"Asylum seekers are not criminals," the report says, calling on the United States to detain refugees only when there is no other recourse and their behavior makes it necessary.

Governments increasingly detain refugees, asylum seekers and migrants upon entry to the country and while final asylum decisions or other requests to remain in the country are pending.

"It is up to the I.N.S." And the immigration agency is empowered to detain refugees if releasing them "might encourage a flood of illegal immigration," Mr. Cadman said.

The order from the Immigration and Naturalization Service requires officials here to detain Haitian refugees with plausible asylum claims.

He argued that the ruling will have a direct bearing on the Bush Administration's policy of detaining refugees who apply for asylum in South Texas.

He was charged with implementing the administration's policy of detaining Haitian refugees seeking political asylum, and he pushed a plan to limit use of the insanity defense.

In December, the Immigration and Naturalization Service began requiring officials here to detain Haitian refugees with plausible asylum claims - instead of releasing them to relatives or sponsors while their claims are pursued.

The United Nations has long suggested that it is wrong to arbitrarily detain refugees.

Completed in 1915, the prison, southeast of downtown Atlanta, was the scene of a tense 11-day revolt in November 1987 by about 1,400 detained Cuban refugees facing deportation.

At a Congressional hearing last week, lawmakers ridiculed as poorly conceived the service's policy of detaining Central American refugees at the Texas border.