Reports: Detention Doesn't Deter Migrants and Refugees from Crossing US-Mexico Border Catalina Restrepo - American Immigration Council
go to original May 11, 2015

No Asylum: Immigrants Locked Up in U.S. after Fleeing Violence - UPDATE: According to Virginia Raymond, the attorney for the asylum-seeking family from El Salvador that has been held in a detention center for over 9 months, an immigration hearing that began on Apr 28 ended last Wednesday with the release of Maria Marquez and her three daughters. (Reason)

In 2009, the Obama Administration ended family detention at the infamous T. Don Hutto jail in Texas and cut the number of immigrants in family detention to less than a hundred. However, after the surge of Central American migrants last summer, the Administration reinstituted the appalling practice of family detention, with plans to detain 2,760 mothers and children. The Administration justified its reversal as a means to deter future migrants from coming to the United States.

Yet, detaining mothers and children to deter others not only violates international and U.S. law - it doesn’t work. A recent International Detention Coalition policy brief, “Does Detention Deter?,” as well as a recent Detention Watch Network policy brief, “Ending the Use of Immigration Detention to Deter Migration” confirm this.

IDC’s brief summarizes studies that show, among other things, that “there is no empirical evidence to suggest that the threat of being detained deters irregular migration, or more specifically, discourages persons from seeking asylum.” A person generally does not choose to flee to another country based on the policies of the destination country. Rather, an asylum seeker’s destination is more likely determined by his or her personal situation or the circumstances of the flight.

Sadly, restrictions on migration and asylum policy “have only managed to add to the human suffering without any real impact on migration flows.” Detention leads to higher rates of PTSD, anxiety and depression, which cannot easily be reversed, and in turn create a burden on society. IDC’s report thus undermines the rationale behind the Administration’s use of family detention.

Read the rest at American Immigration Council

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