Detention isolates illegal immigrants

Via United Press International

Illegal immigrants held in alien detention centers are isolated from the world, a new report says.

The illegals cannot reach their families or their lawyers
because of a faulty telephone system, according to a new Government
Accountability Office report released Friday.

The GAO found that over a 12-month period starting in
November 2005, phones weren’t working properly in 16 of 17 alien
detention centers around the country that use pro bono telephone
systems. In June of 2006, only 35 percent of phone-calls out of the
detention system were successful and the percentage was never above 74.

“Detainees are completely isolated within the system,” Mark
Dow, author of “American Gulag: Inside U.S. immigration prisons,” said
in a phone interview. “Even their help-line is clearly a joke.”

“What a lot of people don’t understand about these detainees
is that usually they don’t speak English and are held in isolated
areas,” Dow said. “The telephone is a lifeline.”

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