Ammo for Advocates of Immigration Reform

It's not every day that the U.S. government bluntly announces its own shortcomings. But the Dept. of Homeland Security has done so in a report on current detention policies for undocumented immigrants.

In short, the study notes that of the approximately 379,000 people held by U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement at some point last year, only 5.6 percent had committed violent crimes and half had no criminal record at all. Yet almost all were detained in former jails and prisons, and processed accordingly.

Though fights were infrequent and assaults on staff even rarer, most detainees were forced to spend the majority of their time in cells. Access to recreation, translation, legal, medical and religious services was substandard.

All this, at costs approaching $2.6 billion.

The prison-style standards "impose more restrictions and carry more costs than are necessary," says the report, written by Dr. Dora Schriro, former director of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning. "Numerous changes could be made to improve the care and management of the detainee population."

President Obama has promised to tackle immigration reform this year, and this report provides advocates with 35 pages of reasons to hold him to his word.