 ADVOCATES CONTINUE TO WORK FOR FEMALE ASYLUM SEEKERS DETAINED IN FLORIDA
The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center (FIAC), with the backing of three members of the Miami-Dade Country Commission, is urging the INS to remove 64 female asylum seekers from a local jail and place them in a halfway house. INS officials said that while they understood the advocates’ concerns, it is not legally possible for them to move the women.
The asylum seekers, along with a number of other women who are awaiting deportation based on criminal convictions, were moved from the Krome Detention Center in Miami last December, following allegations of sexual abuse by guards. They were moved to a local jail. While this move was supported by advocates, they do not believe that the asylum seekers should be housed with convicted criminals.
Immigration officials maintain that they cannot, within the law, remove the asylum seekers from detention. Advocates say that while the INS detainees are held in a separate area from people serving time for criminal convictions, they are subject to the same restrictions, including routine strip searches and limited access to their attorneys. The director of the jail says that it has accommodated as many of the advocates’ concerns as possible, but the fact that it is a prison means that certain rules must be enforced.
FIAC says that the INS is mistaken in its position that it must jail the asylum seekers, pointing to a New Orleans area program that houses asylum seekers in a halfway house. Miami area INS officials said they were not familiar with that program, but would ask INS headquarters if such a program would be permissible.
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