The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights released an extensive report Thursday urging President Barack Obama to release undocumented immigrant women and children from detention facilities, citing “abuse” and “inhumane” conditions.
The commission found that several of the facilities had violated federal requirements regarding the treatment of detained immigrants, including poor medical care standards, inadequate sexual assault investigations, and constitutional violations of due process protections.
In the 250-page report, the commission demanded that the Department of Homeland Security immediately release detained families and advocated Congress to halt detention center funding.
“The detrimental effect on these children far outweighs the government’s wish to deter others from fleeing life-threatening conditions in their home countries,” the commission wrote in a letter to the White House and top administration officials Wednesday.
While the majority of the commission voted to back the report, its two conservative members accused the group of cherry-picking evidence to support a fixed position.
“The majority had already arrived at its conclusions when they decided to do the report and they did not conduct any kind of real investigation into anything—they just parroted what the advocates and lawyers told them,” Commissioner Gail Heriot told The Daily Signal.
Following a January briefing from immigration experts revealing severe allegations against the detention centers, Heriot traveled along with the other commissioners in May to survey two of the centers in Texas.
While the Karnes Family Detention Center “was not a picture of architectural splendor,” Heriot said she was “pleasantly surprised” by its conditions.
“It was quite clear that they were going out of their way to make a place that would be pleasant for children. There were pictures on the wall of cartoon characters and a rainbow,” she said.
The immigrants were given medical examinations, which Heriot said likely provided them with greater medical access than they had in their home countries, and the women “had no complaints” about their experience aside from a rule barring mothers from watching each other’s children.
Heriot said that instead of using the evidence from these visits, the commissioners relied heavily on previous testimony against the detention centers to compile the report.
“At that point, the report was mostly done and they weren’t going to back off of the conclusions they had already drawn,” she said.
Heriot, along with Commissioner Peter Kirsanow, argued in their dissents that the centers should remain open.
“The reason that we have detention for people who cross the border illegally is that there is concern about making sure they show up for their hearing,” Heriot said.
Commission Chairman Martin Castro cited a study finding a 91-percent appearance rate to hearings when immigrants participated in an “alternative to detention” program. Heriot called the figure “optimistic,” citing a lower 69-percent appearance rate as reason to keep the centers open.
“I hope [the administration] looks at the report that we’ve issued and see[s] its many shortcomings,” she said.
“Had we gone and conducted our own in-depth investigation that might have been a worthy thing to do, but we didn’t. All we did is amplify the investigations made by advocates—there’s no point in having the Civil Rights Commission if that’s all you’re going to do.”
Despite the accusations, Castro said he was “confident” in the report’s claims, calling it “instructive” and “useful” to both government officials and public dialogue surrounding the civil and constitutional rights of immigrants.