NEW YORK ? The sweeping immigration bills in Congress would add many thousands of beds to the patchwork network of detention facilities that hold illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers ? places that critics say are over-costly and under-regulated. Already, activists say, far too many nonthreatening people are held for too long in demoralizing conditions. "I'm not against homeland security," said Edward Neepaye, a pastor and human-rights campaigner from Liberia who was detained in New Jersey for four months before settling near the Twin Cities. "But the greatest nation on earth must come up with a remedy that accords immigrants some respect, rather than throwing them in jail like animals." On any given day, the system overseen by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detains about 21,000 people ? most for a few weeks, some for years.