Action Advisory
New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee
September 21, 2005
Tell Richard Skinner, Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, that it has been NINE months since his department’s latest audit got underway, and that it’s high time his auditors did their job in New Jersey as well as in the remaining detention centers on his current audit list.
This means assuring that ever reasonable effort be made to interview detainees who have been transferred to other detention facilities since submitting affidavits complaining of abuse: jails housing detainees should not be permitted to use detainee-transfer as a device for escaping scrutiny. It also means that since very few detainees can afford attorneys, every interviewed detainee should have the opportunity, if he or she chooses, to be accompanied during the interview process by a witness, whether an attorney or “citizen-advocate” from one of the participating advocacy organizations. A coalition of such organizations received assurance of this last March. They have asked that both of these conditions now be speedily met in order to protect the complainants against further abuse or retaliation.
A system that under the current constraints of immigration law can incarcerate without charge, and leave immigrant detainees without constitutional protections of due process, is nonetheless not a license to physical or other abuse. Your agency is empowered to assure that jailing authorities never take such license with the silent consent of the American people. Your ability to guarantee some transparency to conditions of detention places you in a powerful position to demonstrate the moral stature of our society.
Richard Skinner:
email: Rick.skinner@dhs.gov
Inspector General
Department of Homeland Security
1120 Vermont Ave NW
Washington, DC 20005-3523
Modify this note appropriately for:
(1) Members of the Executive Council, DHS/IG:
J. Richard Berman, richard.berman@dhs.gov,
202-254-4100
Edward Stulginsky, edward.stulginsky@dhs.gov,
202-254-4168
Belinda Finn, belinda.finn@dhs.gov,
202-254-4178
Postal mail to ALL of these officials (including Skinner)
can be sent to:
Office of the Inspector General
Department of Homeland Security
1120 Vermont Ave NW
Washington, DC 20005-3523
(2) New Jersey Senators:
Senator Frank Lautenberg: (encourages electronic or fax mail)
email: via official website
Washington Office:
Phone: (202) 224-3224
TTY: (202) 224-2087
Fax: (202) 228-4054
Newark Office:
Phone: (973) 639-8700
1-888-398-1642
Fax: (973) 639-8723
Postal mail: Hart Senate Office Building
Suite 324
Washington, D.C. 20510
OR
One Gateway Center
Twenty-Third Floor
Newark, NJ 07102
Senator Jon Corzine:
email: via official website
Washington Office:
Phone: (202) 224-4744
FAX: (202) 228-2197
(TDD/TTY): (202) 224-1984
Newark Office:
973) 645-3030
FAX: (973) 645-0502
Postal mail:
U.S. Senator Jon S. Corzine
Washington, DC 20510
OR
One Gateway Center
11th Floor
Newark, NJ 07102
See the NJCRDC web site at http://www.nj-civilrights.org/