Detained and Deprived of Rights

Children in the Custody of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service

In this report, Human Rights Watch charges the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) with violating the rights of unaccompanied children in its custody. The report finds that roughly one-third of detained children are held in punitive, jail-like detention centers, even though most children in INS custody are being detained for administrative reasons while their case is pending, not as a punishment for criminal behavior.