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Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about immigration detention centers. Why are they largely unmonitored and why doesn’t our political democracy care enough to find out what’s going on?

Oversight of immigration detention centers falls under the jurisdiction of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. ICE is an enforcement agency tasked with “protect(ing) the security of the American people.” Its methods leave me wondering at what cost it will seek to carry out this initiative, and what casualties will result.

ICE law enforcement practices are not governed by constitutional law, at least to any tangible extent. The U.S. Constitution protects U.S. citizens. It does not protect citizens of other countries and it offers only limited protections for foreign citizens who visit the U.S. I think most of us acknowledge that this makes sense. After all, isn’t that why we encourage foreign residents in the U.S to apply for citizenship? So that they can enjoy the protections afforded U.S. citizens under the Constitution?

So far, so good. But what I can’t understand is why there doesn’t seem to be a middle-ground between being protected by the Constitution and having any rights at all. In a country that ostensibly holds governmental accountability in high regard, shouldn’t we offer non-citizens regulations that at least serve the spirit of our Constitution?

U.S. citizens who are arrested for the alleged commission of a crime have the right to an attorney. They also have a right to a phone call, in order to contact an attorney. U.S. citizens accused of committing a crime are imprisoned in federal, state or local penitentiaries that are required to provide certain basic human services, such as food, access to water, a toilet and a bed.

These prisons are listed in the phone book. If you want to arrange to visit a friend or relative who is being held in jail, you simply need to call the prison where they are being held and find out what the visiting hours are. You can Google-map the prison, or, if you just can’t be bothered, you will probably see signs directing you while you are driving on the freeway.

All of this sounds pretty familiar, right? And I think that most of us don’t pause too long to consider why our criminal justice system is relatively transparent, and why it offers the accused certain basic protections. Many of the rights afforded to individuals charged with committing a crime are the product of impassioned fights fought when this country was still in its infancy. To many, the reality of a justice system that does not offer these basic protections is no longer a threat worth contemplating.

Except that, contrary to every principle that our Constitution defends, we are in the process of building a parallel justice system that offers no rights to the accused and no transparency whatsoever.

Foreign citizens who are arrested in the U.S. for allegedly failing to hold lawful immigration status do not have the right to an attorney. In no circumstances will an attorney be provided free of charge, and in many circumstances detained immigrants will find that they do not have any access to an attorney at all. Immigrant detainees have no right to a phone call. They may be held in detention centers that are unmarked and unknown to Immigration Attorneys, Immigration Advocates and even to the residents of the community that serves as host to the facility. They may be held in facilities that have no beds or chairs or access to toilets. They may be held in conditions where they are not fed, and where they have no ability to exercise, or even so much as move their limbs. These prisons may not be listed in the phone book, and since the facilities are often unmarked, if someone outside the facility did somehow realize that a friend or relative was incarcerated there, they would find it difficult to locate.