[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 161 (Friday, October 3, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2225]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 INTRODUCTION OF THE IMMIGRATION OVERSIGHT AND FAIRNESS ACT, H.R. 7255

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                       HON. LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 3, 2008

  Ms. ROYBAL-ALLARD. Madam Speaker, on any given day, roughly 30,000 
immigration detainees are held in a mix of federal, state, local and 
private detention facilities. Explosive growth in the number of non-
citizens in immigration detention across the country has resulted in 
sometimes shameful conditions of confinement and repeated incidents of 
detainee abuse.
  Although federal immigration authorities adopted detention standards 
in 1998 and 2000, you wouldn't know it today. These non-binding 
standards, which cover access to medical care, the separation of 
violent and non-violent suspects, and access to a lawyer, have not been 
enforced.
  It is long past time that Congress make the federal government abide 
by its own detention standards. That is why today I am introducing the 
Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act of 2008.
  The bill establishes long-overdue legally binding detention standards 
for all immigration detention facilities.
  The Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act also establishes legally 
binding standards for Customs and Border Patrol stations which, though 
not technically detention facilities, house immigrants for a few hours 
or a few days before their transfer to immigration authorities.
  Finally, the Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act treats those 
detainees who a judge determines are not a flight risk or a threat to 
society in a more humane and rational way. Under this bill, these 
individuals would be placed in a proven program of supervised release 
instead of in a detention facility where the federal government must 
expend enormous resources to feed, house and watch over them.
  Madam Speaker, I look forward to the House considering these critical 
reforms of the immigration detention system in the next Congress.

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