USD Law Prof Gail Heriot Quoted in LA Times Article on Reported Living Conditions in Migrant Detention Centers

Professor Heriot Quoted in LA Times Article on Reported Living Conditions in Migrant Detention Centers

Gail Heriot

Los Angeles (September 17, 2015) – University of San Diego (USD) School of Law Professor Gail Heriot was quoted in a Los Angeles Times article regarding recent reports of poor living conditions at immigrant detention centers.

The U.S. Civil Rights Commission recommended Thursday that the Obama administration release immigrant families who have illegally crossed into the United States, mainly from Central America, and are being held in detention centers where there have been complaints of poor food, inadequate medical care, and allegations of sexual abuse.

In its report, the independent commission also found that the immigrants were often denied such rights as due process. It recommended that Congress stop funding the nation’s family detention centers, which have become a sore point among immigration rights activists.

The two commissioners who opposed the report said the agency has been unable to independently verify the reports of mistreatment. Some of the allegations included that food with maggots was served, an AIDS patient was ignored and died of her illness, transgender individuals are housed in facilities based on their birth gender, and some children were sexually abused.

“The chairman's statement suggests that the treatment of detainees is comparable to torture,” wrote Commissioner Gail Heriot, a law professor at USD. 

"Lots of ugly rumors are uncritically repeated—like the presence of maggots in the food served by detention center kitchens, sexual assaults, deaths, etc. Some of the rumors were investigated by DHS and others and found to be untrue or very unlikely, but the commission's report doesn't bother to mention those investigations. In no case did the commission undertake an investigation to determine the truth or falsity of a rumor it reported,” Heriot wrote.

In her rebuttal, included in the report, she said: “It is said that where there is smoke, there is fire. But sometimes where there is smoke, there is only a smoke-making machine, busily stoked by publicists working for activist organizations.”

She was joined by another commissioner who criticized the report.

“Like mold on food left in the refrigerator for too long, the report has spread into an attack on the enforcement of the country's immigration laws, and perhaps on their very existence. Much of the report is at least intellectually dishonest, other parts simply dishonest. This report is outside the commission's jurisdiction and therefore most of this report is illegitimate,” said Commissioner Peter Kirsanow.

Read the full story on latimes.com.

About Gail Heriot

Gail Heriot is a professor of law at the University of San Diego School of Law, where she teaches and writes in the areas of civil rights, employment discrimination, product liability remedies, and torts.

About the University of San Diego School of Law

Celebrating 60 years of alumni success, the University of San Diego (USD) School of Law is recognized for the excellence of its faculty, depth of its curriculum, and strength of its clinical programs. Each year, USD educates approximately 900 Juris Doctor and graduate law students from throughout the United States and around the world. The law school is best known for its offerings in the areas of business and corporate law, constitutional law, intellectual property, international and comparative law, public interest and taxation.

USD School of Law is one of the 81 law schools elected to the Order of the Coif, a national honor society for law school graduates. The law school’s faculty is a strong group of outstanding scholars and teachers with national and international reputations and currently ranks 23rd worldwide in all-time faculty downloads on the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). The school is accredited by the American Bar Association and is a member of the Association of American Law Schools. Founded in 1954, the law school is part of the University of San Diego, a private, nonprofit, independent, Roman Catholic university chartered in 1949.

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