美国国家公共电台 NPR Hundreds Of Immigrant Detainees Held In Federal Prisons

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it needed more detention¹ space this summer, at the height of the Trump² administration's zero tolerance³ policy. So the agency turned to federal prisons. And hundreds of immigrants, including many who are seeking asylum⁴, were locked up. Now that decision is being challenged in court. Conrad Wilson from Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

CONRAD WILSON, BYLINE⁵: The inmate⁶ population at the federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., was about to double. And officials there got one day's notice to prepare.

LISA HAY: We saw, in late May, about a hundred mattresses⁷ being delivered there. So we knew something was happening.

WILSON: Lisa Hay runs Oregon's federal public defender⁸ office. She says it's been frustrating⁹ for the prison and for the lawyers trying to help.

HAY: In fact, when I first went in, they escorted us out and said, these people don't get lawyers.

WILSON: Immigration and Customs Enforcement said, at the time, it planned to send up to 1,600 detainees to five federal prisons in California, Oregon, Washington, Arizona and Texas. Attorneys say such a large-scale use of federal prisons to house ICE detainees was unprecedented¹⁰. It also set off a number of legal battles. Hay and the American Civil Liberties Union have sued. Already, a federal judge has forced the Sheridan prison to let immigration lawyers inside. Hay says prisons are not set up to house immigrant detainees.

HAY: If you lock somebody up in a foreign country and cut them off from the outside world and don't tell them the process they can use to end their incarceration¹¹, it's going to cause all kinds of psychological trauma¹² at the minimum.

WILSON: One of the immigrants Hay is trying to get released is Albert Mukete. He's from Cameroon. And in January, he got some disturbing news.

Government security forces went into his village, Kwakwa. They shot and killed his brother. They beat and arrested his mother and sister and burned his family's house with his grandfather inside.

ALBERT MUKETE: The entire house was set on fire.

WILSON: It's a little hard to hear, but he's saying the entire house was set on fire. Human Rights Watch documented the attack in a report released last month. Mukete was out of the country at the time, and he knew he couldn't go back. He's a member of the English-speaking minority in Cameroon, which is seeking to break away from the French majority and form its own country. In recent years, the division has led to violence.

MUKETE: I'm just refugee looking for safety.

WILSON: He says, I'm a refugee looking for safety. That's what Mukete told U.S. officials at a San Diego port of entry where he asked for asylum in May. He's been detained ever since at the Sheridan federal prison. That's where he was when we spoke¹³ on a scratchy phone line. The Trump administration is taking a hard line on illegal immigration and detaining more asylum-seekers like Mukete rather than releasing them to await immigration court hearings.

CORENE KENDRICK: These individuals haven't been charged with any crimes, but they are being incarcerated¹⁴ in a federal prison and treated as such.

WILSON: Corene Kendrick is an attorney in Berkeley, Calif. She's working with the ACLU and represents some of the detainees.

KENDRICK: There are different legal standards for people who are sent to prison as punishment versus¹⁵ individuals who are being detained civilly.

WILSON: The government can hold immigrants in ICE detention centers around the country. But attorneys say that's not the same as prison. For one thing, immigration detention centers are typically less restrictive. Some immigrants housed in prison were held three to a cell for up to 23 hours a day according to court filings. And in detention centers, there are usually immigration attorneys and judges on-site so immigrants can get through the process faster. Immigrant detainees also complain in lawsuits¹⁶ about the conditions in prison. Some say they were denied medical care. One immigrant attempted suicide.

MATT ADAMS: I think these individuals are languishing¹⁷ in these prisons.

WILSON: Matt Adams is the legal director for the Seattle-based Northwest Immigrant Rights Project.

ADAMS: They don't have judges out there. They don't have ICE officers out there. So everything is delayed.

WILSON: ICE says immigrants are not being denied due process. And the agency says it's committed to providing first-class medical care to detainees. In court filings, the government says that putting immigrants in prison is not punitive¹⁸. That said, ICE says it's now only using half of the beds it has in federal prisons.

For NPR News, I'm Conrad Wilson in Portland.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOLLOWED BY GHOSTS' "THROUGH LEADEN CLOUDS")

1 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

2 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

3 tolerance   

n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差

参考例句：

• Tolerance is one of his strengths.宽容是他的一个优点。
• Human beings have limited tolerance of noise.人类对噪音的忍耐力有限。

4 asylum   

n.避难所，庇护所，避难

参考例句：

• The people ask for political asylum.人们请求政治避难。
• Having sought asylum in the West for many years,they were eventually granted it.他们最终获得了在西方寻求多年的避难权。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 inmate   

n.被收容者；(房屋等的)居住人；住院人

参考例句：

• I am an inmate of that hospital.我住在那家医院。
• The prisoner is his inmate.那个囚犯和他同住一起。

7 mattresses   

褥垫，床垫( mattress的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The straw mattresses are airing there. 草垫子正在那里晾着。
• The researchers tested more than 20 mattresses of various materials. 研究人员试验了二十多个不同材料的床垫。

8 defender   

n.保卫者，拥护者，辩护人

参考例句：

• He shouldered off a defender and shot at goal.他用肩膀挡开防守队员，然后射门。
• The defender argued down the prosecutor at the court.辩护人在法庭上驳倒了起诉人。

9 frustrating   

adj.产生挫折的，使人沮丧的，令人泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的现在分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧

参考例句：

• It's frustrating to have to wait so long. 要等这么长时间，真令人懊恼。
• It was a demeaning and ultimately frustrating experience. 那是一次有失颜面并且令人沮丧至极的经历。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

11 incarceration   

n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭

参考例句：

• He hadn't changed much in his nearly three years of incarceration. 在将近三年的监狱生活中，他变化不大。 来自辞典例句
• Please, please set it free before it bursts from its long incarceration! 请你，请你将这颗心释放出来吧！否则它会因长期的禁闭而爆裂。 来自辞典例句

12 trauma   

n.外伤，精神创伤

参考例句：

• Counselling is helping him work through this trauma.心理辅导正帮助他面对痛苦。
• The phobia may have its root in a childhood trauma.恐惧症可能源于童年时期的创伤。

13 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

14 incarcerated   

钳闭的

参考例句：

• They were incarcerated for the duration of the war. 战争期间，他们被关在狱中。 来自辞典例句
• I don't want to worry them by being incarcerated. 我不想让他们知道我被拘禁的事情。 来自电影对白

15 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

16 lawsuits   

n.诉讼( lawsuit的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Lawsuits involving property rights and farming and grazing rights increased markedly. 涉及财产权，耕作与放牧权的诉讼案件显著地增加。 来自辞典例句
• I've lost and won more lawsuits than any man in England. 全英国的人算我官司打得最多，赢的也多，输的也多。 来自辞典例句

17 languishing   

a. 衰弱下去的

参考例句：

• He is languishing for home. 他苦思家乡。
• How long will she go on languishing for her red-haired boy? 为想见到她的红头发的儿子，她还将为此烦恼多久呢？

18 punitive   

adj.惩罚的，刑罚的

参考例句：

• They took punitive measures against the whole gang.他们对整帮人采取惩罚性措施。
• The punitive tariff was imposed to discourage tire imports from China.该惩罚性关税的征收是用以限制中国轮胎进口的措施。