could help her with her immigration case. when he initiated sex with her, she did not feel comfortable saying no. because a guard can exercise so much control over

the daily life of a detained person, including when she can eat, when she can sleep and when she can be punished notions of consent have little meaning in this context. that's why pria treats any sexual conduct by a guard as a form of sexual abuse, regardless of apparent consent. but authorities at berks did not understand this rule. rather than educate the women at berks about their rights under pria, the facilities announced new victim blaming policies against wearing tight or revealing clothing. the response must fall on ice for failing to comply with pria's mandate. ice deserves credit for implementing and developing the 2011 performance based national dooer tension standards which were described earlier.

these represent major advances over isis's prior detention standards. the pace of implementation however has been disappointing. >> in october of 2014 e the jao found that almost half of ice's detention beds which constitute 85% of the facilities that ice relies on are not held to these standards. on both pria and the 2011 standards, the commission can investigate what implementation work ice has done and make recommendations for a firm deadline for a completion. finally i wish to register the aclu's concern about the wide spread use of solitary confinement in ice detention. in 2013 ice implemented a new segregation policy directive. the question is whether it is working as contemplative and whether ice is using the information that it now collects under the directive to reduce the use of this imhuman

practice. that remains unanswered. ice has not made any information publically available that would allow us to evaluate the agency's progress in implement implementing the directive. >> in some ice has made significant progress by adopting new regulations on sexual abuse, solitary confinement and detention standards generally but issuing better policies is only the first step in reforming a sprawling dooeretention system which shortcomings continue to result in serious, inhumane and in unconstitutional consequences. the agency would implement these policies and make these efforts transparent to the public. in addition the department must dramatically reduce the size of the detention system, ending the unnecessary use of detention and making much greater use of active, human alternatives can

assist ice's detention reform goals by rendering significant numbers of detention facilities unnecessary. thank you for your time. >> mr. libal. >> well, i also want to thank the commission for taking on this important and very timely issue. my remarks will focus on centers in my state of texas because we have more immigration detention beds than any other state. however i do want to note that the criminal prosecution of migrants, mostly along the border has resulted in what can really be considered a shadow immigration incarceration system that runs parallel to the civil immigration system. in fact since the initiation of the operation's streamline along the border. they have become majority of offenses in the system.

in the last 30 years it has been noted the number of people held in the civil immigration system has exploded from a few 00 in the 1980s than more than 30000 people detained on average each day last year including asylum seekers, women with children parents of u.s. citizen children, long time legal permanent residents and recently arriving migrants. >> for the past five years it has been discussed today that a detention bed quota require that ice maintain a baseline number of beds today 34,000 on any given day. >> in texas we have seen ice setting bonds for individuals in order to keep the facilities full essentially to meet the quota. the detention system is also increasingly operated by just a handful of for profit private prison corporations that exert tremendous influence in the

development and operation of the detention system. just two companies the geo group and texas corporation america operate eight of the largers civil liberties detention facilities in the united states and nearly 60% of all beds are now operated for profit prison corporations. ice's ability to cancel contacts with said companys therefore very limited even when multiple cases of abuse that led to criminal prosecution of detention center staff the agency has been reluctant or unable to cut contacts with bad actors. i will also note that the use of labor within facilities, immigrant labor is widely used in both private and public immigration detention if as imtfacilities in order to service the facilities themselves. it is common to say $1 for a five hour shift so basically $1

per day in these facilities. poor conditions sexual assault cases and allegations of abuse have plagued detention centers in texas. we toured the privately operated poke county facility in 2013 that found conditions that included inadequate medical care, the absence of any meaningful program at all. men lived in camped dormitories, eating sleeping, using the banl room 23 hours per day confined in their cells for men similarly in conrow texas a facility operated by the geo group led to a hunger strike last year. up to five places have reported sexual assault cases.

a month later, the federal bureau of prisoners entered into a contact with the facility to reopen the facility as a facility to incarcerate immigrants, many of who are convicted of re-entering the country after deportation. we also i think like everyone have very serious concerns about the policy of detaping imining immigrant children in mass. we were involved in a campaign in 2006 to 2009 to end the policy by stopping detention at hudo. however the number of family detention beds has exploded in recent months from under 100 last year to what will be more than 3500 at a pair of remote prisons in south texas. we heard that even after families pass their credible fear interviews that they are not granted bond or otherwise released. a practice that is common with adults without children. attorneys in texas have dubbed

this the mommy penalty. already many of the same problems that we saw at hudo are have ereemerged. we subsequently joined a complaint to dhs's office of civil rights and liberties documenting conditions of children losing weight due to stress and inadequate restrictions disallowing infants from crawling, a high number of male guards in particular concern given that many of the women detained at carns have experienced sexual violence and the history of sexual assault within immigration detention facilities and threats of punishment against women and children at the facility including threats of separation from their children and parents. no meaningful response has been made to date. you heard ms. bono talk about the allegations of sexual assault and the lack of

meaningful response to that complaint as well. even a 7-year-old with brain cancer could not escape ice's detention drag net. sara beltran and her 7-year-old daughter fled violence in el salvador salvador. they passed their credible fear interview but ice would not release her family nor provide her the treatment that she needed after when doctors wrote to her expressing that her life would be in danger. it was only after her attorney conducted us and other organizations in texas and went to the media that she was finally released. >> sara's case, i think, hooi highlights the problems with the system that puts detention as a first option and not the last so we make the following recommendations. first and foremost policy makers should prioritize policies that would significantly reduce the number of people including community bases alternatives and

beds. ice should end the practice of detaining immigrant families. immediately end its no bond policy for families and work to close rather than expand the carns and dilly detention centers and the government should reduce its reliance on for profit prisons including ending contracts with facilities with records of abuse. thank you. >> ms. mcarthy. >> good afternoon. thank you for this opportunity mr. chairman and members of the commission. i want to just tell you briefly about our organization which makes us somewhat unique. we represent approximately 10,000 immigrants refugees and asylum seekers in our office so we have an office in illinois indiana and one in d.c. our direct representation is what informs our advocacy and

our impact litigation. my testimony -- written testimony, includes a number of case examples which is experiences that we've had in representing individuals, including survivors of human trafficking who are detained. earlier this morning, there was reference to some complaints that we filed with the office of civil rights and civil liberties. since 2011 we have filed three complaints, the most recent one in november of 15 the first was regarding treatment of lgbt's in immigrant detention. the second one in june of 2014 was about the abuse -- documented abuse of 116 children ages five to 17 years of age while in customs and border protection custody.

and most recent one was november of 2014 regarding the failure of the screening process at the border to adequately insure that those individuals who were eligible to apply for protection have that opportunity. i'm happy to discuss the recommendations that we set forth to the office of civil rights and civil liberty but what i'd like to focus my comments on tonight is my colleagues today my fellow panelists have really provided an excellent detailed portrait of the current immigration detention system including the critical legal and civil rights concerns regarding lack of access to counsel, lack of mental and medical health care and other civil rights challenges. with that fresh in mind i have chosen to focus my comments and what i believe is one of the major underlying causes of the

system's dysfunction. it's sheer enormity. the government must stop detaining individuals who pose no threat to society and are not flight risks. it must stop using incarceration as a default immigration enforcement tool and discontinue policy making that relies on the misguided perception that expanding detention, deters migration. it doesn't. our clients have come back after being detained because they could not live safely in their home countries. the primary means to responsibly reduce the united states immigration detention system's dependence on incarceration is to expand alternatives to detention programs. also known as atds. the u.s. government must take a hard look at the population it

detains. according to the un high commission for refugees, detention should only be used as a measure of last resort for the shortest appropriate period of time. we cannot and must not consider people, particularly families in detention. rather the system must assess the detention of each person. many people in detention are hard working mothers and fathers who's detention places tremendous emotional and financial burdens on families including punishing u.s. citizen children. in this 2012 an estimated 150,000 immigrant families were deported. those families were destroyed. between 2009 and 2011, more than

half of all individuals in detention had no criminal records. 20% were for misdemeanor traffic offenses. dhs oversaw an unprecedented expansion of immigration detention, including that of mothers and children. as you've heard if the administration continues on the current trajectory, by this spring it will have the capacity to detain about 3,800 mothers and children an outrageous increase from fewer than 100 beds for mothers and children in the start of 2014. nijc rejects the secretary of homeland security jay promise

that it is an affective deterrent to immigration. it is unlawful and immoral to detain any person for the purpose of discouraging the future migration of others. more over as we have observed among the thousands of children and adult asylum seekers wefr we have screened in the past year, the practice fails to deter. dhs should jet isson political skpeed skpeediance as a basis for making decisions and ask whether individuals pose threats to public safety or flight risk. release on bond or under supervision, case management services or ankle monitors that enables families to live in families where they can began to heal and connect with legal and mental health services. for more than a decade, we've

advocated to reduce the unnecessary detention of noncitizens, working directly with the department of homeland security to develop a risk assessment tool. however, as recently reported by the un high commissioner for refugees, the commissioner worn warned while the assessment tool is an improvement, the tool is based on mathematical calculations. risks become a bureaucratic exercise and many only lead to artificial assessments other than real ones. it appears to be heavily weighted in favor of detention. as a nation we must restore due process. we spend $1.44 billion annually detaining people. we could do better. thank you. >> ms. mcarthy we'll open that up for questions and i will sort of lead off and let my colleagues to go next. during the break in one of the

panels you mentioned to me that you had some comments about mr. con roy of cca's comments in response to my question about prison labor. could you elaborate on that, please. >> so i was struck by how carefully his response was. he told you that cca does not use detainee labor for outside contractors in ice detention. but as mr. libel just pointed out, there are tens of thousands of people everyday -- well, every year in ice detention facilities who are working to mop the floors, cook the food, clean the toilets. basically all the work that is required to keep the facility running for about $1 a day. this rate is something that was originally developed for pows. in fact, it was used for the japanese incarceration camps during world war ii so it's ironic that we're talking about

this on this day but that rate has remained the same without adjustment for inflation since world war ii so you now have a situation where the ice detention system has affectively become the largest employer of undocumented immigrants in the united states. >> so what both of you -- mr. libel and mr. care are saying that in essence these corporations like cca are keeping their costs down by employing their own prisoners who are undocumented and paying them substantially less than the minimum wage because otherwises they'd have to go out in the marketplace and hire american workers and pay them at least minimum wage to do this. >> exactly. there are benefits when you have a person in detention, it is an excruciating boring experience if it is a safe experience and

scary if it is not. it is valuable to have some sort of labor program but it shouldn't be a labor exploitation program. if you're going to put people to work inside detention than they need to be paid a fair wage. >> i'll ask you all some of the same questions i asked the prior panel in terms of this idea that we're generating about mirandizing the detainees as early in the process as possible. what are your thoughts on that and how it could be best affected? well, one thing that i want to address is the right to counsel. i think the earlier that counsel can be introduced, the better. the aclu along with a number of other organizations including the american immigration counsel, the north west immigrant rights project. a law firm lockheart and gates is litigating a case about the

rights of children to have appointed immigration counsel. the oernl issue is ensuring people have counsel at the earliest stage of the process. that is probably the best way to make sure people's rights are protected. >> yeah, i agree. the other thing border screenings which was discussed earlier today -- [ inaudible ] move very quickly in and out. that's what they tried to do in artesia with mothers and children. before there were attorneys there, they were moving and

deporting hundreds of people so i think it's really important at that very first instance when somebody encounters law enforcement that they have access to counsel or at least information regarding their legal rights. i think it's more than just a pamphlet because you don't know if they speak or understand the language. as it has been said today, we have seen so many more children with indigenous languages coming into the system. you can't just hand a child from guatemala a know your rights booklet. i child is going to have a very difficult time understanding their rights. we play game was them to help them understand their rights. it's got to be more than just handing them a piece of paper. >> i would defer to my attorney colleagues but our experience is that in some of the facilities that we have visited over the

years do have legal programs and know your rights programs. other detention facilities in texas have no ngos at all. no legal pro bone oe law firm. no law school. nobody had been in that facility in 18 months when we went in there so people were getting no legal orientation, no legal services at all. when asked if they had seen the video that i show of the legal orientation video that they show upon sort of entrance into the facility some of the guys we visited remembered it but most of them were like yeah i don't know. that was one of those things that they showed us so again i think the legal orientation programs and know your rights training are something. they are nowhere near sufficient and some if as illsfacilities don't even have those. >> it's not even the ice facilities. typically you end up in a

different one first. the physical layout varies quite widely. typically they are congregate cells. they very rarely have a telephone that's immediately accessible to the detainees which causes problems with telephoning any sort of legal help line and also if they are facing any sort of sexual abuse situation to be able to contact anybody without the assistance of a guard. the solitary policy directive that ice issued in 2013 is a very good policy. it's one of the few times that when it was announced, the aclu simply applauded it and did not pair that with a critique. >> that is amazing.

>> as i said, the key challenge is implementing it across the board and making sure that they are transparent about what's going on with it at implementation because that information has not been distributed in any way. >> i want to talk about best practices in terms of alternatives to detention programs. i think one of the questions raised was where are these mothers and children going to go and we've seen in chicago and other parts of the country where they have created homes. the sisters of mercy have really been at the forefront of this in terms of providing residential facilities really from the community to help women and children and men for that the maar who are released from detention. i think their alternatives to detention programs can function and that there are some best practices in terms of case management systems and support for those individuals while they are going through the

immigration court system. so i think we've got a lot of resources that don't require best practices in detention. i would add one other piece too which is sisters of mercy. they fought long and hard to get into the detention facilities county jails in the midwest to do professional care services. that has been a really good program and best practice not only when people are detained but at the point of deportation they have gone out to the broadview detention center that buses people to the airport and that's been very, very affective and meaningful for both of those individuals being deported as well as their families. >> i join everything that mary has said especially for the community based alternatives to detention ice systematically under invested in those programmed but where they exit, they produce fairly good results. >> i would just concur with that and if you come to texas we will show you some terrific immigrant

places. >> great. thank you very much mr. chair. just to follow-up on that, there's some data points that i think would be helpful to the commission in developing this further. i think it -- i think about our experience in california in moving away toward incarcerating nonviolent offenders and how much the economics of that really work in terms of persuading people to come on board from all parts of the political spectrum. i think it's important if we can help us develop if we have the ability to do so, quantifying some of the dollars involved here versus in terms of the cost of currently incarceration, essentially, that's what it is. incarceration of these individuals versus the cost of administrative parole of ankle monitor release, show up rates in terms of coming to a court hearing and i was going to say and then looking at that seeing -- and i imagine that

delta on that would be pretty big and within that delta how much of that could go towards providing counsel for those folks to make it become a fairer fight. again, my basic feeling is that americans are fair and they understand when people are fleeing something. that's horrible that they should have a right to a good fair hearing. i think if we can put in terms of dollar in some ways to do this, i think that would help us make that argument to a broader audience. the other point, the other issue would be wornthether or not they should be eligible for work permits and figure out what you're going to do. how much would that cost? how much would that benefit a community? those kinds of things. and i do want to make this one point, geo and cca don't use that inmate -- inmate labor on

their own. it is permitted by ice. i mean, i just want to say that. it is permitted by ice. it's part of their cost reduction, i believe in terms of how they make these contracts. i wanted to ask though a quick question. i was trying to reconcile what i know about some parts of prison and what she's say. can you elaborate more about the ad hawk nature how they are spread out and whether or not there are any adequate standards to govern them and how we can influence that. >> okay. well, first i will address the facts -- first of all i will address the facts and figures for the alternatives detention, depending on what exactly those alternatives consist on, ranging from .17 cents per day to $17 per day per person.

detention for adult ice detention is upwards of $160 per person per day. family detention is between $250 and $300 per person per day. so if we took the detained population and instead had them on alternatives detention while their cases were moving forward, that would be a substantial cost savings. turning to cbp turning to cbp and these if as imts these facilities are generally

for short term detention. they are not supposed to be used for over 72 hours but in practice, people end up being there for days weeks. there's again very little public disclosure from cbp even a simple figure like the average length of stay. they are called eleras because one of the most consistent complaints about them is that they feel like iceboxes inside for the detainees. the temperatures are kept very cold so especially for people who are just come from a desert crossing, they are wearing, you know shorts, short sleeved shirts, they are then put on what's often a concrete bench inside of a cell and they become very, very cold. there are horrible stories about siblings who have crossed the

desert and who are hugging each other for warmth because they are so cold inside the elera. >> is there any way you could give us a list of questions about the eleras that would could send to the cpb. >> yeah. >> thank you. >> i would like to add two other thoughts. i think we've all talked about the statistics and numbers. i think this is a very powerful economic argument by you just feel like no one is listening. i'm not sure if we need a different messenger on that. the commissioner might be one of those messengers but it might also be valuable for engaging a university or academic institution that looks at those economic numbers because it's powerful of how much money -- taxpayer money we're throwing away to incarcerate mothers and children when they are not a threat to the community. they are not a flight risk and then the second point i want to make too about cbp is i think your question and carl's answer

really reflects the invisibility of the system and it begins with cbp. if you don't get in there and if there's no one there monitoring or any oversight then you don't know how long these children are being detained. you don't know if they are violating the law. it's only when the children come out and you talk to them that you are like oh, my gosh how many more children have gone through these experiences? >> i think through our work with these children and this complaint, there's so many other people who are getting caught in the system. i think one of the points and recommendations that i would make to the commission is ask for data and have that data reported to you and congress on a regular basis. >> ocre is here. was she here earlier, yeah, she was. have our civil rights analyst crunch those numbers for us. commissioner clad followed by

commissioner actonberg. thank you mr. chairman. i tried to get to it earlier. the first question is which facility would you visit if you had one facility to go to besides the family facility because we already heard which one that would be. do you have a choice, a preference? >> one that would be on my list would be adawa county jail in alabama. >> how do you spell that e? >> etowah. it's a county jail that ice has contracted with for a number of years. at one point ice attempts to cancel the contact with etowah. intervention hearded from the alabama delegation. the cancelation was withdrawn. it's a place where one of the detainees that i spoke to when i visited there said this is the

end of the road. it's where you to to lose hope. >> got it. >> because there's an extremely large population of long term detainees there, many of whom haven't even been given bond hearings to determine whether they ought to be detained in the first place. >> thank you. >> is that -- >> i would also suggest the facility in arizona. it's a cca facility. and we have received numerous complaints. >> is that a sheriff or is that a local -- >> it's operated by the private prison corporation correctional corporations of america mr. conroy's company. so i think we've heard a number of issues particularly with respect to women and sexual -- potential alleged sexual assault. >> mr. libel. >> by far the most depressing facility i've been in is the pope county detention facility in livington.

i think that's actually an important as well that hasn't been raised is the vast majority of these facilities are operated under intergovernmental service agreements that ice already had with eloy, arizona. >> i thought someone said earlier that 60% of these were the private prison corporations. >> they are. so the way that the contracts flow is that ice will contact with a local government agency which then subcontracts with the private prison corporation. in the case of dilly, ice didn't even want to go through that process, they subtracted -- they expanded an existing agreement that they had with eloy arizona. their very troubled facility. the facility that has had the most deaths of any detention facility since the creation of the department of homeland security. they expanded that inner governmental facility to create

the facility in eloy 900 miles away. no one ever visited the site even though they are the legal entity contacted with ice. >> basically the local government is making money and the contractors are making money. >> yeah. half a million dollars a year is what eloy arizona is making for just shuffling the paper work to cca. >> okay. gee, i'm glad we found that out. >> and pope county is a similar agreement. pope county has the inner governmental service agreement. >> private contractor. >> subcontracts it with a company called community education centers which is not what you might think it is. it's actually a private prison corporation. >> it's a short it's cut for the rft process essentially. >> exactly. shortcut for rfp. it also gets the government around environmental and other competitive bidding process. >> i really want to rush through these because i have some more questions. >> i have some too. >> i know. that's why i'm rushing. >> can i just throw one piece of

information there. you are asked the question about lawsuits. you can imagine when you just heard how convoluted this contracting goes, the difficulty of identifying a defendant and holding a defendant liable. >> well, not only that there are two very bad supreme court decisions on the books limiting the scope of the liability for constitutional violations by private prison employees and private prison companies. >> oh, okay. limited liability right? >> uh-huh. >> okay. so you mentioned solitary confinement. i tried to get back to that earlier today but i guess i was asking it inartily and then i ran out of time. do they have limited on how long people stay in solitary? do they require mental health checks. do they require medical checks? do they require outside exercise?

do they require human contact? all sorts of prisons treat solitary confinement pretty much differently. is there some standard and protections for those places in segregation? >> so, this is the 2013 policy directive that i mentioned. before that directive was adopted, ice didn't even have a clear idea of how many people were in solitary confinement in their system at any given time. under the directive there's supposed to be a clear reporting chain about how long people are in solitary confinement especially the longer somebody stays in solitary confinement, the more that the field office has to report that to headquarters and justify it. so it's a policy that if it is being faithfully implemented a across the board should be

reducing both of number of people who are in solitary and the length of time that they spend in solitary. >> what about the care in solitary, i was asking about that? >> it also -- the directive also has provisions about monitoring of people particularly people who are suffering from serious mental illness or other vulnerabilities that would make solitary confinement es pshlpecially likely to harm them in very serious ways. >> but we don't know that's being carried out because ice doesn't disclose anything is that right. >> okay. now i'm getting close to the end and i'm sure the chairman is very happy about that. everything that we seem to have talked about there seems to have been tons of criticism of ice today. private prisons, how they are run and all of that stuff. can't most of this be corrected by executive order? >> well by executive order that we have seen an increase of

family detention from 100 beds in may of 2014 to what, 2,400 now. >> right but i'm saying one can it be corrected by executive order? two, even if we had contracts for 34,000 beds, we don't have to fill them. ice could be told to use alternative forms even if congress demands that we pay the money to these prison companies is that correct? >> yeah. so at the top level dhs has adopted what i would consider an appropriate interpretation of the 34,000 bed quota requirement which is that they need to maintain those beds but they don't necessarily need to keep them all filled. >> right. >> the problem is it is sort of like if you had a police department where the budget said, you have all of this money that must be used to maintain a

fleet of tanks, and the money that's left over can be used for cars cars and motor cycles. all of the money and detention is being sucked toward detention rather than ice being able to invest in the way it ought to be able to invest in alternatives. >> i understand so you're saying there's no money for alternatives. >> it becomes an appropriations issue in congress. >> okay. what about these other types conduct that we're talking about that occurs within the facilities. that's not dictated wiby congress right. >> no. >> it's a management issue. it's not a political issue. >> right. >> unless you make it a political issue i guess. thank you. >> thank you. commissioner exenberg. ms. mcarthy, you said definitely and inooeunekwificily, detention does

not deter migration. can you tell me how you know that? >> from our cases. i mean we've seen so many cases of individuals. that was part of this complaint that we filed with crcl is that there are individuals who arrived here and were detained and then were deported back to their home country and came back because they were not safe. and so we've seen case after case whether it's because of persecution or wanting to be reunited with their family it has not solved the problem. >> so to the extend that there may be some in policy making positions who believe, all bebeit regrettable i presumably the fact that these mothers and

children are being detained in less than the least restrictive settings that they could possibly be dealt with in the notion that that is sending a message to perspective immigrants that they might as well stay home. that's not an affective message is that your contention? >> i don't think people who are fearing for their lives think about what's on the other end. they flee. and that's what we've seen in central america currently. in fact asylum applications have gone up throughout the whole region. so the situation in central america interestingly enough there was a conference call today with the white house where they are asking for more money to help the situation in central america because of the violence there. to detaining mothers and

children here in the united states is not getting back to the children in guatemala and those mothers in guatemala to say i'm not going to make that flight because i'm going to die here or i'm going to be detained there. it's just not a question. >> have the numbers of people coming across the border mothers and children or children unaccompanied, have they declined as of late or are they still on the increase. >> they have declined, but i think there's a number of reasons for that. i don't have any studies or concrete research on that but one, i know there's a lot more interdictions in mexico. so that the children and families who travelled from guatemala and honduras have been stopped in mexico and there's a lot higher detention and deportation of those individuals in mexico. now, it seems that that's shifting a little bit just from the numbers we've been seeing. also i think the other issue is

just this time of year. it's more dangerous for people to travel. >> uh-huh. >> so what everyone is thinking is what are we going to see in the spring and summer? so maybe detention was a factor but i don't believe it in talking to people people are afraid they are going to leave to save their lives. >> my concern is it is still commonly in certain policy circles circles that this policy is working so i was interested in what facts you have to the contrary. >> yeah. i think it's the cases that we have seen and the individual stories. >> thank you. >> this is something that popped into my mind when you mentioned interdiction and detention in mexico, how are folks being detained in mexico, do you know? >> i think not in the most ideal

conditions. i think that's a whole other issue. one of my colleagues was in a conference in mexico exactly about this and unfortunately i think the situation has gotten worse in mexico because they've felt the pressure to detain more of these individuals and they have hiftstoricalhistorical. >> do we know if any of the private corporations are down there doing business on this. >> the big ones are. there's some talk of private prisons and jails in mexico but they have not branched out on that. >> do we have any more questions. >> isn't there an alternative theory that the detention policy actually works like a charm in the sense that it doesn't deter the people who we don't want to deter because they really are in danger but it does deter the people who would be making a claim that they are in danger but in fact are not? >> that rests on the assumption

that there are large numbers of people who are coming from these three central american countries with false asylum claims. i haven't seen anything that would substanniate that. >> yeah but that's what i am saying the alternative theory i'm not saying that it's true. i don't have any evidence but the point is that to say that this isn't deterring forgets that there are other populations that may be deterred. >> i mean the reason i am hesitating on that is that it is such a dangerous dangerous journey. you know mothers and children have died on that journey and they ask their lives making that journey. >> held, you've been conducting a meeting for a long period of time. if not i will end the meeting. >> dhs wants to cut lights. >> commissioner, are you still on the line?

>> i am. >> let's continue. were you done with your answer? >> yes. >> does that answer your question. >> in a sense, yes. >> anybody else. commissioner, did you have something that you wanted to say. you've been unusually quiet. >> thank you. >> let him make another speech. so what i'd like to do just to wrap this up is to ask each of you to very briefly comment on anything that relates to this issue that maybe we didn't ask you about that you think would be important for us to know about as we prepare to make a report to the president and congress. >> if you could submit your thoughts on a statement of rights that -- >> i think you did ask it. >> yeah. i asked it before. i know. thank you. >> you're welcome.

>> so do you want to start? >> well, let's see. there are -- there were a couple of things that came up in some earlier panels that i wanted to briefly note. there was a question that the commissioner had asked about the training and access to records and there's a quite serious problem with the foya loophole in private prisons if a facility is run directly by ice than it is subject to foya but if it's run by a private prison company, it's not subject to foya accept for the extent that the records relating to the facility are in ice's possession. that combined with the molesko

and pollard are the two supreme court cases, commissioner if you're interested in following up on that, that make it essentially impossible to subject a private prison company or a private prison employee with constitutional liability. >> pollard and malesko. >> mr. libel, do you have anything? >> well i think a theme that i heard running through the panel was that one of the major -- this panel and the other panels was that one of the major tsh one of the major problems with the civil detention system is simply its scope. so i think that perhaps -- and i think that we all sort of said that and then said and we should really reduce the scope of the detention system. so i think that may be one of the things that we should do is go back and actually draw up one of those lists of the way that the detention system should be reduced and reduced quickly and

reduced now. so i think that that's something that has me thinking. i also noted right, that sister norma mentioned that catholic charities and other faith os are there to step up right that they want to be involved. they want to step up to provide the kind of relief that they are providing at the border this summer. i was down at sacred heart in mcallen -- i mean it's a truly inspirational and amazing operation that they have going there. so i think that there's a lot of resources around. a lot of resources that the faith communities and other organizations would love to provide to providing alternative, true community based alternatives to detention that could really reduce the number of people in detention and eliminate family detention all together. >> i would just echo that. i would strongly urge the commission to think about encouraging the government to revisit this detention paradigm. it really should be used as a last resort.

and when we have workable alternatives to detention, it can be used as a last resort. when it can't be used as a last resort and there are flight risks and individual who's are dangerous for the community then let's make sure that these individuals are placed in the appropriate facilities. to that i would really encourage you to encourage the government to ensure that the detention standards are applied to all facilities, all jails that are being used to hold noncitizens. >> well, thank you. that concludes our panel and our program. i just want to thank all the panelists that appeared today for your really informative presentations. it will be really helpful to us in our report. i also want to thank and echo statements made earlier thanking our commission staff for all of their efforts that they put in to organizing today's briefing. it was not easy. it was done quickly and well so we thank you for that.

just to remind the public that are listening and watching and are in the room here is that this case -- this hearing will be opened. the file will be opened for the next 30 days if there are additional materials that folks would like to send in or public comments that they would like to provide they can either mail them into the commission care of our office of civil rights evaluation 1331 pennsylvania avenue northwest suite 1150 here in washington d.c. 20425 or via e-mail at public comments the usccr.gov. >> please submit your public comments to detention at usccr.gov. >> okay. detention@usccr.com. it is now 3:32 and the commission on civil rights is adjourned. thank you.

detention@usccr.gov. immigration policy will get some attention in the senate on tuesday. senators are scheduled to consider a house passed homeland security spending bill that blocks the president's recent executive order on immigration. 60 votes would be required for the measure to advance. ahead of the vote, we talk to a reporter on capitol hill. >> nans jicy joins us. she's a reporter. president obama is already releasing his budget proposal for 2016 but congress is still working on 2015. why is that. >> well last december when all of the bills had been negotiated by house and senate appropriators there was some resistance by some parts of the

republican conference in including homelantd security bill in the package. some critics thought that by holding back homeland security or just temporarily funding the agency with a cr they could get leverage over the president when they had control of both chambers in the new year. and then revisit some of the immigration b fundfunding and policies.