ADVOCATES PROTEST TRANSFER OF ASYLUM SEEKER TO COUNTY JAIL

Following the transfer of a Congolese asylum seeker, Patrick Mkhizi, from the Elizabeth (New Jersey) Detention Center to a local county jail, his attorney and immigrant advocates are crying foul.  They claim the move was in retaliation for his speaking to the press following the fall and death of another detained asylum seeker.  According to the attorney, Elizabeth Wolstein, the INS refuses to say why the transfer was made.

The move further isolates Mkhizi from access to legal counsel, as well as places him in a facility with criminals serving sentences.  This practice of housing asylum seekers with criminals has been repeatedly criticized, most recently by Amnesty International in the report “Lost in the Labyrinth,” which is available online at http://www.amnestyusa.org/rightsforall/asylum/ins/index.html. 

Conditions for asylum seekers are frequently sub-standard at INS facilities.  The guards are often under-trained in how to deal with people who have suffered physical and emotional abuses, even torture, before fleeing their home countries.  Access to legal information and assistance is not readily available, and the situation is made even worse when asylum seekers are housed with convicted criminals.  The guards in local jails have not received even the basic training INS guards receive, and the INS makes little or no effort to let those running the local jails know why an INS detainee is in custody – the employees of the local jail do not know whether the detainee is an asylum seeker or a person awaiting deportation because of a murder conviction.

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