A number of people detained on immigration violations are being held in solitary confinement in a Brooklyn, N.Y., federal prison, even though they haven't been criminally charged.
These conditions, which severely limit detainees' access to phones and therefore lawyers, raise fresh questions about whether detainees are being deprived of due process and contradict statements by the Justice Department that everyone arrested since Sept. 11 has access to counsel.
The revelations come as members of Congress began to question the sweeps of aliens and others that followed the terror attacks. Wednesday, seven Democrats asked Attorney General John Ashcroft for detailed information on the more than 1,000 people detained since the terror attacks.
Denied Access to Attorneys
Citing reports "that some detainees have been denied access to their attorneys, proper food, or protection from the elements and physical assault," the lawmakers asked for the identity of all those detained, the charges against them, the basis for holding those cleared of connection to terrorism, and a list of all government requests to seal legal proceedings, along with the rationale for doing so.
The signers included a co-author of Mr. Ashcroft's antiterror legislation, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont, and the only senator to vote against it, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.
The lawmakers said that while the officials "should aggressively investigate and prevent further attacks," they stressed the Justice Department's "responsibility to release sufficient information ... to allow Congress and the American people to decide whether the department has acted appropriately and consistent with the Constitution."
Detainees in the "Special Housing Unit" of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn "are being held in isolation, treated as security risks and interviewed by the FBI with almost no opportunity to first get counsel," said Janet Sabel, who heads the immigration division at New York's Legal Aid Society.
Arab Clients
Legal Aid represents eight detainees -- some of whom are still housed in the unit known as "SHU" -- all of them Arabs. Ms. Sabel said her clients have been permitted only "one phone call a week" to a lawyer and if the line is busy, they must wait another week. It has taken many of them several weeks to contact Legal Aid, she said.
Unlike people charged criminally, Immigration and Naturalization Services detainees aren't entitled to government-appointed counsel. Many INS detainees aren't represented, leading some civil-rights advocates to complain that law-enforcement officials are charging people with INS violations, holding them in solitary confinement, and then questioning them before they can consult attorneys who might advise them not to talk at all.
Valerie Curtis-Diop, a Los Angeles lawyer who represents an Egyptian dentist in SHU, has spoken to her client once since his Sept. 12 arrest. Because of the one-call-a-week policy, "It took him weeks to know his family retained me as his lawyer," she said.
The INS says solitary confinement of INS detainees at the Brooklyn prison is unusual, but spokesman Russell Bergeron said "it is unrealistic to use pre-Sept. 11 cases as a basis for comparison for how people taken into custody in connection with this investigation should be treated." He said the decision to put certain individuals in SHU is made by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, with input from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Brooklyn facility was seldom used for INS detainees before the terrorist attacks.
Other Charges Not Ruled Out
While declining to speak about specific detainees held in solitary in Brooklyn, Mr. Bergeron said, "It is wrong to think that the immigration charges are the only reason individuals are being held" in solitary confinement. "The fact that they're charged only with immigration violations at this point in time shouldn't be looked upon as some form of clearance in terms of their involvement in this investigation."
Dan Dunne, a spokesman for the Bureau of Prisons, denies that inmates are having difficulty calling attorneys. "There is access to attorneys for anyone we have in our custody." Mr. Dunne acknowledges that SHU inmates make fewer calls than others because "the telephone is a privilege."
Ms. Sabel said INS detainees housed in SHU don't see fellow inmates and therefore don't know exactly how many other INS detainees are in solitary confinement. Both the Metropolitan Detention Center and the INS say the numbers are confidential. Ms. Sabel said the eight inmates her organization has represented have each had something that seemed "suspicious" on the surface, such as attendance at a flight school or odd travel plans. All of them have been interviewed by the FBI and about half have been moved to cells that house the general prison population and where phone calls aren't as limited.
Legal Aid said that even though some of its clients have since been released from SHU into the general prison population, none have been allowed to leave the prison. When INS judges in the Brooklyn prison's makeshift courtrooms have granted bond requests, "It is INS's policy to oppose these requests or appeal them," Ms. Sabel said.
Mr. Bergeron said the service is challenging bond requests "in those instances where we have been advised that it isn't in the best interest of national security or the Sept. 11 investigation to have those individuals released. It's on a case-by-case basis."
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