Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 1 Immigration Detention 1AC Contention 1 Inherency Immigrants don't have access to legal counseling because of cost and a lack of access to communication and thus are 5 times more likely deported Amnesty International, 09 (copyrighted 2009, http://www.amnestyusa.org/immigrant-rights/immigrant-detentionreport/page.do?id=1641033 Under US law, individuals in deportation proceedings may secure counsel, but at no expense to the government. Consequently, the vast majority of people - 84 percent - in immigration detention do not have a lawyer, and instead represent themselves. Representation by legal counsel can have a significant impact on the outcome of an individual's case. One study found that individuals are five times more likely to be granted asylum if they are represented. Immigration detainees in the US face considerable barriers in communicating with anyone outside the facility and in accessing assistance, such as "know your rights" presentations, adequate access to law libraries and legal materials, immigration specific detainee handbooks, adequate access to telephones, translation and interpretation services. Many are frequently transferred between facilities, which undermines their ability to access to legal counsel and relatives. And, The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency continues to deny detainees phone access and hold them as a means to generate profit Dow, immigrant detention center researcher and author, 07 (Mark Dow, 07-2007, "Designed to Punish: Immigrant Detention and Deportation", Social Research Magazine, Business Source Complete) ICE and Homeland Security officials like to evade criticism of the detention system by arguing that the detainees can get out any time by simply agreeing to deportation. Once again, not true. Over the years, there have been many protests by INS and ICE detainees demanding deportation ( detainees at a Corrections Corporation of America contract detention center speculated that the delays are a means of generating profit). In 2006, Krome inmates sent an open letter "to whoever is willing to help" that included complaints about overcrowding, filth, beatings, predatory phone prices, and this: "Some of the prisoners, who have already signed their deportation documents, are still being held by ICE Some prisoners are here for years awaiting deportation. One [of them] has been here for over three years." Phone access in detention centers despite federal requirements are horrendous; leading to a lack of access to lawyers, knowledge of due rights and ability to report abuses Tumlin, NILC Skadden Fellow, 07 (Karen Tumlin, 7-20-09, National Immigration Law Center, http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/arrestdet/ad090.htm) On July 6, 2007, the Government Accountability Office ( GAO) released a report finding “pervasive” problems with the phone systems in detention centers across the country. At each of the 23 facilities it visited , the GAO encountered problems with the phone system that limited detainees’ ability to place calls free of charge as required under the ICE National Detention Standards. Under the standards, detainees must be permitted to place free calls to legal service providers, their consulates, and the courts in order to ensure that detainees can secure counsel and pursue their claims to remain in the United States . In addition, detainees must be able to call the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) hotline to report complaints of abuse or other detention issues. Most facilities use a pro bono phone system created through a contract between ICE and a private company to meet these requirements. The GAO investigators found widespread problems with this phone system, including various technical failures and inaccurate or incomplete phone listings, all of which hampered detainees’ ability to make the mandated phone calls. Of particular concern, the OIG report number was restricted at 12 of the 17 facilities tested. The GAO report also raises concerns about ICE’s annual inspection process for detention facilities. Since 2002, ICE has endeavored to inspect each detention facility annually to monitor compliance with the detention standards. In addition to conducting its own visits to detention facilities, the GAO also Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 1 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 2 reviewed ICE annual reviews for these facilities to determine to what extent ICE process has actually captured problems with noncompliance. The results showed that ICE’s own reviews dramatically underreport violations of the detention standards. Although the GAO found numerous failures and deficiencies in the pro bono phone system at 16 of the 17 facilities that used the system, it found that ICE inspection reports disclosed phone problems only at five of these facilities, and in two of these cases reported the problems only as “concerns” rather than deficiencies. Finally, the GAO also reviewed the monthly performance data on the pro bono phone system that the contractor has reported to ICE for the past five years and found that 41 percent of all pro bono calls attempted through this system failed. In some months in 2006 , the failure rate for these calls was between 60 and 65 percent. Reports are needed to solve abuse The Social Medicine Portal 09 (The Social Medicine Portal: The Alternative to Corporate Health, 4/3/09, “Persistent Concerns over the Health of Immigration Detainees,” http://www.socialmedicine.org/2009/04/03/prison-health/persistent-concerns-over-thehealth-of-immigration-detainees/) Given the rapid expansion of the ICE facilities it is not surprising that health problems have arisen. Indeed the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security had issued a report in December of 2006 noting “instances of non-compliance at four of the five detention facilities, including timely initial and responsive medical care.” Among other concerns the Inspector noted that procedures did not exist for detainees to report abuse or human rights violations. Without phones, detainees have no means to access their rights Hsu, staff writer, 07 (Spencer, Washington Post, 7-13-07, http://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/node/265) The number of immigrants detained by the United States has grown from 90,000 to 283,000 over the past five years, and many were improperly barred from making even a single phone call to a lawyer, congressional investigators reported this week. Detainees' calls were completed 35 to 74 percent of the time each month between November 2005 and November 2006, according to the Government Accountability Office, Congress's audit arm. The United States uses a criminal-detention model to hold immigrants, although most are charged with administrative violations of immigration laws. The detainees are not guaranteed the protections routinely provided to U.S. citizens or criminal defendants, including access to public defenders. As a result, federal authorities have agreed to 38 nonbinding detention guidelines with the American Bar Association as a form of due process, including providing telephone access to legal counsel."Without sufficient internal control policies and procedures in place, ICE is unable to offer assurance that detainees can access legal services, file external grievances and obtain assistance from their consulates," the July 6 GAO report said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Concern about potential mistreatment has grown in Congress and among civil liberties groups as a national enforcement crackdown has sent the detention population soaring. "The importance of meaningful access to legal representation and materials for individuals in immigration detention cannot be overstated," said Karen J. Mathis, president of the American Bar Association, whose staff praised the GAO's work. "When the detention standards are not implemented properly . . . immigrants in detention are denied due process." Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 2 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 3 THUS THE PLAN: THE IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT AGENCY SHOULD ASSURE THAT DETAINEES AT IMMIGRANT DETENTION CENTERS HAVE ACCESS TO PHONES AND LEGAL COUNSEL, FREE OF CHARGE. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 3 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 4 Contention 2: Advantages Advantage 1: Racism Immigration policies are the new race battleground Calabresi, staff writer, 06 (Massimo, TIME Magazine, 5-17-06, http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1195250,00.html) On May 10, the Washington Post ran a front-page story on a new census report that said 45% of the nation's children under the age of five are racial or ethnic minorities, and that the percentage is increasing primarily because the Hispanic population is growing so rapidly. If you read those facts carefully, you'd probably find them interesting, but not necessarily sufficient to draw any sweeping conclusions about the demographic and cultural future of the country. If, however, you wanted to make a point about the dangers of illegal immigration, you might interpret the findings in your own particular way. On May 11, John Gibson of Fox News implored viewers to, "Do your duty. Make more babies... half of the kids in this country under five years old are minorities. By far the greatest number are Hispanic. You know what that means? Twenty-five years and the majority of the population is Hispanic. Why is that? Well, the Hispanics are having more kids than others. Notably the ones Hispanics call gabachos, white people, are having fewer." Gibson is, of course, wildly wrong and not just because he rounds 45% up to "half" or conflates all racial and ethnic minorities with Hispanics. The Hispanic population is growing more rapidly than the white population, but nothing like what he fears. According to a projection released last year by the Census bureau, in 2030 the Hispanic population of the U.S. will be about 20.1%. Fifty years from now, the majority of Americans will still be white and 24.4% will be Hispanic. But his comments brought to light what many Democrats contend is really beneath the fight over immigration — a hint of racism or nativism. "I have no doubt that some of those involved in the debate have their position based on fear and perhaps racism because of what's happening demographically in the country," says Ken Salazar, Democratic Senator from Colorado. A Senate Democratic leadership aide is more blunt: " A lot of the anti-immigration movement is jingoistic at best and racist at worst. There is a fear of white people being over run by darker-skinned people." Resistance is fierce in the House to any plan to legalize the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants or to create a program of millions of guest workers who would in turn be put on a path to citizenship . No one accuses House leaders of acting out of racism, but some say they are responding to constituents who are. The House leadership is in a tight spot — they need to show some progress on the issue to placate angry anti-immigrant forces in the country. But the President and Senate want guest workers and a path to citizenship as part of any deal. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 4 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 5 The current detention system is founded on racial sentiments of the "Latino" as dangerous and criminal Hernandez, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at UCLA., 08 (David, He completed his doctorate in Comparative Ethnic Studies at journals.com/lst/journal/v6/n1/full/lst20082a.html#aff1) U.C. Berkeley, Palgrave Macmillan, http://www.palgrave- That immigrant detention threatens millions of Latino families and their communities is cause for alarm and further study, especially the relationship between the detention processes and other forms of structural and cultural inequality affecting Latino citizens and noncitizens. Widespread beliefs about Latino criminality, especially as it relates to the widely bemoaned and sensationalized presence of "illegals" or undocumented immigrants, have led to the routine and popular conflation of Mexican nationals and other Latinos with "illegals." The Department of Homeland Security estimates that Mexicans represent 57% of undocumented immigration and that Latinos account for roughly three-fourths of current and new undocumented immigrants (Hoefer et al., 2006). These figures, although significant, contribute to the widespread criminalization of Latinos, while simultaneously obscuring the fact that roughly half of each year's cohort of new undocumented immigrants enter by legal means and have instead allowed their legal entry status to lapse, and that there are undocumented immigrants from a variety of nations residing in the US. The vast majority of government efforts to halt undocumented immigration, however, are targeted at Mexican and Latino communities at the US–Mexico border. As a result, Mexicans have euphemistically represented, indeed epitomized, "the illegal," dominating deportation and detention categories for many decades (De Genova, 2004, 171). The detention authority plays a significant role in criminalizing Latino noncitizens, duplicating the punishment of the criminal justice system. Detention accentuates not simply the border separating who remains in the US and who is deported, but the real weight of such processes is felt by the creation of a social class inside the US, but outside its legal protections. The appropriate measure of detention, then, is in the nearly 30 million noncitizens – the largest among them Latino immigrants and legal permanent residents – who are subject to the threat of detention and deportation. According to Nicholas De Genova (2004, 161), "Deportability is decisive in the legal production of Mexican/migrant 'illegality' and the militarized policing of the US-Mexico border, however, only insofar as some are deported in order that most may ultimately remain (un-deported) – as workers, whose particular migrant status has been rendered 'illegal.'" The structural inequalities created by immigrant detention extend beyond the detainees themselves, or even undocumented migrants, and include all noncitizens, their millions of US-born and naturalized children and family members, and their communities. Moreover, the actors criminalizing noncitizens and detainees are not simply the President and Attorney General, or Congress and the Judiciary. State apparatuses, enforcing detention, function through smaller bureaucrats, border patrol agents, local police, detention center guards, and border vigilantes like the Minutemen, who, along with private prisons and detention centers, exemplify a private version of immigration control. Racial justice is a moral imperative. Human dignity demands that we treat people as ends in themselves, never as a means Lauren, Regents Professor, 96 (Paul Gordon, , University of Montana, Power and Prejudice, 1996, p. 321) Yet despite these many problems and centuries of wrestling to find solutions, normative questions about the ought rather than simply the is of global politics and diplomacy remain before us. Indeed, such questions are particularly pressing and acute in the area of racial discrimination. Race was the subject that placed the whole issue of human rights upon the international agenda in the first place, and for a vast majority in the world race remains the most critical and universal test of how people deal with other people on the basis of an ethical standard. The principle of racial equality itself flows from a basic ethical concept, that of human dignity which implies in its simples terms that every human being is an end in himself or herself, not a mere means to an end, and should be treated as such. Thus, it is only natural for people to ask whether the conduct of politics and diplomacy supports or opposes racial discrimination, which is the very negation of the principle of equality. This should not be at all surprising, for as scholar Stanley Hoffman writes in his penetrating book Duties Beyond Borders: On the Limits and Possibilities of Ethical International Politics, :“We must remember that states are led by human beings whose actions affect human beings with and outside: considerations of good and evil, right or wrong, are therefore both inevitable and legitimate.” Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 5 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 6 Advantage 2: Human Rights Human rights abuses against immigrants the key issue for US-Mexico relations and international human rights leadership Lovato 09 (Roberto Lovato, a New York-based contributing Associate Editor with New America Media and a frequent contributor to The Nation Magazine. He's also written for the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Der Spiegel, Utne Magazine, La Opinion, and other national and international media outlets. He has also appeared as a source and commentator on English and Spanish language network news shows on Univision, CNN, PBS and other programs and made a recent appearance on Bill Moyers Journal. Lovato was the former Executive Director of CARECEN, which was the largest immigrant rights organization in the country, 2/26/09, “U.S. Immigration Policies Bring Global Shame on Us”, http://ofamerica.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/us-immigration-policies-bring-globalshame-on-us/) The proliferation of stories in international media and in global forums about the Guantanamo-like problems in the country’s immigrant detention system- death, abuse and neglect at the hands of detention facility guards; prolonged and indefinite detention of immigrants (including children and families) denied habeas corpus and other fundamental rights; filthy, overcrowded and extremely unhealthy facilities; denial of basic health services – are again tarnishing the U.S. image abroad, according to several experts. As a result, reports from Arizona and immigrant detention facilities have created a unique problem: they are making it increasingly difficult for Obama to persuade the planet’s people that the United States is ready claim exceptional leadership on human rights in a soon-to-be-postGuantanamo world. Consider the case of Mexico. Just last week, following news reports from Arizona, the Mexican government, which is traditionally silent or very tepid in its criticism of U.S. immigration and other policies, issued a statement in which it “energetically protested the undignified way in which the Mexicans were transferred to ‘Tent City’” in Maricopa County. David Brooks, U.S correspondent for Mexico’s La Jornada newspaper, believes that immigrant detention stories hit Mexicans closer to home because those reportedly being abused in detention are not from a far off country; they are family, friends, neighbors and fellow citizens. In the same way that Guantanamo erased the idea of U.S. leadership in human rights in the Bush era, says Brooks, who was born in Mexico, practices in immigrant detention facilities like those reported by global media in Maricopa County may begin to do so in the Obama era if something does not change . “Mexicans have never seen the U.S. as a great model for promotion of human rights. But with Obama we take him at his word. We’re expecting some change,” said Brooks. “But that will not last long if we see him continuing Bush’s [immigration] policies: raids, increasing detention, deportation. Regardless of his excuse, he will quickly become mas de lo mismo (more of the same) in terms of the experience down south.” If uncontested, the expression of such sentiments far beyond Mexico and Mexican immigrants could lead to the kind of American exceptionalism Obama doesn’t want. In a March 2008 report, Jorge Bustamante, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights of Migrants, concluded that “the United States has failed to adhere to its international obligations to make the human rights of the 37.5 million migrants living in the country a national priority, using a comprehensive and coordinated national policy based on clear international obligations.” Asked how his report was received in different countries, Bustamante said, “The non-governmental organizations have really responded. In the United States and outside the United States- in Mexico, in Guatemala, in Indonesia and other countries- NGO’s are using my report to frame their concerns and demands in their own countries- and to raise criticism about the United States.” For her part, Alison Parker, deputy director of the U.S. program of Human Rights Watch, fears a global government “race to the bottom” around immigrant detention policies. “My concern is that as the rest of world sees the United States practices, we increase the risk that this will give the green light to other governments to be just as abusive or more abusive as the United States.” If there is a positive note to be heard in the growing global chorus of critique of and concern about U.S immigration policy, it is to be found among those human rights activists and groups doing what W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson and other civil rights activists did in previous eras: bring their issues to the global stage. Government documents from the civil rights era, documents that were released just a few years ago, illustrate how members of the Kennedy and Johnson State departments and even Kennedy and Johnson themselves were acutely aware of and Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 6 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 7 sensitive to how denunciations in global forums of racial discrimination in United States had a devastating impact on the U.S. prestige abroad. Such a situation around the rights of migrants today, says Oscar Chacon of the National Alliance of Latin American and Caribbean Communities, a Chicago-based global NGO run by and for immigrants, creates an opportunity out of the globalization of the images of both Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Barack Obama. “The world will be able to see him as the rogue sheriff that he is” said Chacon, who was in Mexico City attending a conference on immigration at which U.S. detention practices were criticized. “And it will be up to the Obama Administration to show the world that Arpaio is not a symbol of the rest of the country when it comes to immigration.” Increasing Human Rights Leadership prevents extinction Copeland, law professor, 99 (Rhonda, NYU, New York City Law Review, 1999, p. 71-2) The indivisible human rights framework survived the Cold War despite U.S. machinations to truncate it in the international arena. The framework is there to shatter the myth of the superiority. Indeed, in the face of systemic inequality and crushing poverty, violence by official and private actors, globalization of the market economy, and military and environmental depredation, the human rights framework is gaining new force and new dimensions. It is being broadened today by the movements of people in different parts of the world, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere and significantly of women, who understand the protection of human rights as a matter of individual and collective human survival and betterment. Also emerging is a notion of third-generation rights, encompassing collective rights that cannot be solved on a state-by-state basis and that call for new mechanisms of accountability, particularly affecting Northern countries. The emerging rights include human-centered sustainable development, environmental protection, peace, and security. Given the poverty and inequality in the United States as well as our role in the world, it is imperative that we bring the human rights framework to bear on both domestic and foreign policy. American abuses make China unwilling to curtail human rights abuses American Progress 08 (4-14-08 http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/04/rights_conference.html) U.S. credibility as a human rights champion has plummeted in recent years, thanks to Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and the war in Iraq. This has limited the United States’s ability to promote human rights policy. Panelist and former U.S. Ambassador to China James Sasser said the Chinese view the U.S. human rights record as hypocritical. The first thing a new administration should do, said former U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic John Shattuck, is get its own human rights house in order. This would dissolve the paradox of America’s unparalleled economic and military power coupled with its plummeting legitimacy and global reputation. Ambassador Sasser reflected upon a notable lack of human rights dialogue and policies in Sino-American relations during his tenure in China. Instead, economic and security interests guided discussions and policies, then as now. But China’s elaborate dedication to the 2008 Olympics shows its desire for respect as a player on the world stage. This is an opportunity for the United States to reintroduce human rights to the dialogue, but we should do so in partnership with the European Union and other allies who share our values. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 7 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 8 Chinese reform of human rights violations would be modeled globally and solves US-Sino relations Schluz, 09 (William, Senior Fellow in human rights policy at the Center for American, Center for American Progress, served as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA from 1994 to 2006, "Strategic Persistence: How the United States Can Help Improve Human Rights in China", January 2009, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/01/pdf/china_human_rights.pdf) Yet the state of human rights in China is critically important both in terms of international human rights norms and American interests. To be sure, there are no mass killings going on in China, as there are in Darfur, and while Beijing is highly repressive, its authoritarian leaders are more open to outside influence than the generals who rule in Myanmar. But measured by the sheer numbers of people being affected by abuse of their rights, China may be the premier violator of civil and political rights in the world. Furthermore, because of China’s very size and reach, its posture toward human rights has a profound influence on how human rights norms and practices are perceived at the United Nations, in developing countries where China is expanding its engagement at a rapid rate,10 and throughout Asia. Human rights standards (and the legal regimens that codify them) have evolved over the last two centuries; what had been accepted as normative, such as slavery, is regarded today as abhorrent and a violation of international law. But those standards can devolve as well, especially if powerful nations seek regressive changes or instigate regressive norms—casting the entire human rights regimen into jeopardy. Conversely, significant improvement in China’s human rights policies would reverberate widely around the world, removing a model of authoritarianism for others to mimic or hide behind. Improving China’s human rights record will pay enormous dividends for the United States as well. Americans have been far too easily swayed by the notion that China’s economic advances have by necessity come at the expense of a sacrifice of civil and political rights. Businesses especially have been persuaded that economic growth will be sufficient to usher in political change…eventually.11 And many Americans are wary of the security issues implicated in competition with China, asking whether we should alienate such an important emerging power over issues like democracy or religious freedom. But states that allow themselves to be held to account by their own citizens and respect the rule of law tend to be more reliable partners in their relations with other states. Any authoritarian country is inherently brittle, caught up in needless preoccupation with controlling its own population and warding off dissent. That makes for suspicion and resentment of outsiders. The absence of a viable opposition or fully independent press makes a ruling party less wary of abrogating international agreements or alienating other nations for no good reason. A fickle approach to the rule of law jeopardizes everything from business contracts for American corporations to enforcement of trade and environmental agreements. Cheap Chinese labor undercuts American jobs; the higher the labor standards in a country, the slower the U.S. trade deficit grows.12 Moreover, if we accept the commonly agreed proposition that democracies rarely, if ever, launch wars against other democracies, then a more democratic China is likely to be a less belligerent China—at least in the long run. Finally, were China to place a higher value on human rights, it might well be willing to bear a greater portion of the burden for such things as U.N. human rights mechanisms and the resolution of international crises stemming from injustice. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 8 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 9 Low US-China relations cause war Friedberg, Professor of Politics and International Affairs, Princeton University, 05 (Aaron L, 2005, “The Future of U.S.-China Relations : Is Conflict Inevitable?”, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/international_security/v030/30.2friedberg.html (Victor) Recent events may prove to be little more than a passing chill. Whatever their ultimate significance, however, these developments raise fundamental questions about the future direction and underlying determinants of U.S.-China relations. What is likely to be the character of the relationship between the United States and the PRC over the next two or three decades? Will it be marked by convergence toward deepening cooperation, stability, and peace or by deterioration, leading to increasingly open competition, and perhaps even war? The answers to these questions are of enormous importance. If tensions between the two Pacific powers worsen, the whole of Eastern Eurasia could become divided in a new cold war, and the prospects for confrontation and conflict would seem certain to rise. On the other hand, a deepening U.S.-China entente could bring with it increased possibilities for sustained worldwide economic growth, the peaceful resolution of outstanding regional disputes, and the successful management of pressing global problems, including terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Whether for good or ill, the most significant bilateral international relationship over the course of the next several decades is likely to be that between the United States and the PRC. US-Sino war causes extinction The Straits Times 6/25/2000 THE high-intensity scenario postulates a cross-strait war escalating into a full-scale war between the US and China. If Washington were to conclude that splitting China would better serve its national interests, then a full-scale war becomes unavoidable. Conflict on such a scale would embroil other countries far and near and -- horror of horrors -- raise the possibility of a nuclear war.Beijing has already told the US and Japan privately that it considers any country providing bases and logistics support to any US forces attacking China as belligerent parties open to its retaliation. In the region, this means South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and, to a lesser extent, Singapore. If China were to retaliate, east Asia will be set on fire. And the conflagration may not end there as opportunistic powers elsewhere may try to overturn the existing world order. With the US distracted, Russia may seek to redefine Europe's political landscape. The balance of power in the Middle East may be similarly upset by the likes of Iraq. In south Asia, hostilities between India and Pakistan, each armed with its own nuclear arsenal, could enter a new and dangerous phase. Will a full-scale Sino-US war lead to a nuclear war? According to General Matthew Ridgeway, commander of the US Eighth Army which fought against the Chinese in the Korean War, the US had at the time thought of using nuclear weapons against China to save the US from military defeat. In his book The Korean War, a personal account of the military and political aspects of the conflict and its implications on future US foreign policy, Gen Ridgeway said that US was confronted with two choices in Korea -- truce or a broadened war, which could have led to the use of nuclear weapons. If the US had to resort to nuclear weaponry to defeat China long before the latter acquired a similar capability, there is little hope of winning a war against China 50 years later, short of using nuclear weapons. The US estimates that China possesses about 20 nuclear warheads that can destroy major American cities. Beijing also seems prepared to go for the nuclear option. A Chinese military officer disclosed recently that Beijing was considering a review of its "non first use" principle regarding nuclear weapons. Major-General Pan Zhangqiang, president of the military-funded Institute for Strategic Studies, told a gathering at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington that although the government still abided by that principle, there were strong pressures from the military to drop it. He said military leaders considered the use of nuclear weapons mandatory if the country risked dismemberment as a result of foreign intervention. Gen Ridgeway said that should that come to pass, we would see the destruction of civilisation. There would be no victors in such a war. While the prospect of a nuclear Armaggedon over Taiwan might seem inconceivable, it cannot be ruled out entirely, for China puts sovereignty above everything else. Gen Ridgeway recalled that the biggest mistake the US made during the Korean War was to assess Chinese actions according to the American way of thinking. "Just when everyone believed that no sensible commander would march south of the Yalu, the Chinese troops suddenly appeared," he recalled. (The Yalu is the river which borders China and North Korea, and the crossing of the river marked China's entry into the war against the Americans). Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 9 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 10 Advantage 3: US-Mexico Relations Legal services for immigrants are crucial for accessing relations with Mexico Starr, adjunct fellow specializing in Mexico at the Pacific Council on International Policy, 09 (Pamela K., “Mexico and the United States: A Window of Opportunity?”, Pacific Council on International Policy, April http://www.pacificcouncil.org/pdfs/Mexico_and_the_United_States.pdf) Mexican sentiment toward the United States matters. If Mexicans mistrust the United States, question what 2009, our country stands for, and feel treated like a second-class ally, it will be difficult for Washington to foster a cooperative relationship that extends beyond drugs and trade. Further, without a cooperative relationship with its nearest Latin American neighbor it will be difficult for the United States to improve relations with the rest of the region. And as demonstrated by the expansion of Chinese investment, Russian military sales and naval maneuvers, Iranian diplomatic visits, and Hugo Chávez’ s regional sway, U.S. influence in the Latin American region can no longer be taken for granted. The election of a new U.S. president dedicated to increased reliance on multilateralism, support for human rights and democracy, and listening to the concerns of our allies, and devoted to increasing the role of diplomacy in American foreign policy is a key component of the previously noted window of opportunity for U.S.-Mexico relations. These promised features of an Obama foreign policy have created a well of enthusiasm and hope in Mexico for the future of Mexico’s relations with the United States. In this context, small symbolic acts can have an outsized positive impact on the bilateral relationship. These could include the following: • Follow through on the Obama administration’s early promises of partnership and “co- responsibility” for shared policy challenges. Mexico is accustomed to hearing new administrations in Washington point to a natural partnership with Mexico and call for renewed attention to bilateral concerns only to redirect their attention when seemingly more pressing international concerns arise. While the Mexican reaction to Secretary Clinton’s trip was strikingly positive, it was tempered by a “wait-and-see” attitude informed by a long history of unfulfilled promises emanating from the north. Giving the pressing nature of many of our bilateral challenges, the United States cannot afford to turn away from Mexico once again. • Actively work to redefine Mexico – in the minds of policy makers and of U.S. citizens – as an opportunity rather than a problem. As long as Americans think of Mexico as mostly a source of problems for the United States, mustering congressional support for policies that advance U.S. national interests by “helping Mexico” will remain a hard sell. This redefinition should include an expansion of cultural and educational exchanges between the two countries, enlisting celebrities as informal diplomats, and promoting contact and communication among non-governmental actors on both sides of the border. Potentially most important, Washington must carefully guard its rhetoric about Mexico to avoid disparaging statements that ultimately do harm to U.S. national interests. • Sustain the initial flurry of meetings among high-level government officials. Follow up meetings motivated by the security situation in Mexico with regular consultations between U.S. administration officials and their Mexican counterparts on the full spectrum of bilateral issues in which conversation reflects an attitude of partnership, bilateral cooperation, the genuine exchange of ideas and concerns, and the desire to find shared solutions to common problems. As useful as North American trilateral meetings are, U.S. officials should not rely on them as a substitute for direct exchanges with leaders in Mexico City • End indiscriminate raids on U.S. workplaces suspected of hiring illegal immigrants. The resources devoted to these operations could be more efficiently employed if directed against employers suspected of multiple violations of law. Furthermore, ceasing indiscriminate raids would minimize the powerfully negative image of the United States created by a policy that separates parents from their children and treats honest workers like felons. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 10 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 11 Relations with Mexico is key to economy Starr, adjunct fellow specializing in Mexico at the Pacific Council on International Policy, 09 (Pamela K., “Mexico and the United States: A Window of Opportunity?”, Pacific Council http://www.pacificcouncil.org/pdfs/Mexico_and_the_United_States.pdf) on International Policy, April 2009, The best way for the United States to help Mexico promote recovery and enhance economic competitiveness in the near term is to put its own economic house in order without succumbing to the evident protectionist impulse in Congress. A U.S. recovery would re-establish the export market and sources of investment capital that are key to the health and innovative capacity of the Mexican economy. A successful effort to save U.S. automakers would also ensure the survival of their plants in Mexico, one of the largest and most modern and competitive segments of the Mexican manufacturing sector. And President Obama’s promised infrastructure investment program, in conjunction with a parallel program already underway in Mexico, could easily include projects to improve the aging and inadequate transportation infrastructure along the border. This bottleneck is responsible for extensive delays in cross-border trade that continue to undermine North American economic competitiveness. The United States should also consider increasing and making semi-permanent the $30 billion currency swap agreement between the country’s central banks to provide an even firmer footing for the Mexican peso during the current crisis. Most important, Mr. Obama must resist pressure to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement in a manner that uses labor and environmental provisions as cover for protectionist trade policies. As a clear sign of his willingness to do so, he should press Congress to finally honor the U.S. commitment under NAFTA to allow Mexican trucks to deliver their cargo beyond the border. Beyond the current economic crisis, the United States can best promote regional economic competitiveness in three ways. First, it should remain patient through what is destined to be a slow process of economic reform and policy adjustment in Mexico. As Mexico struggles to implement these changes, “advice” coming from Washington would be seen as unwarranted interference in Mexican domestic affairs and thus be counterproductive. Second, President Obama’s stated desire to augment significantly the U.S. budget for economic aid should include an increase in targeted assistance programs for Mexico. This effort should focus on two of the primary obstacles to growth in the Mexican economy – an inadequately educated workforce and insufficient infrastructure. It could do this by increasing current U.S. programs to train rural teachers, provide student scholarships, and determine the feasibility of large infrastructure projects, and by focusing overall on efforts that complement private sector investment and Mexican government programs. Economic collapse leads to global nuclear war Mead, 09 (Walter Russell, the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, “Only Makes You Stronger”, The New Republic, February 4, 2009) History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad economic times can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States may not, yet, decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 11 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 12 Extensions Congressional reports find repeated due process violations and abuse in the centers. Attorney and phone access would solve National Immigration Forum, congressional investigational body, 09 (6-9-09, "Summaries of Reports on Immigration Detention", http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/DetentionReportsSummaries2007-2009.pdf) Findings: violations of legal due process, coercion to sign papers, abuse by personnel (including strip search incidents, physical abuse, and unreasonable transfers), widespread shortcomings in medical care (including a detainee who died in detention of heart failure), inadequate health care, insufficient food and widespread food poisoning, inadequate access to primary-language information, overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions, and of visitation rights. Recommendations: synching immigration policy to international human rights standards, only detaining immigrants when there is a security or flight risk, using detention alternatives and parole (especially for refugees), providing better attorney access, make available multilingual printed materials for detainees, allow more privacy, improve food quality and quantity for detainees, allow for better medical and mental health care, improve visitation rights and telephone access, make grievances processes safer and more efficient, improve leisure and educational activities. Mexican-American relations are key – multiple reasons Starr, adjunct fellow specializing in Mexico at the Pacific Council on International Policy, 09 (Pamela K., “Mexico and the United States: A Window of Opportunity?”, Pacific Council on International Policy, April 2009, http://www.pacificcouncil.org/pdfs/Mexico_and_the_United_States.pdf) The answer to these questions is of utmost importance to the United States. With a profound economic crisis dominating the agenda of the new Obama administration and two wars, China’s rise, and growing Russian belligerence demanding foreign policy attention, Mexico’s significance to the United States was largely overlooked during the 2008 presidential campaign. Yet no other country has more effect on the daily lives of Americans, a fact that extends well beyond the headline-grabbing problems associated with the drug trade and undocumented immigrants. Mexico has an impact on our ability to protect public health, provide environmental protection, and ensure energy security. It affects prices, salaries, and job creation in the U.S. economy, and it is a key driver of the evident demographic shift in the U.S. population. Mexico’s influence across this wide range of issues can be positive as well as negative, creating real opportunities as well as challenges not just for policymakers in Washington but also for those in state capitals and local communities throughout the nation. Mexico also matters to the United States as a reliable regional partner, albeit a prickly one at times. It shares, for example, the U.S. interest in limiting the reach of Venezuelan economic and political influence in the Americas. And good U.S. relations with the rest of Latin America begin, to a significant degree, with Mexico. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 12 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 13 The plan would be critical in securing U.S. interests dealing with Mexico Starr, adjunct fellow specializing in Mexico at the Pacific Council on International Policy, 09 (Pamela K., “Mexico and the United States: A Window of Opportunity?”, Pacific Council on International Policy, April 2009, http://www.pacificcouncil.org/pdfs/Mexico_and_the_United_States.pdf) Helping Mexico promote job creation and economic competitiveness, as well as combat organized crime, is clearly in the national interest of the United States. Indeed, playing a positive, good neighborly role would not require a significant policy revision or vast new investments of time and money in the near term. A unique window of opportunity has opened in the bilateral relationship created by a new attitude toward foreign relations in Washington, a strikingly proactive Mexican government interested in collaborating with the United States on a wide range of issues, and a Mexican population optimistic about the changes Barack Obama can bring to the bilateral relationship. Secretary of State Clinton’s remarkably successful visit to Mexico in March 2009 wedged open that window. It left Mexicans hopeful for a bilateral relationship based on partnership and a belief in shared responsibility for resolving common challenges – from global competitiveness and security to environmental protection and public health. In this setting, simple, pragmatic policy shifts could go a very long way toward promoting North American prosperity, security, and cooperation. Relations critical to energy cooperation Starr, adjunct fellow specializing in Mexico at the Pacific Council on International Policy, 09 (Pamela K., “Mexico and the United States: A Window of Opportunity?”, Pacific Council on International Policy, April 2009, http://www.pacificcouncil.org/pdfs/Mexico_and_the_United_States.pdf) Third, the United States should take advantage of an opportunity for bilateral energy cooperation created by a provision in Mexico’s recently approved petroleum reform legislation. Persistent Mexican suspicions that American calls for increased regional energy cooperation are cover for an oil grab have crippled prior efforts to build an effective energy partnership. The new petroleum law, however, includes a provision that requires the Mexican government to move aggressively into the development of alternative sources of energy production. This opens the door for the first time in decades to building a positive cross-border discussion on energy issues precisely because the discussion need not focus on petroleum. Secretary Clinton’s visit to an alternative energy plant as part of her Mexico trip provided a symbolic down payment for this kind of energy cooperation. As part of the Obama administration’s promised effort to invest heavily in alternative energy, therefore, the United States should propose a North American committee to develop a regional strategy for alternative energy development. Congressional reports find repeated due process violations and abuse in the centers. Attorney and phone access would solve National Immigration Forum, congressional investigational body, 09 (6-9-09, "Summaries of Reports on Immigration Detention", http://www.immigrationforum.org/images/uploads/DetentionReportsSummaries2007-2009.pdf) Findings: violations of legal due process, coercion to sign papers, abuse by personnel (including strip search incidents, physical abuse, and unreasonable transfers), widespread shortcomings in medical care (including a detainee who died in detention of heart failure), inadequate health care, insufficient food and widespread food poisoning, inadequate access to primary-language information, overcrowded and unsanitary living conditions, and of visitation rights. Recommendations: synching immigration policy to international human rights standards, only detaining immigrants when there is a security or flight risk, using detention alternatives and parole (especially for refugees), providing better attorney access, make available multilingual printed materials for detainees, allow more privacy, improve food quality and quantity for detainees, allow for better medical and mental health care, improve visitation rights and telephone access, make grievances processes safer and more efficient, improve leisure and educational activities. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 13 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 14 Mexican-American relations are key – multiple reasons Starr, adjunct fellow specializing in Mexico at the Pacific Council on International Policy, 09 (Pamela K., “Mexico and the United States: A Window of Opportunity?”, Pacific Council on International Policy, April 2009, http://www.pacificcouncil.org/pdfs/Mexico_and_the_United_States.pdf) The answer to these questions is of utmost importance to the United States. With a profound economic crisis dominating the agenda of the new Obama administration and two wars, China’s rise, and growing Russian belligerence demanding foreign policy attention, Mexico’s significance to the United States was largely overlooked during the 2008 presidential campaign. Yet no other country has more effect on the daily lives of Americans, a fact that extends well beyond the headline-grabbing problems associated with the drug trade and undocumented immigrants. Mexico has an impact on our ability to protect public health, provide environmental protection, and ensure energy security. It affects prices, salaries, and job creation in the U.S. economy, and it is a key driver of the evident demographic shift in the U.S. population. Mexico’s influence across this wide range of issues can be positive as well as negative, creating real opportunities as well as challenges not just for policymakers in Washington but also for those in state capitals and local communities throughout the nation. Mexico also matters to the United States as a reliable regional partner, albeit a prickly one at times. It shares, for example, the U.S. interest in limiting the reach of Venezuelan economic and political influence in the Americas. And good U.S. relations with the rest of Latin America begin, to a significant degree, with Mexico. Detainees in the status quo can’t access legal counsel despite their 5th and 6th Amendment rights. National Immigrant Justice Center 07 (National Immigrant Justice Center, 4/16/07, “Access to Council and Due Process for Detained Immigrants,” http://docs.google.com/ gview?a=v&q=cache%3AOo7KmiAFFuYJ%3Awww.immigrantjustice.org%2Fcomponent%2Foption%2Ccom_docman%2FItemid% 2C0%2Ftask%2Cdoc_download%2Fgid%2C36%2F+%22Immigration+and+customs+enforcement%22+prisons+phones+contact+det ainees+%22legal+aid%22&hl=en&gl=us&pli=1) Immigrants facing deportation are often unable to access counsel, placing them at great risk because immigration laws are among the most complex and confusing in the American legal system. Without representation, immigrants are subject to proceedings that are fundamentally unfair. Consequently, without counsel, they are deprived of due process. Although the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that all individuals subject to criminal proceedings, regardless of their citizenship status, are entitled to the appointment of counsel, this mandate does not extend to immigrants facing deportation. Deportation proceedings are considered non-criminal in nature, despite the fact that individuals facing deportation may be deprived of their physical liberty, separated from their family and loved ones, and ultimately returned to countries where the threat of torture and even death remains a real possibility. The spirit of fundamental fairness is betrayed when such individuals are denied the right to appointed counsel and when their access to lawyers is unduly limited. Under the current system in the United States, most individuals facing removal lack legal representation. Even if the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution does not apply, the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution does apply. Under the Fifth Amendment, immigrants should have access to appointed counsel. Lack of appointed counsel is particularly detrimental to detained individuals. As discussed below, detainees face significant hurdles in accessing and securing counsel. Statistics from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) reveal that most persons in removal proceedings appear without counsel, or pro se, and that the lack of counsel has a pronounced, negative impact on case outcomes. 2 This data demonstrates that individuals who are unable to secure representation often cannot obtain the relief available to them under Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 14 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 15 existing domestic and international law. According to EOIR statistics, 65 percent of individuals facing removal from the United States in the year 2005 did so without representation. In the same year, 31 percent of appeals to the Board of Immigration Appeals were filed pro se. 3 In light of the significant personal interests at stake and the complexity of the law, access to counsel is critical to ensure that individuals in removal proceedings are able to exercise their due process rights and seek relief for which they may be eligible. As discussed below, several specific issues relating to access to counsel and due process arise when an immigrant is placed in removal proceedings. The most egregious due process violations generally occur when an individual is detained. Therefore, this briefing paper will focus on access to counsel and due process protections in the context of immigration detention. The document provides an overview of the right to counsel for individuals in removal proceedings. It also includes a description of the circumstances faced by detained immigrants and the hurdles they must overcome in accessing legal counsel. Finally, the document contains recommendations to ensure that non-citizens are allowed to exercise their right to counsel. Detainees can’t obtain legal aid because they can’t access phones. National Immigrant Justice Center 07 (National Immigrant Justice Center, 4/16/07, “Access to Council and Due Process for Detained Immigrants,” http://docs.google.com/ gview?a=v&q=cache%3AOo7KmiAFFuYJ%3Awww.immigrantjustice.org%2Fcomponent%2Foption%2Ccom_docman%2FItemid% 2C0%2Ftask%2Cdoc_download%2Fgid%2C36%2F+%22Immigration+and+customs+enforcement%22+prisons+phones+contact+det ainees+%22legal+aid%22&hl=en&gl=us&pli=1) On January 16, 2007, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released a report on the treatment of immigrants held in detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 18 Reviewing five detention facilities around the nation, investigators documented systemic failures to implement the ICE detention standards. ICE’s detention standards were developed in November 2000 by the then-Immigration and Naturalization Service to ensure the “safe, secure, and humane treatment of individuals.” 19 Each of the facilities visited by the OIG was noncompliant in one or more ways. The OIG report detailed practices that prevented detainees from communicating with their attorneys. OIG described one example in which the jail facility “took at least 16 business days to grant a detainee’s request to call an attorney as opposed to the 24 hour time limit required by the [detention] standard.” According to the ICE standards, immigrant detainees are to be provided with private telephones and phone numbers to contact attorneys. When OIG investigators tested the phones and phone numbers provided by one of the ICE facilities, they were unable to get through to any of the pro bono legal representation phone numbers, and very few of the consulate numbers. Additionally, phones are routinely out of service, and privacy is frequently limited by the constant presence of facility guards, even during calls regarding confidential legal matters. Lawyers want to help detainees but are denied access to the facilities. National Immigrant Justice Center 07 (National Immigrant Justice Center, 4/16/07, “Access to Council and Due Process for Detained Immigrants,” http://docs.google.com/ gview?a=v&q=cache%3AOo7KmiAFFuYJ%3Awww.immigrantjustice.org%2Fcomponent%2Foption%2Ccom_docman%2FItemid% Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 15 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 16 2C0%2Ftask%2Cdoc_download%2Fgid%2C36%2F+%22Immigration+and+customs+enforcement%22+prisons+phones+contact+det ainees+%22legal+aid%22&hl=en&gl=us&pli=1) On December 12, 2006, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted a nationwide raid against employees of six meatpacking plants owned by Swift & Company. Many of the immigrants who were detained following these raids were denied the opportunity to receive basic information on their legal rights. Despite the fact that attorneys sought access to the detainees to offer them legal services, those requests were either ignored or denied by ICE. A large number of immigrants from the Swift plants in Grand Island, Nebraska, Marshalltown, Iowa, and Worthington, Minnesota were transferred to a National Guard facility, called Camp Dodge, in the Des Moines area. Despite repeated attempts by legal service providers to contact the detainees and provide legal orientation programs for them, ICE denied the attorneys access to the facility until many detainees had already been transferred again to detention facilities in other states. Such responses contravene the ICE Detention Standards, which require ICE to permit authorized persons to offer legal orientation programs. Legal counsel is vital in removal proceedings. National Immigrant Justice Center 07 (National Immigrant Justice Center, 4/16/07, “Access to Council and Due Process for Detained Immigrants,” http://docs.google.com/ gview?a=v&q=cache%3AOo7KmiAFFuYJ%3Awww.immigrantjustice.org%2Fcomponent%2Foption%2Ccom_docman%2FItemid% 2C0%2Ftask%2Cdoc_download%2Fgid%2C36%2F+%22Immigration+and+customs+enforcement%22+prisons+phones+contact+det ainees+%22legal+aid%22&hl=en&gl=us&pli=1) Indigent non-citizens detained in the custody of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and placed into removal proceedings, should have the right to appointed counsel. Removal proceedings are legally complex, adversarial in nature, and can result in consequences that have been found by this nation’s highest Court to be severe and harsh, including “the loss of property and life; or of all that makes life worth living.” 28 The Right to counsel is a due process right that is fundamental to insuring fairness and justice in proceedings. To ensure compliance with domestic and international law, court appointed counsel should be available to detained immigrants. The need for appointed counsel for indigent non-citizens in removal proceedings is critical, especially given the current political environment, which favors vigorous enforcement of laws authorizing detention and deportation. In addition to increased use of law enforcement tactics, and the criminal prosecution of immigration violations, there is a significant growth in the number of detainees and in federal or ICE-contracted detention bed space. In 2006, the American Bar Association, the largest national voice of the legal community, publicly expressed its support of and recommendation for the due process right to counsel for all persons in removal proceedings. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 16 Immigration Detention AFF Dartmouth 2K9 17 Phones allow detainees to contact legal counsel and solve the plan. National Immigrant Justice Center 07 (National Immigrant Justice Center, 4/16/07, “Access to Council and Due Process for Detained Immigrants,” http://docs.google.com/ gview?a=v&q=cache%3AOo7KmiAFFuYJ%3Awww.immigrantjustice.org%2Fcomponent%2Foption%2Ccom_docman%2FItemid% 2C0%2Ftask%2Cdoc_download%2Fgid%2C36%2F+%22Immigration+and+customs+enforcement%22+prisons+phones+contact+det ainees+%22legal+aid%22&hl=en&gl=us&pli=1) The Department of Homeland Security should promulgate the detention the detention standards into regulations. As noted above, the ICE detention standards purport to establish protections for immigrants in detention, requiring access to counsel, working telephones, health care and other basic rights. The ICE detention standards are useful benchmarks, but because they are not codified into regulations, they are not enforceable in law. Congress should enact legislation requiring the agency to codify the current regulations. Current detainee abuse investigation is extremely limited because the lack of information. OIG 06 (Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Defense, 8/25/06, “Review of DoD-Directed Investigations of Detainee Abuse,” http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/dod/abuse.pdf) We believe that allegations of detainee abuse were not consistently investigated or managed in an effective, systematic, and timely manner. Commanders usually exemplify a strong tendency to limit information sharing during ongoing investigations. For example, the need to protect evidence and privacy in criminal cases may discourage Service investigative organizations from readily sharing case information, particularly during open cases and investigations or other high profile inquiries. The need to protect and the need to communicate are at odds with each other. For example, information developed by the Inspector General tends to stay in a restricted Inspector General channel, while private medical information remains within medical channels. Although this process works well for investigations in which one office has primary jurisdiction, such stove-piping otherwise disrupts and impedes a commander’s oversight ability and prevents information from reaching the commander. As a result, decision makers often do not have the necessary information to make effective and informed decisions. Last printed 3/23/2016 9:16:00 AM 17