The University of Texas at Austin
Thompson Conference CenterWednesday, September 12, 2012
dialogues on detention
Human Rights First would like to thank Michele Deitch, Kerri Battles, and Kelly Pratlett at The University of Texas at Austin, The Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, for their tremendous partnership on this event. We also appreciate the assistance of Andrea Black, Judy Greene, Bob Libal, Adan Munoz, Annie Sovcik, Karin Tucker,Ana Yáñez-Correa, and all speakers who are generously sharing their time and expertise with us today.
Human Rights First’s “Dialogues on Detention: Applying Lessons from Criminal Justice to the Immigration Detention System” will take place in four cities across the United States during 2012 and culminate in a Washington, D.C.-based conference in early 2013. The Dialogues will foster constructive discussion on parallel and overlapping challenges facing the U.S. immigration detention system and the U.S. criminal justice system. By facilitating an exchange of knowledge and best practices among experts, academics, elected leaders, government officials, advocates, and the private bar, as well as individuals who have experienced the system first-hand, we aim to help re-shape the national conversation on immigration detention, to find common ground among stakeholders in both fields, and to forge a constructive path forward on detention reform. Our objective is to secure reforms to the immigration detention system so that immigrants and asylum seekers are not detained unnecessarily and in ways that are inconsistent with human rights standards.
Join us again at University of California- Irvine School of Law on September 24th, Arizona State UniversitySandra Day O’Connor School of Law on October 12th, and Loyola University New Orleans College of Law on November 30th.
Human Rights First
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Agenda
8:00 – 8:30Registration and Light Breakfast
8:30 – 9:15 Welcome and Setting the Stage
Dean Robert Hutchings, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs
Ruthie Epstein, Human Rights First
Introductoryremarks from:
Representative Jerry Madden (R-67), Chairman, Texas House Corrections Committee
Edna Yang, General Counsel, American Gateways
Nazry and Hope Mustakim, formerly detained green card holder and his wife
9:15 – 10:45Alternatives to Detention: Models and Best Practices
Alternatives to detention and community-based release programs have been repeatedly demonstrated to lead to substantial cost savings and high compliance rates in both the immigration detention system and in pre-trial services programs in the criminal justice system. Currently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spends about $2 billion per year on detention, to house 429,000 individuals, and $72 million on alternatives for 23,000. Texas county jails hold about 64,000 individuals daily, almost 60 percent of whom are classified as pre-trial. Particularly at a time when local, state, and federal governments are all facing severe fiscal crises, the immigration detention and corrections systems could be decreasing spending on detention, and reallocating funds to increased investment in effective and rights-respecting alternatives.
What are the elements of a successful alternatives program? What is the definition of success? What is the role of risk assessment tools in an alternatives program? Can bonds be used as assurance in a way that does not disadvantage individuals simply because they do not have money? How can alternatives save taxpayer dollars?
Oren Root, Director, Center on Immigration and Justice, Vera Institute of Justice
Jennifer Long, Executive Director, Casa Marianella (Austin)
Carol Oeller, Director, Harris County (Texas) Pretrial Services
Ana Yáñez-Correa, Ph.D., Executive Director, Texas Criminal Justice Coalition
Representative Jerry Madden (R-67), Chairman, Texas House Corrections Committee
Moderator: Scott Henson, author of the Texas criminal justice blog “Grits for Breakfast”
10:45 – 11:00 Break
11:00 – 12:30What Is “Civil” Detention?
Detainees and inmates held by ICE, local jails, state prisons, the U.S. Marshals, and the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) all face a fundamental loss of liberty, whether the authority under which they are held is civil/administrative or criminal law, and whether they are awaiting hearings or have been convicted and sentenced. ICE holds in detention up to 8,000 immigrants daily in the state of Texas, including 3,000 in local jails. 64,000 non-ICE detainees are held in Texas jails each day, almost 60 percent of whom are pre-trial, in addition to 141,000 in the state’s prison system. BOP facilities in Texas account for an additional 35,000 inmates, including almost 14,000 in privately run facilities.
What is the legal framework for drawing distinctions among the conditions in “civil” detention, “pre-trial” detention, and incarceration? What are the appropriate operational distinctions? What conditions of confinement are necessary to serve the government’s purpose? What conditions respect the dignity and rights of the individuals being held in custody? What conditions ensure safety for detainees and inmates as well as officers and staff?
Dora Schriro, Commissioner, New York City Department of Correction
Kevin Landy, Assistant Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Office of Detention Policy and Planning
Barbara Hines, Clinical Law Professor, The University of Texas School of Law,
Co-Director, Immigration Clinic
Steve J. Martin, attorney, consultant, former General Counsel, Texas prison system
Moderator: Michele Deitch, Senior Lecturer, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin
12:45 – 1:45Luncheon
2:00 – 3:30Oversight and Accountability: Ensuring Safe and Humane Conditions
What internal accountability mechanisms and external oversight structures are most effective to ensure that detention facilities are safe and humane and provide appropriate medical and mental health care? Should operational expectations for facilities be outlined in standards or in regulations? What oversight structures should exist when a private company operates a facility for the government, or when the federal government contracts with a local government facility? To what degree is routine monitoring of conditions necessary for all places of detention? What kinds of sanctions are most effective in ensuring compliance with standards, regulations, or contractual obligations?
Dora Schriro, Commissioner, New York City Department of Correction
Brandon Wood, Incoming Executive Director, Texas Commission on Jail Standards
Dr. Bobby Cohen, former Director of Montefiore Rikers Island Health Services, member of New York City Board of Correction
Andrew Lorenzen-Strait, Public Advocate, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations
Moderator and Panelist: Michele Deitch, Senior Lecturer, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin
3:30 – 3:45Break
3:45 – 5:00Finding Effective Counsel from Jail: Models of Legal Representation in Texas
The performance of counsel in the immigration removal and criminal justice context can be critical for both the outcome of the proceedings and the efficiency/functioning of the courts – and individuals who are detained or incarcerated face even greater barriers to obtaining effective legal counsel. What models work best in Texas to ensure that indigent individuals facing criminal charges receive effective counsel? What are the legal representation needs of detained immigrants in Texas, and are those needs being met? What models are most effective to connect qualified attorneys to individuals who need them, especially given the remote location of many detention facilities and jails in Texas? Where is funding and expertise most necessary?
Denise Gilman, Clinical Law Professor, The University of Texas School of Law, Co-Director, Immigration Clinic
Jonathan Ryan, Executive Director, Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (RAICES) (San Antonio)
David González, partner, Sumpter & Gonzalez L.L.P. (Austin)
Moderator:Karen T. Grisez, Public Service Counsel, Fried Frank (Washington, D.C.),immediate past Chair of the ABA Commission on Immigration, current Advisory Committee member
5:00 – 5:15Closing Remarks
Ruthie Epstein, Human Rights First
Receptionto follow.
Human Rights First
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PRESENTER BIOS
Robert L. Cohen, MD
Clinical Instructor, Department of Medicine, New York University School of Medicine
Bobby Cohen has worked for over thirty years as a physician, administrator, court expert, and federally- appointed monitor to improve the care and conditions of prisoners. After graduation from Princeton he was a community organizer in Kensington, Philadelphia. He graduated Rush Medical College in Chicago and then trained in Internal Medicine at Cook County Hospital.
Dr. Cohen was the Director of the Montefiore Rikers Island Health Services from 1981 through 1986. In 1986 he was appointed Vice President for Medical Operations of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation.In 1989 he was appointed Director of the AIDS Center of St. Vincent's Hospital.
Dr. Cohen represented the American Public Health Association (APHA) on the Board of the National Commission for Correctional Health Care for 17 years, through 2010.He is currently appointed by the New York City Council to represent them on the New York City Board of Correction. Dr. Cohen has served as a Federal Court Monitor overseeing efforts to improve medical care for prisoners in Florida (Costello v. Wainwright) and Ohio (Austin et al. v. Wilkinson). He is currently appointed as a Federal Monitor in New York State(Milburn v. Coughlin), and Michigan (Hadix v. Caruso). He is also appointed to monitor the care of all prisoners living with HIV in the state of Connecticut (Doe v. Meachum).
Dr. Cohen practices internal medicine in NYC. He is a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Medicine of the New York University School of Medicine.
Michele Deitch
Senior Lecturer, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin
Michele Deitch is a Senior Lecturer at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin, where she teaches graduate level courses in juvenile justice and criminal justice policy. She is considered one of the country’s leading experts on independent oversight of correctional institutions, the rights of prisoners, institutional reform litigation, prison privatization, and the management of juvenile offenders. She is trained as a lawyer, and has spent her 26-year career working on prison and jail-related issues in a variety of capacities. She currently serves as Co-Chair of the American Bar Association’s subcommittee on correctional oversight, and also recently served on the ABA’s Task Force that helped develop Civil Immigration Detention Standards. She was also the original drafter of the ABA’s newly adopted standards on the legal treatment of prisoners.
Professor Deitch has provided featured testimony on the correctional oversight issue before the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission and the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons. She has authored and co-authored numerous works on this topic, including several pieces in Opening Up a Closed World: A Sourcebook on Prison Oversight, 30 Pace Law Review (2010).
Prior to entering academia, Professor Deitch served as a consultant to many state and local jurisdictions to help reduce prison and jail crowding through development of alternatives to incarceration and to help address prisoner safety issues. She also served as a full-time court-appointed monitor of conditions in the Texas prison system, in the landmark class action case of Ruiz v. Estelle. In the early 1990’s, she served as General Counsel to the Texas Senate Criminal Justice Committee and as Policy Director of the Texas Punishment Standards Commission (the state’s sentencing commission).
She holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an M.Sc. in psychology from Oxford University, and a B.A. from Amherst College.
Ruthie Epstein
Researcher & Advocate, Refugee Protection Program, Human Rights First
Ruthie Epstein holds a Master’s of International Affairs from Columbia University and an A.B. in history from Washington University in St. Louis. Based in New York City, she works as Researcher & Advocate in the Refugee Protection Program at Human Rights First, with a focus on immigration detention and U.S. domestic asylum policy. Ms. Epstein is the author of “Jails and Jumpsuits: Transforming the U.S. Immigration Detention System – A Two-Year Review,” released in October 2011. She presented the preliminary findings of this report in August 2011 at the annual meeting of the American Bar Association. Ms. Epstein has also worked extensively on the issue of Iraqi displacement and wrote the report “Promises to the Persecuted: The Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act” (2009). Previously, she helped to run Human Rights First’s pro bono legal representation program for indigent asylum seekers in New York and New Jersey.
Denise Gilman
Clinical Law Professor and Co-Director of the Immigration Law Clinic, The University of Texas School of Law
Denise Gilman teaches and co-directs the Immigration Clinic after having joined the clinical faculty at The University of Texas School of Law in the fall of 2007. Professor Gilman received her undergraduate degree with honors in political science from Northwestern University. She received her law degree from Columbia University School of Law, where she served on the Law Review, was elected president of the Student Senate and received the Rosenmann award for leadership and public interest scholarship. Professor Gilman also has an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center. Professor Gilman clerked for Judge Thomas M. Reavley, at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. She is fluent in Spanish.
Professor Gilman has written and practiced extensively in the international human rights and immigrants' rights fields. From 2000 to 2005, Professor Gilman was Director of the Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project at the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. At the Lawyers' Committee, Professor Gilman coordinated the representation of political asylum applicants by pro bono attorneys and engaged in advocacy on issues of significance to the newcomer community. She also investigated and litigated individual and impact cases involving law enforcement abuses against immigrants and discrimination against newcomers in housing and employment.
From 1995 to 2000, Professor Gilman served as Human Rights Specialist at the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights at the Organization of American States and then Director of the Mexico Project at the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (now Human Rights First). Professor Gilman made her transition from legal practice to clinical teaching through completion of a two-year clinical teaching fellowship at the Georgetown University Law Center from 2005 to 2007. At Georgetown, Professor Gilman co-taught an asylum law clinic.
In 2003, Professor Gilman received an "Excellence in Lawyering" award from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In 2005, she received the Community Outreach Recognition and Opportunity ("CORO") Award from the D.C. Court of Appeals. Professor Gilman served on the board of the Central American Resource Center in Washington, D.C.
She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Professor Gilman's recent scholarship includes:A "Bilingual" Approach to Language Rights, 24 Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 1 (2011);Seeking Breaches in the Wall: An International Human Rights Law Challenge to the Texas-Mexico Border Wall, 46 Tex. Int'l L.J. 257 (2011);Calling the United States' Bluff: How Sovereign Immunity Undermines the United States' Claim to an Effective Domestic Human Rights System, 95 Geo. L.J. 591 (2007).
David Gonzalez
Founding Partner, Sumpter & Gonzalez L.L.P.
David Gonzalez is the founding partner of Sumpter & Gonzalez, a criminal defense firm whose commitment to social justice involves defending against serious criminal accusations for both private and indigent clients. TheFirm’s mission is to serve clients beyond the legal issues of their case and work to address the underlying reasons a client is involved in the criminal justice system. The vision of Sumpter & Gonzalez is simple: getting arrested should be the beginning of a new perspective in life, not the end of it.
In 2011 and 2010, Sumpter & Gonzalez was a finalist in the Austin Chamber of Commerce Awards in the “Innovation” category. In 2008, David was awarded the Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year award by the Austin Young Lawyers Association, and was a finalist in the American Bar Association’s National Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year & in the local Austin Under 40 awards.
David froze to death atDartmouthCollege, then went out West toStanfordLawSchoolin search of warmer weather. David met his wife, Corinne, on the first day of law school, but she pretty much ignored him for the next eighteen months until he was able to convince her to date him midway through their second year.
The two of them juggle their law practice with four kids and seven chickens in tow.In his free time, David enjoys teaching at the law school, helping coach his daughter Ramona's soccer team, andembarrassinghis kids in public.
Karen Grisez
Public Service Counsel, Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP
Karen Grisez is full time Public Service Counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP. Karen is the immediate past Chair of the ABA Commission on Immigration and a current member of its Advisory Committee. She is also a former co-chair of the ABA Section of Litigation’s Immigration Litigation Committee. She is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and co-chair of the DC AILA Chapter's Pro Bono Committee, as well as a former Trustee of the American Immigration Council. Karen also serves on the boards of the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition, the Center for Migration Studies, the Washington Council of Lawyers, and is a Trustee of the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs.