Friday's version includes statements from Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) spokesperson Steve Owen, who said that "if the contract is not renewed, families could be split apart waiting for hearings." First of all, CCA does not make immigration policy, ICE does. The threat of separation has been used throughout the debate about Hutto, to frame the debate as nothing but Hutto-versus-separation. Second, ICE has a range of less restrictive options at its disposal, funded by Congress, that allow families to live in relative peace and dignity for decisions on their immigration and asylum status. If ICE were to separate families now, it would go against direct orders from Congress, against the stated intention of the agency, and against regulations that privilege "release to family members" over family separation. In fact, the other family detention facility in Berks County, Pennsylvania, is far less prison-like and has avoided most (not all) of the problems and controversies surrounding Hutto.
As the mediator on this contract, it is up to Williamson County to decide whether it wants to have this kind of business on its conscience. Both detention and family separation traumatize children, and it is time to focus on whether it is morally acceptable for Williamson County residents and CCA investors to profit off of the misfortune of others.
According to Doolittle, County Judge Gattis and Commissioner Ron Morrison have already decided in favor of renewing the contract--unless "something jumps up and bites" them--but Commissioners Birkman and Covey are undecided. The commissioners will tour the facility again on Monday. All of them seemed to sense a sea change with the new administration, and are unsure how this will affect family detention at Hutto.
The primary difference seems to be between (1) those that favor renewing the contract and seeing what happens with Obama and Napolitano; and (2) those who question why they should renew if a new administration will change the direction of immigration policy. Unstated, but clearly implied, is an assumption that the Obama administration won't like family detention policy, and that they would gladly let it lapse into obscurity with the rest of the Bush Administration's questionable uses of executive power.
The next few days are very important for the future of family detention at Hutto. Let's be the thing that "jumps up and bites" Williamson County Commissioners and pushed them in a new direction. Let them know that detention is traumatic for families and reflects poorly on the county.
Judge Dan Gattis: (512) 943-1550, ctyjudge@wilco.org
Ron Morrison: (512) 846-1190
Lisa Birkman: (512) 733-5380, LBirkman@wilco.org
Cynthia Long: (512) 260-4280
Valerie Covey:(512) 943-3370
2 comments:
I have a couple of observations here. First of all, the Berks County family detention center in Pennsylvania being used as a model for family detention is based on pure ignorance of the article's author. The facility in question separates all juveniles to one side of the facility away from parents and then allows visitation between the sides to be done only with permission, and YES it can be denied for punitive reasons. At the Hutto facility, the families stay together, always in the same housing pods, and in the same room if space is available and they want to. Isn't that the entire POINT of family detention, to keep them together?
Secondly, these other options that seem to be so available and funded, are not being used, possibly for good reason. The idea that if the Hutto facility was shut down tomorrow everyone would go into private homes and be monitored by pseudo immigration parole agents of some sort is laughable. The federal government isn't nearly efficient enough to do such a thing.
Complaining that the argument is being framed poorly by proponents of the Hutto facility is quite disingenuous, with all due respect, I've seen some of silliest poor framing in my life of any issue being done by the people that want to shut that facility down at any cost. And it passes muster just fine because so much ignorance surrounds what goes on there that as long as the story is bad, no one will question it, and it will spread like wildfire. By any means necessary, right?
Anyway, be careful what you wish for. The families that are at Hutto now would drown themselves in the toilet bowls if they had to spend a week at Berks County. It is THAT much more penal up there, and they're absolutely spoiled in Texas, by comparison. But if they don't get transferred and the facility gets shut down, while you're all dancing in the streets, those white busses would be getting fired up to take the adults down to Raymondville tent city and the kids into CPS custody.
Welcome to america folks. But to look at the bright side, maybe the detainees currently at Hutto who have already been deported at least twice and kept coming back because the accomodations they received at Hutto were FAR superior to thier lives in Guatemala would realize that immigration detention is not fun and games, and they would do things legally or not do them at all. In that regard, the deterrent effect of Raymondville is much stronger than anything that could be provided by the posh accomodations in Taylor.
Some points of clarification in response to Salvadorano's observations.
First, the detailed description included in ICE's Request for Proposal's (the bidding closed in July) bears a far greater resemblance to Berks than to Hutto, and specifically states that former correctional institutions WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.
Second, children over the age of five sleep separately from their parents, but are with their parents all other times of day (with the exception of school and other programming). Salvadorano may have confused the youth detention center for UNACCOMPANIED minors with the family detention center. It has been reported that youths have been transferred to this section for disciplinary issues, but children are NOT separated from their parents as a policy, do not need permission to "visit" parents, and by all accounts separation is not used punitively.
Third, if Salvadorano has information about punitive separations/he should bring it to the attention of the authorities and the press, since it is patently ILLEGAL under ICE's own family detention standards, the Hutto Settlement, and has been roundly condemned by judges, lawyers, families, Congress, and ICE itself.
Fourth, alternatives ARE being used at the moment- ICE has expanded the program in recent years. This has been reported by Government Accounting Office reports, Congressional Reports, ICE's website, DHS' annual reports, Congressional Appropriations Bills, and so on.
Fifth, without taking a stand on who is "framing" which side better, that complaint rings hollow coming from someone who continually posts misinformation on this blog. Not only is it misleading and usually false, but the information you have seems to change from post to post, and seems to be far more exhaustive than any government official or study of family detention. The facilities are managed by two totally different entities (a county and a private corrections corporation), and as far as the public knows, the facilities do not share internal contractors. The only way you can have the kind of knowledge you claim to have is if you work for a federal agency (or some subcontractor thereof), in which case your comments are highly suspect-- if only for your seeming disdain of the federal government.
Where are you coming from? How do you have so much information about both facilities? And what are you advocating? You swing from cynicism ("welcome to america, folks.") about any possibility of treating people right, to criminalizing those held there ("maybe they've been deported twice"), to scoffing at the federal government's ability to monitor immigrants in legal proceedings ("the federal government isn't nearly efficient enough...").
People's lives and livelihoods are at stake. Please do them the respect to treat this as something more than fodder for a scattered critique of, as far as I can tell, everything and nothing.
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