WASHINGTON, June 4 (UPI) -- In four years, more than 1,300 children and teenagers were held in adult immigration detention centers in the United States, an advocacy group said Tuesday.
"It's a startling revelation," National Immigration Justice Center Executive Director Mary Meg McCarthy said in a statement posted on the organization's website. "These children were isolated from access to legal counsel and may have been denied protections under U.S. law. It's beyond time for Congress to step in and hold DHS [Department of Human Services] accountable for an immigration detention system that has gotten too big and out of control."
The center's report was based on records obtained from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement after a request was filed under the Freedom of Information Act. The report covers four years ending Sept. 30, 2012, a period when the Obama administration was cracking down on illegal immigrants.
Federal rules require those under 18 to be held for no more than 72 hours in adult facilities. But the center said it found 1,366 minors held in adult centers beyond the time limit, some of them for months.
Most were 15 or older but two were younger than 10 and 37 under the age of 14, the center said. At least 386 were held for a month or more, and 15 for six months.
Adult immigration detainees are held in a variety of facilities, including county jails, prisons run by private companies and detention centers run by the government. Juveniles are supposed to be in separate facilities where they have opportunities for education and recreation.
"Nobody has seen where these kids are being held because we haven't known," the Los Angeles Times quoted Jennifer Podkul of the Women's Refugee Commission as saying. "These numbers are high and we don't know what kind of services these kids are getting."
The commission says 3,800 minors are being held in juvenile facilities.
