Immigration policy in America is downright un-American. And confusing. Not just for people who come to America seeking asylum, work, or opportunity. For everybody. People arriving in America with hopes of becoming citizens face a dire challenge, say local immigrant rights advocates such as Colleen Waterhouse, who volunteers with legal advocacy group Court Watch.

“It’s an incredibly complicated process,” says Waterhouse. “Most people who were born here couldn’t pass the citizenship test.”

To put this all in perspective, imagine Emma Lazarus writing an update to The New Colossus, an almost universally recognized verse, part of which adorns the Statue of Liberty. You know, the simple verse about arriving in America when it was a haven for people from other countries.

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teaming shore, send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I will lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

That is, if they can get past the gunboats, border checkpoints, government contracted, gun-toting hillbillies in pickup trucks, random highway stops, aerial surveillance, and electric fences. Also, prepare the tired and poor to wade through a complex and varied series of applications if they want to be allowed to stay. The application process can take years to complete in many cases. That is, if there are any applications available. America has only so much room these days. Also, try and quell their fears about being imprisoned and exiled if their applications aren’t approved.

Some may be welcomed if they have a particular professional background or large amounts of money to invest.

Less-skilled workers might be allowed to enter temporarily if labor markets are short on less-skilled workers, but they should know that they’ll be booted out once they’re no longer needed.

For those seeking political asylum, we may not have room. Tell them to go ahead and try, but also tell them that the likelihood of being sent back to a country where they face execution, torture and/or death is significant.

For those who think they can just show up, think again. America now spends billions of dollars per year hunting down immigrants who slip through the net of security that chokes our borders.

For those who are desperate, the U.S. labor market will probably find some use for them. If they can find work, they can join the undocumented droves that collectively contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. economy and its tax base. Tell them that the construction, manufacturing and restaurant industries will probably make good use of them — documented or not. America needs to keep those labor costs down. Profit margins are shrinking. But you should probably warn them that at any moment their doors could be kicked in and they could be dragged away with black bags over their heads.

Honestly, huddled masses, it’s a crapshoot at best. The lamp went out. The golden door is now only slightly ajar. Welcome to America anyway.

That’s right. We’re going to talk about immigration some more. Apparently the private prison on the Tacoma Tideflats is still there. The Northwest Detention Center, currently expanding to make room for another 500 prisoners, opened the thousand-bed version in 2004 with strong support from city of Tacoma officials. It’s a way station for undocumented immigrants from Washington, Idaho, Oregon, and other states. The facility is one of hundreds, and its owners are cashing in on a federal effort called Operation End Game, which aims to deport all undocumented immigrants from the United States by 2012. It’s part of one of the largest police operations in U.S. history.

According to the Detention Watch Network, the U.S. government imprisons an estimated 310,000 immigrants a year in a hodgepodge of hundreds of facilities at an annual cost of more than $1.7 billion. The facility in Tacoma is run by Florida-based corrections company GEO Group Inc., which contracts with the Department of Homeland Security to manage prisoners awaiting deportation.

Facilities such as the Northwest Detention Center were largely intended to house criminal aliens, who were targeted severely beginning in the mid 1990s, says attorney Peggy Herman. Herman is local immigration attorney, regional vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and active member of the Court Watch Project, which keeps an eye on immigration court proceedings to make sure that what meager resources exist are available to prisoners. 

Those laws, says Herman, are still the biggest problems facing immigrants and those who would defend them. Formulated to make it easier to sweep criminals out of the country — or so it would appear — the laws ramped up the severity of a number of crimes, but just for immigrants. With the stroke of a pen, thousands of people who had been ignored or passed over by law enforcement agencies found themselves in the crosshairs. A host of petty crimes, previously ignored, suddenly became grounds for deportation. Since then, the number of immigrants being imprisoned has ballooned dramatically — more than five times since laws went into effect in 1997.

“The Bush administration didn’t have to do anything to change the laws,” says Herman. “They just changed the approach and became much more aggressive.” 

In some cases, law enforcement officials catch actual criminals and deport them.

But recent data analysis conducted by an Associated Press team found that on any one night, less than half of the people imprisoned in these facilities have any sort of criminal background. In an article published earlier this month, AP researchers indicated that of 32,000 prisoners held in private facilities across the country nearly 19,000 had no criminal conviction whatsoever.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that keeping immigrants in prisons such as the one on the Tacoma Tideflats isn’t the cheapest option. Alternatives such as electronic monitoring devices, which have an almost perfect success rate according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s own data, are substantially less expensive than keeping immigrants in a prison such as the one on the Tacoma Tideflats. Like way less expensive. Taxpayers shell out about $140 a day on average — about the same price as a nice room at Hotel Murano — to keep immigrants locked up.

Strapping an electronic bracelet to the ankle of someone awaiting deportation proceedings costs less than $15 per day.

So why do we continue to put immigrants in facilities such as the Northwest Detention Center?

“The philosophy behind locking people up is that it forces them to self-deport,” says Herman. “If you’re out and about (with an ankle bracelet, for example), it’s easier to fight your case. Detention really is a strategy for deportation.”

Oppressive conditions inside the Northwest Detention Center make the strategy all the more effective, she adds.

“It’s a prison,” says Herman. “It’s not a detention center. The conditions are harsh. It’s cold, impersonal. If you’re trying to make people give up hope and stop fighting their case, put them in that environment. That detention will result in a deportation far quicker and more effectively.”

But conditions at the Northwest Detention Center are simply one facet of a much bigger problem, says Pramila Jayapal, executive director of immigrant rights advocacy group OneAmerica.

“We need a series of real hearings in Congress that review oversight and conditions at detention centers and demand that these programs stop until there’s been a thorough review of whether these programs are upholding constitutional standards,” Jayapal says. 
“This whole notion of the last eight years — of contracting out all these functions to private companies — has caused all sorts of disasters,” says Tacoma Mayor Bill Baarsma, who says he would have strongly opposed the council resolution that gave GEO Group Inc. the go-ahead.

Unfortunately, Baarsma says the city can do very little at this point to address concerns about the Northwest Detention Center.

“If the corporation follows the procedures as established, there’s really nothing we can do,” says Baarsma. “We could throw up (legal) roadblocks, but we’d be sued.”

So what the hell do we do? Baarsma and Waterhouse are hopeful that the new political administration will address concerns on the federal level.

“That’s where the hope lies,” says Baarsma.

People who believe that U.S. immigration policy needs an overhaul celebrated recently when President Barack Obama announced in a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus that he will offer strong support for so-called comprehensive immigration reform.
But Herman warns against breathing any sighs of relief.

“Comprehensive immigration reform that everybody is talking about will provide relief to a significant number of people, but it won’t help the people who are affected by these bad laws,” she says. “It will help people who try to return. People who have been here may have a chance to take advantage of new forms of residency, and there will be higher penalties (even if they’re allowed to stay, immigrants can receive hefty fines), and it will take longer to gain residency.”

Herman predicts that some sort of amnesty will be granted for people who have been living undocumented in the United States, but it won’t be as sweeping as a similar offer made during President Reagan’s second term. It may involve having some sort of family member act as a sponsor, Herman speculates. If the raids stop and enforcement is scaled back to do what they’re intended to do — root out criminals as opposed to snatching innocent people from their homes and their families in the middle of the night — that would be a bonus.

“Keep our communities safe from those who wish to do us harm. I’m with that,” says Herman. “But to needlessly destroy families and terrorize children … you go to the Detention Center, and you see these little girls who are sobbing for their daddies. It’s the most devastating thing you’ll ever see.”