WALLED IN: Immigration Detentions Have Increased Dramatically Under Trump.

• Author: Goodman, James

Saikou Touray learned the hard way how tough it is for people from other countries fleeing danger in the age of Donald Trump.

In December 2016, the twenty-nine-year-old from the Gambia made it to the Texas border with Mexico, where he sought asylum. He ended up in the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in the town of Batavia in upstate New York. He was confined for about nine months.

Although Touray passed his initial screening that showed he had a "credible fear" of being harmed if deported, he was on his own when it came to getting out. "I was not told anything about parole, nor was I given any paperwork telling me how to apply," says Touray in an affidavit that is part of a federal court filing.

Under President Donald Trump, the number of people held in immigration detention facilities is mushrooming. The total averaged 38,106 people per day for the fiscal year that ended September 30--well above the 34,376 daily average for the fiscal year before he took office. And the Department of Homeland Security has called for enlarging the nation's detention capacity to 51,379 daily, although Congress is expected to approve a lower number.

Increased immigration enforcement continues to loom high on the Trump agenda, as he pushed for a wall and enhanced border security at the outset of negotiations in January for reviving the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. And Trump has been ending the Temporary Protected Status program, most recently for about 200,000 Salvadorans living in the United States.

Touray, in his affidavit, tells of not knowing where to turn to get out of detention--even though he could establish his identity with a copy of his Gambian passport and had a cousin to stay with in New York City.

So long as he could establish his identity and show that he was neither a flight risk nor a danger, Touray should have been allowed to be free, especially because he has serious ear problems.

In fact, a 2009 directive from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) specifically allows arriving asylum seekers who have passed the "credible fear" screening to be paroled while their cases are pending. It even has a special provision for those with serious medical conditions.

Yet Touray says his deportation officer told him he had "only a small chance" of receiving parole. His initial parole request was denied last April in a two-sentence letter--not saying why--from Thomas Brophy, then the acting director of ICE s field office in Buffalo.

Touray provided medical records about his ear problems but again ran into difficulties, because his deportation officer, who was supposed to help, wouldn't get a needed report from the detention facility's medical department, according to his affidavit.

It was not until October that Touray secured parole. He is currently staying with family members in New York City while he awaits his asylum hearing, likely this fall.

Touray's ordeal is discussed in one of the many affidavits filed in a court case that, in November, prompted U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford, in Rochester, New York, to issue a preliminary injunction that should give asylum seekers at this facility a fairer shake.

The underlying lawsuit was filed in late July by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the International Refugee Assistance Project. It was later expanded to include all arriving asylum seekers at Batavia who have passed the "credible fear" screening and have not been granted parole or have been detained...