[Chewbacca]

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?o...7EA89273D2B041

Here is a couple of different news article on the topic.

This one is multi-faceted-

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0619-02.htm

Published on Thursday, June 19, 2003 by OneWorld.net New Studies Reveal Poor U.S. Treatment of Asylum Seekers, Children by Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - Less than a month after an internal Justice Department audit found widespread abuse of hundreds of Muslim immigrants detained after the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and the Pentagon, two new reports released this week are charging that the detention of unaccompanied immigrant children and asylum seekers is causing serious harm to innocent people who need protection rather than prison. In one study, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) found that the mental health and well-being of asylum seekers detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) after arriving in New York area airports was generally "extremely poor and worsened the longer the individuals were in detention." "Asylum seekers typically suffered tremendous indignities--torture, rape--at the hands of their own government," said Dr. Allen Keller, a co-author of the report, 'From Persecution to Prison.' "We should be offering protection rather than making worse their already fragile state of health by indiscriminately detaining asylum seekers." At the same time, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) charged in a report released here Wednesday that about one- third of all children in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities spend at least some time in jail-like facilities designed to hold young offenders, where they may be subjected to shackling, strip searches, solitary confinement, and verbal abuse from guards and other detainees. "It is appalling that many officials don't understand the difference between a juvenile offender and an unaccompanied child and that they deny these fragile young asylum seekers respect and rights," said William Schulz, AIUSA's executive director. "This is grossly unfair to children whose only 'offense' is seeking safe haven in the U.S. Many have fled dangerous situations, including child trafficking, abusive families and armed rebel forces," he said. "when we treat these children harshly, they are further traumatized, and our country's credibility as a protector of rights is eroded." Both reports come amid renewed controversy over harsher immigration-detention policies adopted by the administration of President George W. Bush in the wake of the 9-11 attacks. Washington has largely set the pattern for other western countries that have become much less hospitable to asylum-seekers and other immigrants over the past 19 months. Earlier this month, the Justice Department's Inspector General issued an report that was unexpectedly critical of the "harsh conditions" under which more than 700 immigrants were detained -- for up to several months -- after September 11, even though almost all of them were never suspected of any involvement in terrorism. The two new reports may add fuel to the fire. The PHR report, which the group described as the "first systematic and comprehensive scientific study of the mental health of asylum seekers held in detention," was based on extensive interviews with 70 men and women currently or formerly detained in two INS facilities and three country jails in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Their ages ranged from 15 to 52, and the majority were from Africa, although the group also included seven from Eastern Europe, four from Asia, three from Latin America, and two from the Middle East. The median length of the detention at the time of the interview was five months. Many had been victims of torture in their home countries. Grievances began with their arrival at U.S. airports where they reported verbal abuse by INS personnel, who often failed to inform them of their right to asylum. Once transported to detention facilities, the study participants reported feeling degraded and being treated like criminals. More than half of the detainees reported experiencing verbal abuse while in detention, including being called criminals and liars and being yelled at in circumstances which they didn't understand. For those who had suffered physical abuse or imprisonment in their home countries, the situation often worsened pre-existing psychological problems, including post-traumatic stress, which can be greatly exacerbated by solitary confinement. "I have great fear, I feel like I'm reliving it at times," said one woman who had been beaten and raped in prison in her country of origin. "When I think about what happened to me--I feel the pain in my body again, like it's happening to me--to experience what I experienced before arriving to this country and then being put in prison, that added to my suffering." In some cases, unaccompanied children were sent to adult detention facilities after being sent for dental evaluations, a questionable test for determining age. The Amnesty study, entitled 'Why Am I Here? Children in Immigration Detention,' was based on interviews with past and current detainees and on a survey of 115 facilities used by the INS to house unaccompanied children, 33 of which completed the survey. Roughly half of those that took part in the study said they house unaccompanied immigrant minors in the same cells as juvenile offenders. More than half said they use solitary confinement as punishment. In only 13 percent of facilities did children receive weekly psychological counseling, and only a third of the centers reported that they routinely explain to children why they have been detained and that they have the right to judicial review of their detention, according to the report. The Amnesty report also cited cases in which child detainees have been transferred to adult facilities on the basis of a dental exam. "The next morning, they told me I was going a better place, but they were lying," said one girl identified as Fantis S., a former child detainee from West Africa, who spoke at Wednesday's press conference. "They chained and handcuffed me and took me to the adult prison in York, Pennsylvania. There, they strip-searched me, made me put on an orange jump suit and cut off all my hair, just like a criminal." In fact, Fantis was 16 years old at the time, as reflected in the documentation she carried with her when she was detained. To address the problems of unaccompanied minors, Senators Dianne Feinstein and Sam Brownback recently introduced the Unaccompanied Alien Child Protection Act, which was endorsed by Amnesty. Copyright 2003 OneWorld.net