In the February 8, 2010 issue of National Law Journal, it is reported that the United States currently has 380,000 people in custody, even though they haven’t been charged with crimes.

They are immigrants, confined to a sprawling network of more than 270 jails and prisons for weeks or months while proceedings to determine whether they’ll be allowed to remain in the country are pending.

The article indicates that concerns are being raised that many of these facilities are substandard, that medical care is lacking and that the prisoners have limited access to legal counsel.