美国国家公共电台 NPR Hundreds Of Immigrant Detainees Held In Federal Prisons（在线收听）

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

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

CONRAD WILSON, BYLINE: The inmate 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 mattresses being delivered there. So we knew something was happening.

WILSON: Lisa Hay runs Oregon's federal public defender office. She says it's been frustrating 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 unprecedented. 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 incarceration, it's going to cause all kinds of psychological trauma 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 spoke 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 incarcerated 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 versus 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 lawsuits about the conditions in prison. Some say they were denied medical care. One immigrant attempted suicide.

MATT ADAMS: I think these individuals are languishing 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 punitive. 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")