Big changes ahead at detention centers

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to place federal employees in the largest immigration detention facilities in the country to monitor detainee treatment.

Under the new plan, 23 Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials would be placed at the largest jails to directly supervise how the detention centers are managed, according to people briefed on the government's plan. Private contractors have been doing the monitoring since 2007. Before that, it was federal employees.

While ICE is calling these and other changes to the detention system "major reforms," this, like the Obama administration's plan to enforce immigration law at the workplace, is not an overhaul. The new detention center plan includes a tweaking of past policies and some new positions.

The government has been criticized for its treatment of immigration detainees, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has made detention policies a top priority for her department.

ICE, which is part of Homeland Security, intends to hire a medical expert to review the health care protocols for the detention centers and give an independent review of medical complaints, according to the people briefed on the plan. They spoke only on condition of anonymity ahead of an announcement expected Thursday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave details of its plan to immigration advocates in a conference call Wednesday evening. One person on the call, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because ICE had not made a formal announcement, said the plan includes turning a detention center in Texas for parents and their children into a women's facility and no longer placing families there. However, a separate facility in Pennsylvania will continue housing families.

Shortly after Napolitano became secretary, she created a new advisory position to focus on detention issues and arrest priorities at ICE. Napolitano, formerly the Arizona governor, named a former head of Arizona's Corrections Department, Dora Schriro, to the post. As part of its plan, the department will create yet another new position to be filled by Schriro: director of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning.

Some immigrant advocates have said the federal government has failed to meet its own standards for detaining immigrants, making it unduly difficult for immigrants to defend themselves in court and fight to remain in the country.