WASHINGTON - In the wake of three immigration detainee deaths over the last six months, Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) introduced legislation today to adopt humane and legally enforceable standards for immigration detention facilities. The need for Congress to pass such legislation is underscored by recent deaths of immigration detainees in Monroe, Louisiana, Farmville, Virginia and Central Falls, Rhode Island. This bill, H.R. 1215, Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act of 2009, provides basic protections for immigration detainees including access to medical care, phones, legal materials, and law libraries. It also ensures protections for unaccompanied children, sexual abuse victims, survivors of torture, families with children and other vulnerable populations.

"Unfortunately, the federal government has failed to exercise meaningful oversight of immigration detention facilities nationwide,' said Joanne Lin, ACLU legislative counsel. 'The ACLU regularly receives complaints from immigration detainees whose cries for medical care go unanswered. All too often, the ACLU learns of detainees who have died from both serious diseases such as cancer and mundane conditions such as bacterial infections when earlier intervention could have made a difference. Congresswoman Roybal-Allard's bill is necessary to introduce oversight and transparency into the immigration detention system.'

In recent years, the immigration detainee population has skyrocketed, now exceeding over 300,000 annually and approximately 30,000 daily. The explosion in immigration detention has been accompanied by growing numbers of immigration detainee deaths, numbering nearly 90 since the establishment of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2002. Many of these deaths involved young detainees in their 20s and 30s, with U.S. citizen spouses and children.

The cases of ACLU clients Raymond Soeoth and Amadou Diouf, both of whom were immigration detainees, highlight the importance of this legislation as a safeguard against forcible drugging. Both detainees were forcibly injected with a combination of antipsychotic drugs even though neither had a history of mental illness. Soeoth, a Christian minister from Indonesia, sought political asylum in America based on religious persecution. Diouf, a native of Senegal married to a U.S. citizen, had a stay of deportation at the time he was drugged. After the ACLU of Southern California filed a lawsuit, the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) ended its policy of forcibly drugging deportees, but stopped short of issuing regulations that would have given the new policy the force of a strictly enforced law.

'This bill will help protect the heath and welfare of anyone imprisoned by Immigration and Customs Enforcement,' said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of immigrants' rights and national security for the ACLU of Southern California. 'If passed, this legislation should help ICE change its institutional culture and become more accountable, paving the way for the humane treatment of those in immigration detention.'

SAN DIEGO 'In response to a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and other groups, the Department of Homeland Security agreed to release an HIV-positive torture victim from Mexico who was detained by immigration officials for nearly two years despite a judge having granted her relief.

Oscar 'Diana' Santander, who suffered torture in her home country at the hands of police and other government officials, was granted asylum and relief under the Convention Against Torture last May by an immigration judge. But the government continued to incarcerate her at the San Diego Correctional Facility in Otay Mesa, while it appealed a portion of the ruling. Although the grant of asylum was reversed by the Board of Immigration Appeals, the immigration judge recently reaffirmed the grant of relief under the Convention Against Torture. The government decided not to appeal that ruling and released Ms. Santander late last week.

Ms. Santander was represented by the ACLU's Southern California and San Diego affiliate offices, together with Casa Cornelia Law Center and the private law firm Greenberg Glusker.

'While we are gratified that the U.S. government finally agreed to end Diana's detention, it is shameful that the government detained an HIV-positive torture victim for nearly two years and wasted thousands of taxpayer dollars in the process. Diana will never get those years of her life back,' said Ahilan Arulanantham, director of the ACLU of Southern California's immigrants' rights and national security project. 'The government had no reason to continue to imprison a woman who had won relief under the Convention Against Torture. This case presents another stark example of the government's misguided addiction to incarceration.'

Santander first gained notoriety after she spoke out in the aftermath of the death of Victoria Arellano, another transgender immigration detainee who died of AIDS after the government failed to provide her with adequate medical care. Although the government never disputed that Santander was an HIV positive torture victim, it nevertheless fought Santander's release while it appealed the decisions granting her relief under refugee protection laws. As a result, the government incarcerated her for an additional nine months after she first won her case.

'The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has twice stated that people who have prevailed in their asylum applications cannot be detained for a prolonged period. That court has also twice held that foreign nationals detained for a prolonged period must be afforded a hearing where the government bears the burden to show that their detention remains justified,' said Bardis Vakili of the Casa Cornelia Law Center. 'It is unfortunate that the government chose to ignore the governing federal law for so long in this case.'

Santander was held an additional six months after her lawyers filed the lawsuit on her behalf.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Supreme Court today agreed to hear a challenge to a congressional law allowing an eight-foot-tall Latin cross to remain in the Mojave National Preserve by transferring ownership of an acre of land within the preserve to the local chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which is now defunct. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California that this transfer of federal land did not eliminate the government's endorsement of religion, and thus did not solve the Establishment Clause violation that the lower courts had already found. The government appealed that decision.

The following should be attributed to Peter Eliasberg, managing attorney with the ACLU of Southern California:

'We are disappointed that the Supreme Court agreed to review this case, but not surprised given that it challenges a congressional statute. The appeals court rightly found that the statute did not solve the Establishment Clause problem created by a large cross in the midst of a National Preserve; in fact, it compounded the problem by continuing to favor this one religious symbol that had already been granted unique access to federal property. We are hopeful that the Supreme Court will affirm the appeals court's decision and send a clear message that the federal government must not endorse one religion over another.'