I was recently able to view the October 18th airing of the PBS Frontline documentary, “Lost in Detention” on the state of deportation in the U.S. under the Obama administration. In a word, it’s pathetic, but worth the time to watch.

Beginning in 2008, under the Obama administration, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has taken steps to enforce immigration deportation laws already on the books, and they’ve been successful. However, no one should be cheering. The system is not working and is in desperate need of reform. Reform which is unlikely to happen.

There are a number of reasons for what many consider a failed policy. Swept up with the criminal element being deported, 1000s of non-criminal, undocumented immigrants are being held in detention without a lawyer and without due process, and worse, they are being beaten, sexually assaulted and raped.

Under current immigration laws, Congress requires ICE to deport 400,000 people each year. If the department does not make that quota, they lose their funding.

According to insiders, Secure Communities, which has been ramped up by the Obama administration, has become increasingly important to ICE because Congress requires that the agency detain and deport 400,000 illegal immigrants per year — and ICE’s funding depends on meeting that quota. Since 2008, immigration detention facilities have held an average of 30,000 detainees per day. During the Obama administration, more than 1 million people have been deported.

The problem with these numbers is that a significant amount of people are not criminals. Other than the fact that they are not legal U.S. citizens, they have committed no crimes or petty misdemeanors and are otherwise hard working and law-abiding people.

The overall numbers as presented by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tell the story.

… 55 percent of the deported immigrants — about 216,700 people — had criminal convictions (felonies or misdemeanors). Overall, the number of criminals deported has increased 89 percent since 2008.

But questions remain about what kind of criminals are being deported. ICE’s press release states that 87,547 had been convicted of either homicide, sexual offenses, drug-related crimes or driving under the influence. This is only about 40 percent of the total number of criminal deportations. But the release doesn’t indicate how many had low-level offenses on their record.

In Illinois, Obama’s home state, less than 20% of undocumented immigrants are actually hardened criminals.

‘We are talking about murderers and rapists and arsonists, the most serious, and that was very clear,’ says [Jerry] Stermer, senior adviser to Gov. Pat Quinn [D-Ill.]. ‘That’s what we heard about. That’s what we understood was going on.’

But when the governor’s office looked at ICE’s own statistics, it found that fewer than 20 percent of those deported from Illinois had been convicted of a serious crime.

Gov. Quinn and his staff weren’t the only state leaders questioning the gap between what Secure Communities promised and what it delivered. Within the span of a month this summer, three Democratic state governors — Quinn, Gov. Deval Patrick [D-Mass.] and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo [D-N.Y.] — tried to pull out of Secure Communities.

‘More than 30 percent of those deported from the United States, under the program, have never been convicted of any crime, much less a serious one,’ Quinn and Illinois State Police Director Hiram Grau wrote in a May letter [PDF] to Marc Rapp, the acting assistant director of Secure Communities.

What are “Secure Communities”? That link takes you to ICE’s explanation and creation of how the program works. However, the program reveals troubling data.

Secure Communities, a high-tech way of tracking immigration violators via fingerprint data, has led to the disproportionate arrest of Latinos, the wrongful detention of U.S. citizens and families being split apart when a spouse or parent is deported, according to a new study, [PDF] released today by the Warren Institute at the University of California, Berkeley Law School, in conjunction with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

The study is the first to analyze government data on the program. Among its findings:

+ 1.6 percent of those arrested were actually U.S. citizens

+ 39 percent of people arrested through Secure Communities have at least one child or spouse who is a U.S. citizen

+ 93 percent of those arrested are Latinos, even though they account for 77 percent of the entire undocumented population

+ 83 percent of people arrested via Secure Communities are placed in Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] detention; the average Department of Homeland Security immigration detention rate is 62 percent

+ Only 24 percent of individuals arrested via Secure Communities had a lawyer present during an immigration hearing; in general, about 41 percent of all immigration court respondents do

‘The results are disturbing because they point to a system that is funneling people towards deportation without due process,’ said the study’s lead author Aarti Kohli. ‘Based on our findings, we recommend that the Department of Homeland Security suspend the program until the government addresses the issues we identify, particularly wrongful U.S. citizen arrests, potential racial profiling, and lack of discretion in detention.’

The New York Times reports that the Obama administration ‘strongly rejected’ the findings. ‘Any suggested that we are knowingly arresting or detaining U.S. citizens would be false and a misrepresentation,’ said ICE director John Morton.

And not all law enforcement is onboard either. Sheriff Mark Curran, the Republican sheriff of Lake County, IL is one of the most outspoken critics. I suggest you read this entire interview. It’s outstanding.

What makes me uncomfortable about Secure Communities is the fact that we need to be talking about comprehensive immigration reform, and we need to be doing so unabashedly. …

When I deal with the Latino community in Waukegan [and] the immigrant communities throughout Lake County, there is fear that’s running through these communities. They know the horror story of their uncle or their brother who committed the most ticky-tack of offenses, got incarcerated as a result and is now being deported. It just sends chills through their spine, … because they’ve seen the effects of that.

Basically we talk about comprehensive immigration reform, but we only give it lip service. Then if the polls show that we need to be doing something regarding illegal immigrants because of paranoia and lies that have been spread, well, we’ve got Secure Communities in place.

Curran knows that law enforcement must work with the community to combat crime. When people live in fear like this, they will not report crimes for fear of being arrested themselves. Imagine someone breaking into your home or assaulting you or a family member and not being able to report it.

Lastly, and most importantly, are the allegations of abuse while being held in detention. Most of these crimes are against woman, sexual assault and rape.

Illegal immigrants held in U.S. immigration detention facilities filed more than 170 allegations of sexual abuse over the last four years, mostly against guards and other staff at the centers, according to government documents obtained by FRONTLINE and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

A FRONTLINE investigation found no evidence that the vast majority of complaints had been investigated or resolved. Most of the complaints went through the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General’s (IG) Office, which is the primary office responsible for investigating outside complaints. IG records show only 15 ‘reports of investigation,’ which resulted in six substantiated or partially substantiated cases. Two guards were convicted of sexual abuse; three others have been terminated from their positions.

Sigrid Adameit, a former transportation guard at Willacy [Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas], told FRONTLINE that cover-ups of sexual and physical abuse were pervasive at Willacy. One day, she said, a manager called her in to transport a female detainee who claimed she’d been raped. Adameit came in to work while the detainee was still in the medical unit receiving a rape kit.

Adameit said the manager asked her to find the next flight out for the detainee. ‘Make sure nobody talks to her,’ he said. ‘Don’t say nothing to her. Just get her in the van and meet up with the U.S. Marshals up at the airport.”

FRONTLINE asked ICE for results of all positive rape kits at Willacy, but the agency did not respond to our request. The company that runs Willacy for the government, Management Training Corporation (MTC), declined our request for comments about operations at Willacy.

Sexual abuse is one of the most underreported crimes in America, according to Department of Justice. More than 60 percent of victims never report their abuse to the police. Immigration lawyers and human rights advocates told FRONTLINE the problem is even greater in immigration detention centers.

None of this is being reported in the news, but it is all over Spanish-language TV. Obama received roughly 70% of the Hispanic vote in 2008. FRONTLINE reports that that number has dropped to about 40%. No, they won’t be voting Republican. The Republicans are calling for stricter adherence to current immigration law… from the frying pan into the fire. More than likely, they simply will not vote.

And the horror is that immigration reform is so far down the ladder, behind healthcare, the economy, foreign affairs, that it’s unlikely the issue will be addressed anytime soon.