Former CCA Guard Charged in Sexual Abuse of Detained Women

This week, the Williamson County police announced that they were formally charging Donald Charles Dunn, aged 30, with two counts of official oppression and three counts of unlawful restraint. These charges from from five incidents involving women detained at the T. Don Hutto Detention Center in Taylor, Texas.

The abuses occurred when Dunn transported women from Hutto to the bus station or airport. Despite the fact that male guards are never to be alone with female detainees, Dunn transported women from Hutto frequently.

ICE has been investigating these abuses since May, and Thursday's charges were the first to be filed.

ICE has trumpeted Hutto as a "model civil detention facility" on its website. The scope of these charges reveals, we hope, that detention places noncitizens in inherently vulnerable positions, allowing any number of officials to take advantage of them.

These problems cannot be solved until detainees are released from detention, and the immigration system is transformed into the civil administrative process it was intended to be.