Every year, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains hundreds of thousands of men and women found living and working in the United States in violation of immigration and visa laws. Detainees are confined as if prison even though they have not been charged with any crime. Conditions in I.C.E.'s over 300 detention centers have been criticized by national and international watchdog groups, including Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union.

On a bitterly cold evening this December, human rights activists and religious believers from a variety of traditions gathered outside a federal detention facility in New York City. They held candles and called for the US government to release the people locked up inside.

Opponents of amnesty for illegal immigrants say that no violation of US law should be tolerated, but these protesters see a larger moral issue at stake. They say that the detention centers, where people are held without charge and dozens have died of medical neglect, violate detainees' fundamental human rights.

This is a small sampling of comments from the 97th, 98th, 99th, 100th and 101st plenary meetings of the 63rd General Assembly. A total of 94 delegations spoke during the debate and expressed a range of reactions to the multifaceted political philosophy described in the Secretary-General's report on implementing the responsibility to protect.

The International Center for the Responsibility to Protect has collected full transcripts of most of the statements and made them available online.

The Rev. Zhaodeng Peng, founder of the Tian Fu Church in Sunset Park, has built a congregation of 1,000 in five years.

The MTA needs a bailout. The agency plans to make up it's budget deficit by increasing user fees and cutting back on services. Some bus and subway lines are slated to be eliminated entirely.

Fernando Tirado, the Community District Manager for Bronx Dixtrict 7, which includes the neighborhoods of Fordham, Norwood and Bedford Park, is concerned that reductions in MTA services will hit his community particularly hard.

"There's already such an economic divide as it is. People have to travel farther to go to work and do their shopping," Tirado said. "Increasing the cost of the only means these people have to travel outside their communities just isn't fair."