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Key Facts
- National overview: The ABA described immigration detention and removal as a civil system where people are not awaiting criminal trials or serving prison sentences.
- National overview: ABA presented the Civil Immigration Detention Standards as a guide intended to help DHS transition to a civil detention system that fits DHS civil detention authority.
- Federal level: ABA House of Delegates adoption in August 2012 and an August 2014 amendment through adoption of Resolution 111 are identified within the ABA standards PDF.
- National overview: The standards included guiding principles about normalizing living conditions and not holding residents in jails or jail-like settings.
- Federal level: The standards incorporate by reference 28 C.F.R. 115, which the document identifies as implementing the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA).
- National overview: In a Feb. 1, 2013 ABA briefing write-up, ABA described a detention system snapshot of more than 400,000 noncitizens each year, held in about 160 facilities in 42 states, at a cost of $2 billion, including many state and local jails and prisons.
- National overview: In an Oct. 1, 2015 ABA write-up, ABA reported a U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommendation tied to adopting the ABA standards, alongside critique described as civil rights and due process concerns and inadequate protection from sexual assault or abuse.
Last reviewed: May 2026. Legal rules, forms, deadlines, and procedures can change by jurisdiction, agency, and court system.
- Archive recovery scope for “2012am102”
- What the ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards are, in the ABA’s own framing
- Purpose a guide for DHS’s transition to civil detention
- Guiding principles about living conditions and avoiding jail like settings
- How PREA regulation is incorporated into the standards
- Historical detention system snapshot described by ABA in 2013
- ABA’s 2015 reporting about recommendations and standards related critiques
- A quick timeline of the ABA House action tied to this archive label
- Why this archive mattered, and where the recovery stays limited
- Sources
Archive recovery scope for “2012am102”
The legacy label “2012am102” points to the abanow.org legacy page for 2012am102, which could not be retrieved in this recovery run (HTTP 404). That limitation matters because the article cannot directly quote or verify the legacy page’s exact subject line or any resolution identifier that would have been contained in the missing item.
This archive recovery therefore uses official, retrievable ABA materials that describe the Civil Immigration Detention Standards and the August 2014 amendment process, reconstructing the historical meaning without treating the missing legacy page as proven evidence.
What the ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards are, in the ABA’s own framing
The core document behind this archive recovery is the ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards (Amended August 2014), which identifies the standards as “Amended August 2014 by the ABA House of Delegates through the adoption of Resolution 111.” The standards describe immigration detention and removal as “by law, a civil system,” and the document states that the people within that system are “not awaiting criminal trials or serving prison sentences.”
In other words, ABA used the “civil” framing to describe how the system should operate in practice, not to supply a binding legal test for every detention setting.
Purpose a guide for DHS’s transition to civil detention
The ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards (Amended August 2014) states that the standards are intended “to provide a tool that will guide DHS in the transition to a civil detention system that befits its civil detention authority.”
That purpose statement helps explain why the document appears in policy discussions: it presents the standards as guidance aimed at DHS’s civil detention authority, rather than as a statute or regulation.
Guiding principles about living conditions and avoiding jail like settings
The standards include guiding principles that focus on everyday conditions and confinement type. The document states that DHS/ICE should “normalize living conditions” and that “Residents should not be held in jails or jail-like settings.”
Within the archive context, these passages matter because they translate the “civil” concept into specific expectations about living conditions and the avoidance of jail-like confinement.
How PREA regulation is incorporated into the standards
The standards also connect civil detention planning to sexual-abuse prevention by incorporating by reference “28 C.F.R. 115,” which the document identifies as implementing the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA).
This inclusion matters historically in the archive record because it places PREA-related requirements inside ABA’s broader civil detention framework.
Historical detention system snapshot described by ABA in 2013
In ABA Washingtonletter briefing summary (Feb. 1, 2013), ABA described a period-specific system snapshot when discussing the “new ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards.” ABA reported that “The United States currently detains more than 400,000 noncitizen men and women each year” and described that snapshot as involving “approximately 160 facilities in 42 states,” including many “state and local jails and prisons,” at a cost of $2 billion.
Because these figures come from an ABA briefing published for that time period, they should be treated as historical context for the archive entry rather than continuing measurement.
ABA’s 2015 reporting about recommendations and standards related critiques
In ABA Washingtonletter summary (Oct. 1, 2015), ABA reported that the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights recommended that DHS (and related entities) adopt the ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards and that ABA characterized the underlying critique as involving civil rights and due process concerns.
ABA also described concerns about adequate protection from sexual assault or abuse, and it framed these issues in terms of compliance and civil-rights concerns tied to detention standards.
A quick timeline of the ABA House action tied to this archive label
This archive recovery can verify the timeline only from the retrievable ABA standards PDF. The document specifies an August 2012 adoption and an August 2014 amendment through Resolution 111.
| ABA timing item | What ABA materials verify |
|---|---|
| August 2012 | The ABA Civil Immigration Detention Standards were adopted by the ABA House of Delegates in August 2012. |
| August 2014 | The standards were amended in August 2014 by the ABA House of Delegates through adoption of Resolution 111. |
This timeline does not verify whether later versions superseded or replaced the amended standards after 2014, because the recovered evidence set does not include additional later ABA updates that confirm current status.
Why this archive mattered, and where the recovery stays limited
The practical reason “2012am102” types of archive items mattered at the time is that they presented a definitional stake in the ground: ABA described immigration detention as a civil system and tried to translate that concept into operational principles like normalizing living conditions and avoiding jail-like confinement.
At the same time, this recovery stays limited in two ways: (1) the legacy abanow.org legacy page for 2012am102 could not be retrieved for direct verification, and (2) the evidence set does not confirm whether the August 2014 amended standards remained the operative version or were later updated after Resolution 111.
If other archived ABA House actions help readers see how ABA presents policy through House votes, an example appears in this related archive recovery entry: another ABA House resolution archive example.
