Why Alternative Programs Don’t Eliminate the Need for Immigration Detention
By CIS on January 29, 2019
Definition
"Alternatives to Detention" (ATD) is the collective name given to a group of programs that act as substitutes to the detention of aliens who are in violation of immigration laws, and who are awaiting the outcome of removal proceedings. (See the separate briefing document for additional details about the legal and operational bases of immigration detention.)
Main Points
ATD programs have been instituted as a means of maintaining contact with, and track of, aliens who are released for lack of bed space.
ATD is still very much an experiment-in-the-making, and is available only to a select number of individuals.
ATD is, on a daily basis, cheaper than detention, but because ATD participants are placed into the "non-detained" docket of the immigration courts (as opposed to the significantly faster hearings that aliens receive on the detained docket), those savings may be wiped out over the course of two, three, or four years on the program while aliens await the docketing and conclusion of their cases.
ATD programs have evolved in sophistication and success, as a result of various critical government watchdog reports, although the fact that the programs are small and careful in their selection of candidates may lead to unrealistic expectations that they can be used for hundreds of thousands of aliens who are in proceedings, and still maintain program success rates.
Long-term data do not conclusively establish the value of the programs in actually ensuring removal from the United States of ATD participants once they have been ordered removed.
https://www.cis.org/Fact-Sheet/Why-Alternative-Programs-Dont-Eliminate-Need-Immigration-Detention
