EDITORIAL
Immigrant abuse can't be tolerated in our jails

Earlier this year, the world was shocked to learn of the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Still, the scandal unfolded in a faraway land. Nothing like that would ever happen on U.S. soil.

One would hope.

Under the Department of Homeland Security's alien detention program, more than 20,000 non-citizen immigrants awaiting deportation for crimes ranging from overstaying a visa to murder are locked up in jails around the nation.

According to an investigation by National Public Radio, non-citizen detainees in at least two New Jersey jails — Hudson County Jail and Passaic County Jail — were allegedly terrorized by guards using attack dogs and other forms of abuse.

Take the case of Hemnauth Mohabir, a U.S. resident and citizen of Guyana who was arrested by immigration agents at Kennedy Airport when he returned from a trip to see his ailing mother. When his green card was run through the computer, up popped data on his petty drug conviction six years earlier.

At the time, a judge had fined him a couple of hundred dollars and let him go. But under new immigration rules, the misdemeanor crime classified him as an "inadmissible alien" and he was locked up for two years at Passaic County Jail before being deported in April, according to the report.

Mohabir and several other detainees had said that guards taunted them, beat them up and used dogs to terrorize them.

Since the airing of the NPR series, the Department of Homeland Security has ordered all its detention centers to stop using dogs around detainees. Meanwhile, the department's inspector general has launched a national investigation into allegations of abuse of alien detainees.

"Our country was once known as a humane nation. And when you hear reports like this, you know, it's certainly not humane," said Hawai'i Sen. Daniel Akaka, a member of the Government Affairs Committee, which oversees Homeland Security.

America's immigration officials ought to set an example for the rest of the world, Akaka said.

We couldn't agree more. It's bad enough that immigrants who overstayed their visas or committed petty misdemeanors are locked up next to dangerous criminals for years. But to subject them to beatings, and to use dogs to terrorize them, is unacceptable.