T Don Hutto

Williamson County's Response to Sexual Abuse Allegations at T. Don Hutto

2010-08-21T09:11:00.003-05:00

JAMES R. WILSON

WILLIAMSON COUNTY SHERIFF

508 South Rock Street

Georgetown, Texas 78626

Phone (512) 943-1300 * Fax (512) 943-1444

August 19, 2010

MEDIA RELEASE

Arrest made in T. Don Hutto Investigation.

On May 11, 2010, the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office received a report from the Austin Police Department regarding an employee of the T. Don Hutto facility in Taylor, Texas. The report detailed how a female made contact with an Austin Bergstorm International Airport employee advising them that she had been inappropriately touched outside her clothing while being transported from the T. Don Hutto facility to the airport. The report identified an employee of the Correction Corporation of America as being the suspect of this allegation. The Correction Corporation of America is the contracted company at the T. Don Hutto facility which houses federal immigration detainees. Due to the facility being in Williamson County, The Williamson County Sheriff’s Office immediately began an investigation into this allegation. On the same date, Donald Charles Dunn, a Resident Supervisor at the T. Don Hutto facility and employee of Correction Corporation of America was identified as the suspect of this allegation. Mr. Dunn met with Williamson County Detectives on May 20, 2010 and explained to detectives that he told the women he was going to “frisk” them and then inappropriately touched their breasts, crotch and buttocks. Mr. Dunn advised that he didn’t do this for safety concerns but as self gratification. Mr. Dunn indicated to Detectives that he had done this to numerous other women while performing his duties as a transport officer. A large scale investigation into the current locations of other possible victims began immediately after Mr. Dunn’s interview. Detectives from Williamson County and Immigration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Office of Professional Responsibility/San Antonio) set out to make contact with several of the possible victims who had located across the country since bonding out of the facility. Mr. Dunn was subsequently terminated from his contract employment with Correction Corporation of America when the allegation was first reported to authorities.

The investigation revealed that all of the possible victims of Mr. Dunn had been released on bond from the T Don Hutto federal facility and were being transported to the Austin-Bergstrom Airport or bus station. It was during these courtesy transports that Mr. Dunn would stop at different locations in the areas of both Travis and Williamson County. Williamson County is pursuing charges against Mr. Dunn for his actions in the area of the convenience store located at 20306 FM 973. The transports usually occurred in the early morning hours when it was still dark.

Three women that were interviewed told detectives that they were inappropriately touched outside of their clothing on their breast, virginal or buttocks areas. Two of the three victims said they were unlawfully restrained. The two charges of unlawful restraint occurred when Mr. Dunn took the victims to the above location against their will. One victim told officers she thought she would be either “killed or violated”. Several women who were interviewed denied any contact with Mr. Dunn. Some of those advised that they were transported in the daylight hours and or it was raining. Several women could not be located for questioning because of out of date addresses with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

DONALD CHARLES DUNN

Date of Birth 12/23/1979 of 14408 Varrelman Street in Austin was arrested on August 19, 2010 at 4:50pm in Austin. Mr. Dunn will be booked into the Williamson County Jail where he awaits arrangement on a $35,000.00 bond. Mr. Dunn faces 3 counts of official oppression and 2 counts of unlawful restraint. Due to the late booking of Mr. Dunn, No mug shot is available till August 20, 2010.

The investigation is still ongoing at this time. Anyone having information about a victim or Mr. Dunn’s crimes is encouraged to call the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office at 512-943-1300 or the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.

*On August 20, 2010, at 10:00am, the Williamson County Sheriff’s will discuss and answer questions regarding limited aspects of the investigation with the media. The conference will be at the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office located at 508 Rock Street in Georgetown, Texas. No further Information will only be available till 10:00am August 20, 2010*

The T. Don Hutto facility opened in May, 2006 as a family residential facility housing families while they awaited their immigration hearings or decisions The facility changed over to housing females in a separate area of the facility in February, 2008 and in September, 2009 the entire facility began housing only females. The facility is operated under an Immigration and Customs Intergovernmental Service Agreement with Williamson County. Williamson County contracts with Corrections Corporation of America for the facility's day-to-day operation. A new agreement with Williamson County became effective February 1, 2010. The facility employees 169 Correction Corporation of America Staff, 30 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Staff and 43 United States Public Health Services Staff.

For further media information contact:

Sergeant John Foster

Williamson County Sheriff’s Office

Special Investigations Unit

Pager: 512-208-2188

Grassroots Leadership

2010-08-21T09:07:00.002-05:00

In Wake of Sexual Assault Arrest at Hutto, Grassroots Leadership Calls for Detention Reforms to Prioritize Release, not For-Profit Detention

NEWS ADVISORY
For Immediate Release: August 20, 2010

Contact: Bob Libal, Grassroots Leadership, (512) 971-0487, blibal@grassrootsleadership.org

Austin, TX - Grassroots Leadership today called on Immigration and Customs Enforcement to make systematic changes to its detention system in the wake of the arrest of a former private prison guard on charges related to the sexual assault of women detained at the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas. The man, a former supervisor at the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) prison, was charged with three counts of official oppression and two counts of unlawful restraint in the incidents in which he allegedly groped women in his custody transporting them to the airport or bus station.

The T. Don Hutto detention center is a private prison formerly contracted to detain immigrant families, including small children. Last August, in a victory for Grassroots Leadership and our allies, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it would end family detention at Hutto as part of sweeping reforms to the detention system. The facility now detains women apprehended without children, many of whom are seeking asylum in the United States. Hutto is operated by Corrections Corporation of America, the country's largest for-profit private prison corporation. ICE has held up Hutto as a model detention center.

"While we were heartened that the administration took on reforming the U.S. detention system a year ago, this egregious incident illustrates the inherent problems in a vast and growing immigration detention system with no meaningful oversight." said Bob Libal, Grassroots Leadership's Texas Campaigns Coordinator. "The Obama Administration should should immediately take steps to implement alternatives to detention and scale back its growing and out-of-control detention system."

The sexual abuse scandal is the latest in a series of such incidents at Texas detention centers. In 2007, a CCA employee was fired for inappropriate sexual contact with a female detainee who was held at the facility with her family. Earlier this year, a former Port Isabel Detention Center officer was sentenced to prison for sexual abuse of female detainees over a period of time in 2008. In 2008, an expose by the WOAI news station in San Antonio reported sexual abuse of female detainees at the GEO Group's South Texas Detention Center in Pearsall. Reports of sexual abuse against detainees have also plagued MTC's Willacy County Detention Center.

"These reports show the vulnerability of detained immigrants, especially women, in ICE's vast and largely privatized immigrant detention system," said Donna Red Wing, Executive Director of Grassroots Leadership. "ICE should immediately re-evaluate its contracts with all private prison corporations, and speed the pace of reforms to its system. We are gravely concerned about the reality of women incarcerated for-profit and the impact of these closed corporate facilities on the lives, health and well being of women detainees."

WillCo to keep closer tabs on Hutto

2010-08-21T09:05:00.000-05:00

Williamson County authorities say they will supervise employees at the T. Don Hutto detention facility more closely after a worker was accused of fondling women.

Donald Charles Dunn, 30, is charged with official oppression and unlawful restraint, Class A misdemeanors.

The facility in Taylor houses women who are illegal immigrants. Williamson County contracts with the private company, Correction Corporation of America (CCA) to run it.

In May, a woman told Austin police a man inappropriately touched her while she was being driven from the facility to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Area law enforcement investigated. They say they found five women in Williamson County and three in Travis County who say Dunn groped them when he was taking them to the airport or bus station.

Williamson County Sheriff’s spokesman John Foster says its contract with CCA states that two people will be present during transport but Dunn was alone when the alleged crimes happened.

The women told detectives they believed Dunn was a law enforcement officer and had the right to frisk them. Foster says Dunn was a resident supervisor and not an officer. CCA has fired Dunn.

News 8 Austin: T Don Hutto employee fired after alleged sexual abuse

2010-08-21T09:04:00.000-05:00

A transport officer at the T. Don Hutto residential facility in Taylor was fired after confessing to inappropriately touching inmates after they were released.
Donald Dunn was in charge of taking former detainees to a destination of their choice after they were released from custody.

One woman was taken to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and told an ABIA employee about the inappropriate behavior. The woman’s outcry was enough to get the investigation started.

All of the victims were females previously held by the federal government concerning their immigration status.

Sgt. John Foster is a Williamson County Deputy Sheriff that also serves as a monitor for the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. Foster had strong words for Dunn Friday.

"They deserve to come into this country and not be assaulted, he didn't give that to them," he said.

According to authorities, Dunn was responsible for the transport of 72 detainees while employed at the federal facility. Officials attempted to interview all of those he had transported during his time as an officer. Forty-two detainees were questioned, 30 women could not be found.

Sgt. Foster said the investigation went coast to coast in an attempt to locate potential victims.

Lisa Graybill is the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas.

"I believe many of these women are asylum seekers, so that means they fled persecution, violence, possible sexual violence in their home countries,” she said. "Only to come to this country and have this happen to them."

Word of the Hutto facility investigation reached Washington D.C., and officials in the case tell News 8 that President Obama was briefed regarding all of the charges against Dunn.

Dunn has been charged with three counts of official oppression and two counts of unlawful restraint. If convicted, he faces up to one year in jail.

ACLU Investigates Sexual Abuse at Hutto

2010-08-21T09:02:00.000-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 20, 2010
11:23 AM

CONTACT: ACLU
Will Matthews, (212) 549-2582 or 2666; media@aclu.org

Sexual Abuse Of Female Detainees At Hutto Highlights Ongoing Failure Of Immigration Detention System, Says ACLU

NEW YORK - August 20 - A Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) employee at the T. Don Hutto immigration detention facility in Taylor, TX today was charged with sexually abusing numerous female immigration detainees. Donald Charles Dunn, a resident supervisor at the Hutto facility, is accused of abusing the detainees as he was transporting them to the airport after they had been released on bond and has allegedly admitted to telling the women that he was going to "frisk" them before touching their breasts and genital areas for his gratification, according to Sheriff's officials in Williamson County, TX. Dunn is charged with official oppression and unlawful restraint.

The American Civil Liberties Union is actively investigating the sexual abuse of female detainees at Hutto, where the detention of families was halted last year after the successful settlement of an ACLU lawsuit charging that children were being imprisoned in inhumane conditions while their parents awaited immigration decisions.

As part of its investigation, the ACLU has obtained via the Texas Public Information Act copies of both the Intergovernmental Services Agreement (IGSA) between Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), CCA and Williamson County, under which the Hutto facility is operated, and ICE's own transport policy. Both documents are being made available to the public and can be found online at: www.aclu.org/huttodocs. The opportunity for abuse was the result of a failure by CCA officials to abide by the IGSA that female immigration detainees not be isolated with male staff members.

The following can be attributed to Vanita Gupta, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU:

"The sexual abuse of numerous immigration detainees at Hutto underscores the systemic failures that continue to plague our nation's broken immigration detention system. The irony is that ICE touts Hutto as a flagship facility, emblematic of its commitment to reform. Clearly, that commitment is shallow. ICE has ignored repeated calls for increased and independent oversight and accountability of its immigration detention facilities and the private contractors like CCA who run them, and tragedies like this are the unfortunate result. It is time for ICE officials to live up to their promise of creating a ‘truly civil' immigration detention system that does not tolerate the abuse and degradation of its detainees."

The following can be attributed to Lisa Graybill, Legal Director of the ACLU of Texas:

"It is long past time to close the book on ICE's relationship with CCA. If this administration is serious about reform, it cannot continue to spend millions of taxpayer dollars every month on a private contractor that has proven over and again it is demonstrably incapable of running a safe and humane facility. Immigrant women, many of whom who have fled to the United States seeking refuge from sexual violence, should not fear more of the same in the hands of ICE and its contractors. Zero tolerance starts at the top. The only way for ICE to restore integrity to its system is to immediately sever its contract with CCA and begin a new era of transparency and accountability."

KXAN: Eight Victims ID'd in Hutto Guard Case

2010-08-21T08:59:00.001-05:00

Eight victims ID'd in Hutto guard case
Tensions mounting between facility, county

Updated: Friday, 20 Aug 2010, 5:22 PM CDT
Published : Friday, 20 Aug 2010, 9:21 AM CDT

Jackie Vega
TAYLOR, Texas (KXAN) - Williamson County authorities said Friday that eight victims had been identified in connection with a former transport officer at the T. Don Hutto immigration detention facility , who police say groped several women he was supposed to be taking to airports and bus stations.

No sexual assault charges have been filed, however -- although Williamson County officials said they may be later on.

Currently, Donald Charles Dunn, 30, faces three charges of official oppression and two charges of unlawful restraint in connection with five victims police said were molested in Williamson County.

Charges have not yet been filed in connection with three more victims authorities said were attacked in Travis County.

President Obama and Congressional members have been briefed on this case because of its association with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Nineteen women have been interviewed so far, from Texas to Florida to Washington D.C., and another 11 still could be victims -- though they haven't been located. In his year of employment at the Taylor facility, Dunn transported 72 people from the facility - where they were being bonded out -- to airports or bus stations, so they could wait for their immigration hearings in locations near family or friends or employment.

Thirty of the people he transported were women.

Williamson County officials said that they were tightening their grip over the facility being run by the Corrections Corporation of America after it was discovered during the investigation that Dunn was not supposed to be transporting those women alone -- but that the facility was required, for the women's safety, to have two officers on board the vehicle with the detainees.

CCA is a private, for-profit company that runs jail and detention facilities, and has come under fire for cutting corners.

Dunn was arrested in Austin Thursday after police said he admitted stopping the van during the early morning trips, at locations in Williamson and Travis counties, and touching them inappropriately for his own "self gratification."

Dunn, a resident supervisor at the facility and employee of Correction Corporation of America, told officers that on these trips, "he told the women he was going to 'frisk' them and then inappropriately touched their breasts, crotch and buttocks," according to a news release by the Williamson County Sheriff's Office.

"Mr. Dunn indicated to Detectives that he had done this to numerous other women while performing his duties as a transport officer," the release said.

Dunn told officers he had done this with several women, while he was transporting them late at night, and would stop at several locations in Williamson and Travis counties to abuse them on the way to Austin Bergstrom International Airport.

The women were being given the rides to the airport and bus stations as a courtesy while they were out on bond, awaiting immigration hearings.

The first report came on May 11 when Austin police told Williamson County Sheriff's deputies that a woman had alerted an airport official that she had been abused on the way to the airport from the facility in Taylor. That's when detectives met with Dunn and listened to his description of groping "numerous women" while doing his duties as a transport officer.

"A large scale investigation into the current locations of other possible victims began immediately after Mr. Dunn’s interview," the news release said. "Detectives from Williamson County and Immigration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Office of Professional Responsibility/San Antonio) set out to make contact with several of the possible victims, who had located across the country since bonding out of the facility.

"Mr. Dunn was subsequently terminated from his contract employment with Correction Corporation of America when the allegation was first reported to authorities."

The investigation revealed that all of the possible victims of Dunn had been released on bond from the facility and were being transported to the Austin-Bergstrom Airport or bus station when the attacks occurred.

It was during these "courtesy transports" that Dunn would stop at different locations in the areas of both Travis and Williamson County.

Three women said they'd been inappropriately touched.Two of those victims said they were taken against their will to a location near a convenience store, during which one woman said she thought she'd either be killed or raped.

"Several (other) women who were interviewed denied any contact with Mr. Dunn," the statement read. "Some of those advised that they were transported in the daylight hours and or it was raining. Several women could not be located for questioning because of out of date addresses with Immigration and Customs Enforcement."

Dunn was arrested Thursday around 5 p.m. and posted bail on a $35,000 bond Friday.

The investigation is still ongoing at this time. Anyone having information about a victim or Dunn’s crimes is encouraged

Ex-detention center worker wasn't supposed to travel alone with women

2010-08-21T08:56:00.002-05:00

By Claire Osborn | Friday, August 20, 2010, 02:12 PM

This story has been corrected to say that Dunn was a resident supervisor at the T. Don Hutto facility.

A former resident supervisor at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center wasn’t supposed to be traveling alone with the women he has been accused of groping, said John Foster, a spokesman for the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office.

Donald Charles Dunn, 30, has been charged with two counts of official oppression and three counts of unlawful restraint in connection with five incidents involving women in Williamson County, said Foster.

Dunn was arrested Thursday and was released from the Williamson County Jail on $35,000 bail today.

According to the contract that Williamson County had with the Corrections Corporation of America, which runs the immigrant detention facility in Taylor, a corrections employee is not supposed to transport a detainee of the opposite sex without another employee present, Foster said.

No details were available Friday on how Dunn managed to not comply with that restriction.
Dunn, who was a resident supervisor and employee of the Corrections Corporation of America, drove 72 men, women and children to Austin-Bergstrom International Aiport from the detention facility during 2009 and 2010, Foster said. Detectives working with immigration officials interviewed 19 women and found that eight said Dunn had touched them inappropriately, including three from Travis County and five from Williamson County, Foster said.
A call to the Travis County attorney’s office on whether Dunn could face charges has not been immediately returned.

Investigators looked for victims across the country, including to Washington, D.C., New York and Los Angeles, but could not find 30 of the women Dunn drove to the airport, Foster said. Detectives were able to ascertain that no abuses occurred when Dunn wasn’t driving alone with women, Foster said.

Investigators were tipped off to the case May 11 when one of the women that Dunn took to the airport asked an airport employee if “it was normal” to be frisked like Dunn touched her, Foster said.

Dunn is accused of touching the female detainees near their breasts and genitals, officials said. Several times while taking women who had been released on bond to the airport, he would stop at a Conoco gas station in Coupland on FM 973 and ask the women to get out of the van, Foster said. He would then frisk them while they stood outside the van, Foster said. When interviewed by detectives Dunn said “he would frisk the females from the front and rear over their clothes,” including touching their bras, according to an arrest affidavit.

A spokesman for the Corrections Corporation of America, Steve Owen, said he couldn’t comment on how Dunn was able to violate the company’s contract with Williamson County by driving the women alone to the airport.

“Since we became aware of the allegation we immediately cooperated fully with law enforcement,” he said.

Former CCA Guard Charged in Sexual Abuse of Detained Women

2010-08-21T08:44:00.004-05:00

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.

Taylor Daily Press: Vigil for detained families

2010-08-11T09:07:00.002-05:00

Posted: Wednesday, August 11, 2010 1:00 am
Tricia Rosetty | 1 comment

In a field outside of the T. Don Hutto detention facility, about 70 people gather in 100-degree weather. Sweat drips onto their poster board signs – signs that read “Dignity not detention” and “Immigrant civil human rights.” The peaceful gathering, one of more than two dozen over the last four years, commemorates significant change at the facility; namely, the one-year anniversary of changing policy to not detain families at the former prison, though women and children are still held.

According to organizer and president of Taylor’s chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) José Orta, the vast majority of attendees at this weekend’s vigil were just people who care about the issue of immigrant detention, not those that know people in the facility. In fact, the group included people from as far away as San Antonio and the Rio Grande Valley. The display of solidarity at the first vigil to be held this year was important.

“The biggest problem in the community is the apathy that happens,” Orta said. “People become apathetic to this cause. They don’t see it as an issue that touches them, but then when it does they’re surprised that these measures have become so draconian.”

The T. Don Hutto facility has been run by the Corrections Corporation of America and faced two allegations of sexual assault by CCA guards in the last three years, casting uncertainty about the private company’s management. Grassroots organizations across the country have focused on reform at this and similar facilities.

“I thought it was really powerful for people to get together and express their feelings about detention reform. I think people have been pretty disappointed that there haven’t been more reforms,” said Bob Libal, Texas campaign coordinator for Grassroots Leadership, the umbrella organization for Texans United for Families. TUFF, a group fighting to bring attention to immigrant rights, emerged from the vigils at T. Don Hutto, said Orta. In addition to sharing their perspective on the importance of the issue, those in attendance marched with signs and chanted together for over an hour.

“The good thing about chanting and using a microphone is that it creates an echo. We were just hoping that the detainees could hear us,” said Orta, noting that a view from the entrance was blocked when the event began. While the detainees may not have been able to see their supporters, the importance of the issue to those present was clear.

“Being in the country illegally is a civil matter, not a criminal matter,” said Orta. He said that the model of using detention facilities is not the answer because it uses a criminal justice mindset to address a civil issue – a model he fears will be emulated at other sites. Orta suggested that house arrest or even ankle bracelets would be preferable to detention at a facility like T. Don Hutto.

“If you feel they don’t deserve to be here, send them back. Don’t keep them here for months as a form of punishment as if they’ve done something criminal,” said Orta, noting that many individuals who are in the country illegally are seeking amnesty from dangerous situations in their home country. “Just because these people are not citizens, doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be heard.”

Orta suggested that a federally run program would provide accountability that privatization does not and simplify transparency.

“Our immigration system is broken and we need to fix it. Detention like this for long periods of time is not the answer,” said Orta. “There has to be some kind of reform because this detention is not giving us any sense of goodwill throughout the world, and that’s not the way our country should be seen.”

Logistics: Directions + Caravan Information for August 7 Vigil

2010-08-02T13:38:00.002-05:00

For those travelling from Austin, please meet up with others at the offices of PODER, 2604 E. Cesar Chavez, Austin, Tx at 5:30pm, Saturday, August 7, 2010.

For those travelling from elsewhere...

From Georgetown.

From Austin.

From San Antonio.

From Houston.

From Dallas:

Your city not listed? Have questions? Email Bob Libal at boblibal at grassrootsleadership dot org.

Vigil Marks 1 Year Anniversary of ICE's Reform + Family Release Announcement

2010-07-21T14:06:00.005-05:00

Dignity not Detention Vigil:

No more Arizonas! No more Huttos!

Saturday, August 7^th @ 7:00 PM

T. Don Hutto Detention Center, 1001 Welch St, Taylor, TX

Please join Texans United for Families, Grassroots Leadership, and organizers from across Texas for a vigil to draw attention to the nation's unaccountable and out-of-control detention system. The vigil will mark the one-year anniversary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) announced detention reform and the end of family detention at Hutto. ICE currently heralds Hutto as a model detention center despite the recent revelation in May that a CCA guard was accused of sexually assaulting several women detained at this 500-bed facility. Texas holds 10,000 beds in detention centers to date, with plans for continued expansion. In light of this news, we question ICE's characterization of its detention system as "civilized" and its definition of “reform.” Furthermore, the growing enforcement of immigration laws by local law enforcement as well as anti-immigrant legislation such as Arizona's SB 1070 will increase the detention of all immigrants. The arbitrary nature in which immigrants are shuttled between detention centers almost guarantees that Arizona's detainees will be sent to Texas, including the Hutto detention center, where their human rights will continue to be jeopardized.

Please join us to call for Dignity, not Detention for immigrants. For more information, please email: blibal@grassrootsleadership.org.

Equal Justice Works Recognizes Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch

2009-11-05T07:44:00.002-06:00

Equal Justice Works interviews Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch about leadership in public interest law. Kate has represented detained at Central Texas detention centers, including Hutto, and was one of the first of Barbara Hines' law students to visit Hutto. Great work!

UT Immigration Clinic Still At It!

2009-11-05T07:35:00.003-06:00

Hutto no longer holds families, we're still happy to say, but now there are around 500 women held there. As the Daily Texan reports,

While struggling to attain asylum, hundreds of immigrant women are kept behind chain-link fences within a former medium security prison, no more than an hour away from the state Capitol.

A review of detention centers released on Oct. 6 by Dora Schriro, the former director of the U.S. Office of Detention Policy and Planning, made recommendations for detention centers. Janet Napolitano, U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary, announced reforms for facilities soon after.

According to one reform, the center, which released the last family on Sept. 17, would detain women only. It has worked toward consolidating the female populations from three other facilities: Willacy, Pearsall and Port Isabel.

“Many of the settlement’s improvements that we achieved we hope will be continued to be maintained for the women, but the government is not bound by any settlement agreement,” Hines said.
UT law student Ruth Rosenthal works at the clinic and has visited the center with former UT law student — and current attorney for American Gateways — Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch, who also worked at the clinic.

Rosenthal provided counsel for 25 women and assisted a woman from El Salvador, resulting in the reduction of her bond at the center and subsequent release in October. “She had a really good asylum claim. Also, at Hutto she developed numerous medical conditions,” Rosenthal said. “There were a lot of humanitarian concerns that compelled her release at Hutto.”

Pruneda said facilities have arrangements with nearby medical centers to provide health care if specific services needed are not available at the facility. The facility maintains a population of 512 and remains substantially full,Lincoln-Goldfinch said. She said the facility has remained true to the settlement, giving it “a residential feel, rather than a correctional feel,” but policies dictating the retention of detainees may require reformation.

“[Detainees] should be paroled out as soon as they pass a credible fear interview,” Lincoln-Goldfinch said. “You have to show you have been persecuted in the past or [have] a well-founded fear of future persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a social group.”

Pruneda said the average stay for detainees nationwide is 31 days. However, Lincoln-Goldfinch said some women may end up staying six to nine months “because their cases are a bit different.”

Lincoln-Goldfinch said alternatives, such as probation or an ankle-bracelet program, are a more cost-effective means of monitoring illegal immigrants.

“I would hope at some point there would be no Hutto facility in the sense that people would be released into the community more regularly and the government would explore alternatives to detention,” Hines said. “There are other means to ensure immigrants appear at their hearings, which is the rationale the government makes for detaining them in the first place.”

Vigil to close Raymondville's Tent City

2009-10-09T11:26:00.002-05:00

Vigil to Close "Tent City" Detention Center in Raymondville, Texas

Friday, October 16th, 5:00-7:00pm

The Willacy County Detention Center in Raymondville is the nation's largest and one of its most notorious immigrant detention centers. The prison holds 3,000 immigrant detainees, including 2,000 people in a series of Kevlar tents, earning the facility the designation "Tent City." The facility has been racked by a series of allegations of horrendous conditions and abuse, including alleged sexual assaults on female detainees by guards, reports of detainees being fed rotten and inadequate food, and poor access to medical and mental health care. The facility is operated by private prison corporation Management and Training Corporation. Raymondville is the seat of Willacy County which borders Mexico and the Gulf of Mexico and is the 12th poorest county in the US.

The Raymondville detention center is one of two large immigrant detention centers in the Rio Grande Valley. Detainees at the other facility, the Port Isabel Detention Center, continue a rolling hunger-strike in protest of prolonged detention and detention center conditions. Please join Southwest Workers Union, Grassroots Leadership, Texans United for Families, Austin Tan Cerca de la Frontera, and concerned residents from across Texas in a vigil to launch a campaign to close Tent City and call for increased accountability in ICE's massive detention system.

For more information or directions, please contact Anayanse Garza with Southwest Workers Union at (956) 207-2571. A caravan will be leaving the Austin on Friday morning at 10:00am. For more information or to reserve for a place in the van from Austin, please contact Bob Libal with Grassroots Leadership at blibal@grassrootsleadership.org or (512) 971-0487.

ICE moves women from other Texas facilities to Hutto

2009-10-06T15:11:00.002-05:00

Today ICE announced more specific changes, following up on their August 6 announcement that Hutto would no longer detain families. With the last families leaving Hutto in September, the facility now holds only women. And now, it appears that Hutto will be a central detention center for women in Texas, as women are transferred there from Pearsall, Port Isabel, and Willacy (Raymondville).

By all accounts, the improvements made to Hutto following the ACLU's 2007 lawsuit make Hutto highly preferable to Pearsall, Port Isabel, and Willacy, where sexual assault and abuse allegations have repeatedly surfaced. Little has been done by ICE or the contracting corporations to address sexual abuse.

These changes are announced as ICE releases Dora Schriro's comprehensive study of the immigration detention system. More on that forthcoming, but a brief look reveals a deep concern for the expense of using private contractors, the inappropriateness of carceral forms of detention for non-violent detainees, and massive administrative disorganization.

Read ICE's fact sheet.
Read the full report on ICE's detention center.

Least of These Screening, San Francisco

2009-09-28T20:58:00.001-05:00

Surviving Criminalization: Films on Incarceration & Family Detention

The Equal Justice Society next month will feature two documentaries that take a probing look into America's criminal justice and immigrant detention systems. As racial justice advocates, we believe that building a movement that addresses both systems of oppression is imperative.

Wednesday, October 14th
7:00 pm
Sundance Kabuki Cinema
1881 Post Street, San Francisco Japantown
(map)

On Facebook

Putting a human face on the issue of incarceration, THE TRUST (http://www.trustcommunity.org) follows three men determined to stop the cycle for themselves, their families and their communities. The men’s experiences are contextualized by expert testimony, which explores the historical and contemporary Corrections System providing a framework to understand how our prison population has grown from 200,000 to over 2.3 million in less than 40 years. THE TRUST is currently in production, and we will screen a 20-minute trailer.

THE LEAST OF THESE [http://theleastofthese-film.com], the second film, explores one of the most controversial aspects of U.S. immigration policy - family detention.

THE LEAST OF THESE takes a penetrating look at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former medium-security prison that re-opened in 2006 as a prototype family detention center. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings.

As troubling information about facility conditions began to leak out, legal advocates proceeded to investigate. The film tells the stories of their quest to bring justice to families in detention, and explores the role (and limits) of community and legal activism in bringing about institutional change. This feature-length screening will be the West Coast premiere of THE LEAST OF THESE.

The film screenings will be followed by a panel discussion
and Q&A session with the films' directors and lead characters.

CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS
General admission: $10
Community member rate: $ 5

For sponsorship inquiries, please contact either:
Sara Jackson, sjackson@equaljusticesociety.org
or
Miguel Gavaldón, mgavaldon@equaljusticesociety.org

Last Families Leave Hutto

2009-09-22T11:04:00.003-05:00

Good news! Long before any of us expected, ICE has released (or deported) the last families from T. Don Hutto. The facility will now be filled with noncriminal immigrant women. Here's what the Associated Press had to say about it:

The last immigrant families have departed a disparaged former Texas prison that housed them while they awaited decisions in their immigration cases, officials said on Friday.

The families have been deported, paroled or released while they pursue asylum or another immigration status to remain in the U.S., Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement. Less than two dozen children and adults remained at the T. Don Hutto facility in Taylor last week and the last four families left by Thursday.

But please keep in mind that the struggle to reform the detention system is not over. As the New York Times editorialized this weekend,

On Friday, her last day on the job, Ms. Schriro delivered a report on the detention system to Janet Napolitano, the homeland security secretary. We hope that it fully reflects the desperate reality: the brutal mistreatment; isolation, filth and deprivation; the shabby or nonexistent health care and the ill and injured detainees who languished and sometimes died, their suffering untreated.
Ms. Schriro’s successor will have a big job in fulfilling the administration’s promise of reform. The abuse and neglect must end. The system must also become much more discriminating about whom it holds — dangerous criminals, not the harmless and sick.
It will also have to rein in the private for-profit prisons that deliver brutal service on the cheap. And it will have to increase accountability and transparency. Ms. Napolitano can start by releasing Ms. Schriro’s report. Americans need to find out what happened in Basile, La., where detainees staged a hunger strike to protest detestable conditions, or downtown Los Angeles, where inmates filed a lawsuit to protest the squalor.
While Ms. Napolitano and her team promise to make detention a “truly civil” system, they show no interest in reforming the corrupt mechanisms that feed it. Instead, they are expanding the programs that have allowed corrupt local officials to round up thousands in unjust raids. The same people whom President Obama has promised a decent shot at citizenship remain easy prey to racial profiling, and are terrified of ending up in this truly uncivilized system. Mr. Obama and Ms. Napolitano must resolve that fundamental contradiction.

Hutto was just the beginning. If you were enraged by the imprisonment of children, that was only the tip of the iceberg. Keep checking this blog for updates on what comes next.

AP: As detention center shuts down in Texas, advocates worry about future for immigrant families

2009-09-10T21:43:00.001-05:00

As detention center shuts down in Texas, advocates worry about future for immigrant families

ANABELLE GARAYAssociated Press Writer

6:31 p.m. EDT, September 9, 2009

DALLAS (AP) — As immigrant children and their parents depart a disparaged former Texas prison that housed them while they awaited decisions in their immigration cases, advocates are questioning if the government has fully thought out what happens to the families now.

Federal officials announced last month that the T. Don Hutto facility in Taylor would no longer hold immigrant families and they instead would be detained at the much smaller Berks Family Residential Center in Leesport, Pa. But with only 84 beds — and more than 100 people once housed at Hutto — some advocates wonder if there will be enough space, or if immigrants will be released.

"We still have a lot of questions and would like to hear more details," said Denise Gilman, of the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, which along with other advocates filed a lawsuit contending that family detention at Hutto was inhumane.

Hutto is set to stop holding immigrant families by the end of the year, government officials say, and families have slowly been leaving. Instead of transferring the families to Berks, the government has been trying to process the cases of families at both facilities.

The Texas facility went from holding 127 men, women and children last month to just 22 people this week. They were either deported to their home countries or released while they pursue asylum or another immigration status to remain in the U.S.

As the change takes place, advocates are watching to see if thePennsylvania facility has better conditions, if cases are handled fairly and if new problems arise because of the shift.

Hutto opened as a family detention center in 2006, ending a so-called "catch and release" practice that had permitted families to remain free while their immigration cases were settled. The facility was necessary, ICE officials maintained, because many never showed up in court or some borrowed other people's children and posed as families to avoid detention.

But the facility quickly drew criticism, and The American Civil Liberties Union and other advocates sued the government in 2007 over the detention facility's conditions.

Attorneys and UT law students visiting Hutto to assist detainees with their immigration cases were astonished by the prison-like setting and regimen. Children wore drab prison scrubs. Razor wire encircled the site. They lived in tiny cells furnished with bunk beds and a steel toilet and were subjected to head counts several times a day. Guards with the for-profit Corrections Corporation of America trained to detain criminal adults were overseeing children. Parents said guards disciplined children with threats of being separated from their family.

The Berks facility, by contrast, is a former nursing home and with a reputation among attorneys for being more family friendly. Younger children stay with their parents, while teenagers sleep in separate rooms. One former resident told The Associated Press adults and children went on field trips during her stay, refrigerators in the hallways were stocked with fruit and juice and an interfaith prayer group is available. But still, the stays can be far from smooth.

The resident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she fears for her safety after fleeing cartel violence in Mexico, said at the border, officials had told her and her American husband she would only be detained for a week at most. But when she arrived, there were families who had been at the facility for a year, longer than the typical stay of a month at Hutto. Some residents had waited for a month or two before being interviewed by an asylum officer.

"That's when I said to myself 'So what awaits me?'" said the Mexican woman, who has since been released on humanitarian parole after a month at Berks and has petitioned to remain in the country since she's married to a U.S. citizen.

Going forward, families arriving at the U.S. border and entry points seeking asylum or trying to immigrate will be taken to Berks if the government believes they will disappear instead of showing up to immigration court, said Dora Schriro, who has been heading up the new Office of Detention Policy and Planning at the Department of Homeland Security. Other families will be released and placed on some type of community supervision, Schriro said.

The families at Hutto will likely be deported or receive some type of immigration benefit, such as asylum or parole, allowing them to remain in the U.S. before Hutto closes, she said.

Schriro will leave her new post mending of the nation's immigration detention system to be commissioner of correction for New York City, leaving advocates with questions over how that will affect the upcoming changes.

For now, advocates for immigrant families say they will be watching to see if Berks detainees can access legal representation. About one-third of asylum seekers before the court that handles Berks' cases did not have an attorney, while a majority at Hutto did, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. Having an attorney boosts people's chances of remaining in the country.

They also worry there could be some unintended consequences in the switch, especially when it comes to distance. Berks is located thousands of miles from the border crossings in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas used by most of the detainees and some question whether the government will be able to quickly and humanely transport such families to Pennsylvania.

"What happens to a family arrested in Texas or who goes to the border ... and asks for asylum? Will those people be released?" asked Barbara Hines, director of the Immigration Clinic at UT Law School. "To send them all the way to Berks if they're going to be released anyway seems like a waste of resources to me."

Williamson County Votes to End Contract with CCA

2009-09-03T08:33:00.002-05:00

Not much a victory, since they will fill the remaining beds with women, but at least children will not be detained there anymore, and at least Judge Gattis seems more aware of the issues than in the past. Repetition works!

County ends contract with CCA

By Philip Jankowski
Williamson County Commissioners voted Tuesday to end their contract with Corrections Corporation of America, the contracted operator of the T. Don Hutto Residential Center for illegal immigrants.

County Judge Dan Gattis said the move was more of a “housekeeping” procedure than an indication the county no longer wishes to contract with CCA to operate the facility. Gattis said Monday the county is waiting for Immigrations Customs Enforcement to draft a new contract so the facility can continue to hold women.
In early August the Obama administration ordered children and families at the facility to be placed in a Pennsylvania facility deemed more suitable for children. Families were expected to be moved in a matter of weeks and to be fully removed within months.

The Taylor facility’s population of families had fallen in recent years. To help fill the 512-bed facility, ICE began housing female detainees at the facility. By mid 2008, an entire wing of the former medium security prison was devoted to housing women.

Without that contract in hand, Gattis said he felt a need to terminate the county’s contract with CCA just in case the ICE contract does not come through.

“To protect ourselves we’re giving notification to CCA,” Gattis said. “It’s one of those legal things we felt we needed to do because the funds come from the county.”
CCA’s contract with Williamson County will expire at the end of this year. Gattis said he hopes to have a new contract with ICE before that, but if not, CCA will be forced to cease operations at the south Taylor facility.

“That’s a concern of mine,” Gattis said of the possibility of losing CCA jobs. “I hope (ICE) will come down with a proposal and we can keep that facility open.”

The T. Don Hutto facility is one of the largest and best paying employers of unskilled labor in Taylor. Guards can make upwards of $17 an hour, according to 2008’s contracted rates.

Gattis said he expects a certain amount of fervor to persist, though, in spite of children no longer being housed at T. Don Hutto, it will be greatly diminished.

“The majority of that group was upset because children were locked up, so that pressure will go away, but there’s a certain group that doesn’t believe in locking up people who are the in county illegally,” he said.

Free Least of These Screening, Austin, Tx

2009-08-31T17:50:00.001-05:00

Houston Solidarity with Aug. 22 Rally; Aug. 29 Rally in Houston Announced

2009-08-22T10:32:00.003-05:00

Estimados companeros en la lucha y Human Rights Advocates:

The "Free-the-Kids Hutto-Houston Colectiva" fully supports ongoing efforts to CLOSE THE INFAMOUS T.DON HUTTO "FAMILY PRISON," in Taylor, Texas.

And we call for both "CELEBRACION Y MAS ACCION" regarding a key victory in the struggle for immigrants rights and for protecting democratic rights in the United States.

Even though few, if any, Hutto-Houston Colectiva advocates can get to the Aug 22nd Vigil and Rally in Taylor, Texas, please know that we are doing our part in mobilizing Houston rights' advocates and youth for the:

What: Aug 29th "Celebration & Mobilization" Rally
Where: at James Driver Park (basketball court), at 10918 and 1/2 Bentley St., in northeast Houston, (near Hwy 59, Eastex, and Little York Rd)
When: Saturday, Aug 29, 2009; 4:30 pm -6:30 pm.

The Hutto-Houston Colectiva, in collaboration with La Raza Justice Movement and other organizations invites you to join us at the Aug 29th celebration/mobilization rally. Bring your banners, energy, musica & ideas.

Colectiva's participant groups and organizers are committed to the goal of CLOSING
DOWN the T.DON HUTTO "MOMMY" prison and to push for fair IMMIGRATION
& PRISON REFORM.

We are also calling for a moratorium on family detentions, a halt to deportations, no border wall, and for the American people to STOP 287(g) which is re-channeling federal funds into the financing of local jail, county and state prison facilities through "racial profiling" and through the prosecution and jailing of immigrant workers for small infractions.

For more info on the Aug 29th rally call:
Hutto-Houston Colectiva at: 832 244 7506;
La Raza Justice Movement at: 281-733-8463

Berks County Considering End of Family Detention Contract

2009-08-21T15:12:00.002-05:00

Those of us seeking an end to family detention might welcome this news, but there's an insidious subtext to this discussion: county governments and private prisons corporations alike seek to profit on the imprisonment of human beings. That is, there is a monetary incentive to expanding imprisonment and detention that has nothing to do with making good policy, fighting crime, or enforcing immigration law. When there's an incentive to imprison, the goals of our criminal justice and immigration detention systems are grossly out of perspective.

Berks County may stop housing illegal aliens

Shutting family center would cost 50 jobs; county doesn't profit from running Bern facility

By Holly Herman
Reading Eagle

While federal officials are planning to move families seeking American citizenship from a Texas detention center that is closing to a Berks County shelter, the county commissioners are considering getting out of the alien-housing business.

The Family Center in Bern Township is the only other facility in the country that houses families awaiting hearings or the results of hearings on requests to stay in the U.S.

But with tight economic times, the Berks County commissioners may end up closing the Bern Township center, which opened in 2001.

So far, no definite plans have been made to shut down the 84-bed center housing detained immigrant families captured at the borders and in other places.

Closing the facility would mean the loss of 50 county jobs, officials said.

But the county isn't profiting from the money the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement service pays the county for housing the detainees .

"At the initial stages we were permitted to make a profit, but now we are breaking even on it," Commissioner Chairman Mark C. Scott said. "We have been helpful to the federal government for a decade.

"Everything is on the table in terms of cost cutting. We are in the process of shrinking county government," Scott said.

The center, which generates more than $3 million in income annually for the county, costs $5.6 million a year to operate.

It's' paid for by the federal government and staffed by the county.

ICE officials said the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas, is expected to close in December.

ICE has been reviewing cases of 127 men, women and children residing in the facility since plans to close it were disclosed on Aug. 6.

"We are working on a case-by-case basis to determine if the families will be moved to Berks," said ICE spokeswoman Gillian M. Brigham.

So far, no detainees have been sent to Berks from the Texas facility.

Brigham said that some families will go through the immigration legal proceedings and be deported.

She said others might be released into the community to await hearings. Some of the families are seeking citizenship, some want asylum. ICE hearings will establish their legal status. Others are awaiting deportation.

Brigham said the bulk of illegal immigrants come to this country alone.

The goal of the shelter program, when it started in 2001, was to keep families together while they are being detained.

Kenneth C. Borkey Jr., executive director of the Berks shelter, said ICE officials notified him of the planned move but have not requested additional bed space.

Borkey said he has prepared a report on the availability of additional space if such a request is made.

Borkey said the center could be expanded to include 12 to 18 beds without additional renovations.

When the Berks center opened in March 2001, the federal government was paying the county $3.6 million for housing families in a renovated wing of Berks Heim, the county nursing home.

The county paid $280,000 for the renovations.

In 2004, new federal regulations prohibited governmental agencies from making a profit by providing service programs.

Subsequently, the county is no longer profiting from providing the services.

The county is receiving $144,000 to rent office space to federal employees using the program.

Scott, who was a commissioner when the program started, said that initially the program was a money maker.

"When we started this program, we were helping the federal government," he said. "Before this program, they were spending more money on housing families in hotels."

Scott said that he supports helping the federal government, but is more concerned about the economic impact on the county.

"It's our patriotic duty to help the federal government," he said. "But it's not a financial boon. Do we continue to tolerate this moving forward? The question we must consider is whether we can find another tenant."

Commissioner Kevin S. Barnhardt said he does not support expanding the program.

"We are talking about whether we want to continue the program," he said. "When the federal government said it was considering transferring people to Berks, it was a shock."

Barnhardt said the downside to closing the program is losing county jobs.

Commissioner Christian Y. Leinbach said that if the county were losing money on this it would be his priority to cut the program.

"We are breaking even," he said. "There are no plans to shut it down, but we are looking at it from a financial point of view."

The facility provides computer linkup services with immigration courts in York County.

The shelter provides medical and dental care. And it provides education classes and athletic activities for children.

Berks County was selected as the site in 2000 because of its excellent working relationship with the federal government when it was housing illegal aliens in the county jail.

That program is being phased out because of overcrowding conditions in the county prison.

Contact Holly Herman: 610-478-6291 or hherman@readingeagle.com

USA Today, Raul Reyes: A kindler gentler immigration system?

2009-08-21T15:04:00.002-05:00

A kinder, gentler immigration system?

Commentary By Raul Reyes
This country's immigration detention system has been a stain on the American fabric. The good news: The stain may soon begin to fade.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton recently announced plans to reform the system that houses more than 30,000 people on any given day. The agency wants to go from a jail-oriented approach — think prisons — to one designed to humanely house people until their status is settled.

The T. Don Hutto center in Taylor, Texas, has been a poster child for a broken system. Built as a state prison, Hutto was used as a family detention center. Children lived behind barbed wire, wore prison uniforms and received an hour of school a day. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the government on their behalf, and conditions improved once a settlement was reached in 2007. ICE's Morton said that effective immediately, no more families will be sent to Hutto.

Of course ICE could — and should — do more. Detainee facilities that violate agency standards face no penalties, echoing a July decision by the Department of Homeland Security that such standards are not legally enforceable. Without penalties, standards are mere goals that can be easily disregarded. Detainees are the only ones who stand to pay.

Repeated studies have documented poor conditions, ranging from a lack of due process to detainee abuses. Fortunately, an ICE pilot program is looking at alternatives to detention, such as electronic monitoring that includes reporting requirements and curfews. According to agency statistics, the program has resulted in a 99% appearance rate at immigration hearings and a 91% compliance with removal orders in the 12 test cities. An expansion seems like a no-brainer.

ICE's small steps are a good start toward fixing the detention system, which is as dysfunctional as our immigration system. And no, this doesn't mean opening up our borders, as the anti-immigrant crowd might fear. "We are going to continue to detain people on a large scale," ICE's Morton noted. As strategy, though, continued and aggressive enforcement could give the Obama administration the leverage it needs to sell comprehensive reform to a wary public next year.

With Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on the job for all of eight months now, it's only fair to give her more time to assess what's needed to enforce our immigration laws. Let's hope the former Arizona governor applies her knowledge of the border to the compassionate fabric of this great country.

Oh, and maybe she'll get that stain out after all.

Raul Reyes is an attorney in New York and a member of USA TODAY's board of contributors.

The Economist: When Home Is Prison

2009-08-16T22:16:00.002-05:00

The venerable neoliberal rag, the Economist, covered changes in US immigration detention policy, as well, though it mostly summarizes previous reports/posts. Correction, however: Napolitano has NOT scaled by immigration enforcement compared to Chertoff. Instead, she has expanded the 287(g) program, which allows local police to enforce immigration law, to a host of new cities, many of them in Texas. 287(g) has been discredited as institutionalized racial profiling.

WHEN HOME IS PRISON
Aug 13th 2009

Slow improvements in the processing of immigrants
...
[Janet Napolitano's] department has already made changes. The administration has scaled back the workplace raids that were so controversial during the Bush
years. It is opting instead to focus on auditing employers and
expanding E-Verify, an electronic system that lets employers check the
immigration status of potential employees.

But the biggest shift concerns family detention. In 2006 George Bush
said he would end a policy known as "catch and release", whereby
illegal immigrants were allowed to go free after being caught because
so many of them failed to turn up for subsequent court proceedings. But
detaining children and families proved more delicate than holding lone
adults. Later that year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
opened a facility specifically for families in Taylor, a small town
north of Austin.

The T. Don Hutto Family Residential Centre was formerly a
medium-security prison. In its new incarnation it is still run by the
Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison company. And
inside, Hutto used to be just like a jail. Barbara Hines, director of
the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas's law school, says
that she was shocked when she started visiting: children were wearing
prison uniforms and the parents were depressed and desperate. Everyone
was cooped up in cells for most of the day, and the children had only
an hour or so of lessons.

In March 2007 the Immigration Clinic and the American Civil Liberties
Union sued Michael Chertoff, then the head of the Department of
Homeland Security, over the conditions at Hutto. In August that year
the parties settled, with the government agreeing to a list of reforms.
That agreement was set to expire later this month, but on August 6th
ICE announced an overhaul of America's approach to detention. As
immediate steps, the government would put monitors in many of the adult
facilities, and immediately stop detaining families at Hutto.

The announcement raises questions. For one thing, it is not clear
where the families are going to go. ICE said that it would move them to
the Berks Family Residential Centre in Pennsylvania, but that facility
is full. And although Berks is somewhat nicer than Hutto,
immigrants'-rights groups are still sceptical about keeping children in
detention at all.

Planning large-scale reform next year may still be too ambitious: it is
an election year, which makes politicians even more skittish about
controversy. But some reform advocates are more optimistic: at least,
reckons Charles Foster, an immigration lawyer in Houston, immigration
reform is still on the agenda.

Williamson Co. Sun Recognizes Impact of Local Organizing Policy Change at Hutto

2009-08-14T16:13:00.008-05:00

Apologies for using jpgs, but the Williamson County Sun does not public online, and Blogger doesn't allow pdfs. If you click on the individual images, they will appear in a new window in an enlarged, more readable size.

Austin-American Statesman: Grassroots Movement Helped End Family Detention at Hutto

2009-08-13T10:40:00.009-05:00

The alliance of attorneys, grassroots organizers, and a diverse coalition of outraged Texans from across the state has been getting some much-deserved kudos in the press. Check out this Austin-American Statesman article on how it all came together (and about how sometimes it didn't, which is okay, too). There were hundreds more involved than are mentioned by name-- if you're one of them, your hard work has been recognized!

T. Don Hutto detention center united diverse group in protest

Group's efforts helped lead to an overhaul of nation's immigrant detention policies.
By Juan Castillo
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, August 13, 2009

When she first set foot in the T. Don Hutto immigrant detention center in Taylor shortly after it opened in 2006, Frances Valdez was not prepared for what she saw behind the former medium-security prison's razor-wire-ringed perimeter. There were children inside. Infants in prison-like uniforms, and pregnant women.

"It was shocking," Valdez said.

A recent graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, Valdez immediately called her mentor, Barbara Hines, the director of the school's immigration clinic where the young Austin lawyer was a clinical fellow.

"You're not going to believe this," Valdez told Hines — a bold assertion considering that with more than three decades of experience working on immigration law issues, Hines had probably seen it all.

But Valdez was right, Hines said

recently, recalling with still-heavy emotion the things she witnessed on her own visit to the Hutto center a week later that August.

"Just thinking about it takes me back to that place," Hines said. "It was so dire. It was the most depressed population I think I've ever seen."

Last week, three years and three months after the Hutto detention center opened, the Obama administration announced it will stop holding families there as it looks for alternatives to prison cells for some immigration law violators as part of an overhaul of the nation's immigration detention system.

The policy shift might not have been possible, according to some analysts, if not for the work of an unlikely but effective patchwork alliance of attorneys and community activists that emerged after Hines' and Valdez's unsettling initial visits to the Hutto center. The partnership quickly mushroomed to include hundreds, if not thousands, of people, including twenty-somethings and senior citizens, Williamson County residents, immigration reform advocates, human rights groups, documentary filmmakers, immigration clinic students and faculty and the American Civil Liberties Union. Though participants say they were not always on the same page, they were unified in their unrelenting calls for the government to close the center and to stop detaining families there.

They succeeded in drawing national and international media attention to the center as well as the scrutiny of international human rights groups. And in 2007, a lawsuit by the ACLU and Hines' UT law clinic led to a settlement agreement ordering the government to maintain improved conditions at the detention facility, about 30 miles northeast of Austin. (Set to expire later this month, the agreement was extended last week.)

"I think all of that (work by activists and attorneys) led to getting the new administration to understand that Hutto was an entirely inappropriate place to hold families," said Michelle Brané with the New York-based Women's Refugee Commission and author of its scathing 2007 report on family detention. "The reason they realized that is because we were able to inform them of what was going on there and explain why it was inappropriate."

Hines said the alliance was an "amazing experience" that showed how lawyers and activists, though sometimes at odds, could ultimately work together.

"Fundamentally, there was something about Hutto that really tugged at people's heartstrings," said Bob Libal with the grass-roots coalition Texans United for Families, which helped organize dozens of vigils and rallies outside the Hutto center's fences beginning in late 2006. "There were children there, and I think that makes people question the whole premise behind detention."

Detaining families

Those locked up at Hutto — in roughly 10-foot-by-10-foot cells — hail from all over the world and are seeking asylum or are being held on what the government defines as administrative, noncriminal violations of immigration law.

Only one other facility in the country — the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility in Leesport, Pa. — detains immigrant families. Those being detained in Taylor will be transferred by the end of the year to Berks, which will remain open pending further reforms, officials announced last week.

The decision to detain families was part of a 2006 Bush administration policy that ended a long-standing practice called "catch and release," under which immigrants promised to appear before a judge at a later date when there weren't enough beds to hold them.

Officials said mandatory detention was necessary because many families skipped their immigration hearings. They said detention was a safe, humane way to deal with families and keep them together.

But the Hutto center quickly came under fire amid a lengthy list of accusations of inhumane, substandard care and living conditions, among them that families were denied adequate diets, education, recreation, and medical and mental health care. Children initially received only one hour of education a day. Valdez and Hines said that in the beginning, parents were denied private meetings with counsel, meaning that many had to describe fleeing sexual abuse, imprisonment or torture in their home countries while in the presence of their young children.

Brané, who visited the center in December 2006, said parents told her that guards frequently threatened to separate them from their children if they didn't behave.

Amid the outcry, and as activists began steadily beating the drum for the center's closure, government officials expanded education and recreation and implemented other improvements early in 2007. But attorneys and activists continued arguing that imprisoning families, who in many cases were fleeing persecution in their home countries, was traumatic for the children and that there were plenty of alternatives to detention. Last week, government officials said they would consider alternatives, such as supervised release and the use of ankle bracelets, for some families.

Joining forces

Soon after the 2006 visits of Valdez and Hines, immigration law clinic students began providing representation to families held at the center.

Hines said they decided early on to enlist the help of activists to get the word out. By December 2006, community activists had helped organize the first of dozens of candlelight vigils at the center. Valdez said that even though only about 30 people attended the first vigil, "that's when it blew up." Soon, media representatives from around the world were calling about the lockup in Texas that held children and families, some for several months at a time. Refugee and human rights groups began descending on Taylor or monitoring developments there.

Valdez, who now practices immigration law in Houston, said that under their growing relationship, attorneys — the only ones who had access inside the center — typically described to activists the conditions and developments there. All used that information to consider their strategy in the campaign to close the center.

But the informal partnership was occasionally tinged with difficulty. Sometimes, activists wanted to know more than the attorneys could share because of attorney-client privilege, Hines said.

"We had to say, 'This is what I can tell you and you just have to trust me,' " Valdez recalled.

Activists had to learn to accept that while they were advocating a cause, attorneys were representing the best interests of their clients, said MaryEllen Kersch, a former Georgetown mayor who attended many of the vigils and organized a public forum on family detention. Kersch said that though she understood it was best for the plaintiffs, the settlement in the 2007 lawsuit that accused the government of violating the rights of minors at the center disappointed her.

"From a reformer's point of view, it sort of took the heat off the issue and gave what was being done (at Hutto) a little bit of a cover of acceptability," Kersch said.

She said diverse groups never lost sight of their overarching goal. "We all agreed on one thing: that T. Don Hutto needed to stop putting kids in prison."

jcastillo@statesman.com; 445-3635

ACLU: Hutto Settlement Extended

2009-08-10T13:56:00.002-05:00

ACLU Strikes Deal To Continue Humane Conditions At Hutto Detention Center
(8/7/2009; Updated 8/10/2009)

Agreement Will Remain In Place Until All Families Have Been Released

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials today struck a deal to extend an agreement requiring ICE to maintain improvements in the conditions at the T. Don Hutto family detention center in Texas and submit to external oversight until the last family is released from the facility.

The deal comes on the heels of an announcement Thursday that the government will immediately begin ending the detention of families at Hutto, the focus of 2007 lawsuits filed by the ACLU charging that children were being illegally imprisoned under inhumane conditions. The last family is expected to be released from Hutto no later than the end of the year.

"No young child should ever have to endure imprisonment in an adult prison," said Vanita Gupta, staff attorney with the ACLU Racial Justice Program and a lead attorney in the Hutto litigation. "Now that the long-overdue decision has been made to end the detention of families at Hutto, the government is to be commended for wanting to ensure that the improvements in the facility's conditions that have been made during the past two years remain in place until there are no families left there."

The ACLU's lawsuits were filed on behalf of 26 immigrant children between the ages of one and 17 detained with their parents who, in almost all cases, were seeking asylum. A settlement agreement reached several months after the lawsuits were filed mandates, among a number of other things, that children be given expanded educational programming and increased recreation time outdoors. The agreement was set to expire August 29.

The decision to end family detention at Hutto was made as part of a broad government plan to improve the immigration detention system. According to the plan, officials will work to consolidate many detainees in facilities with conditions that reflect their status as non-criminals, establish more centralized authority over the system and create more direct oversight of detention centers.

The plan also calls for ICE to stop sending families to Hutto, and to relocate the remaining 127 detainees there. Some will be transferred to an 84-bed facility in Pennsylvania, while others will be considered for programs that do not require detention, such as home and electronic monitoring.

Attorneys involved in the Hutto litigation include Gupta of the ACLU's Racial Justice Program; Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project; Lisa Graybill of the ACLU Foundation of Texas; and Barbara Hines of the University of Texas School of Law Immigration Clinic.

A copy of the stipulation is available online.

Additional information about the ACLU's Hutto litigation is available online at.

Michelle Brané: Good News on Immigration Detention But Keeping the Pressure On

2009-08-07T16:22:00.003-05:00

We're blogging our fingers off, but here's an excellent post from long-time family and child advocate, Michelle Brané, posted at the Huffington Post:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) announcement this week that they will stop detaining families at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, is terrific news. When I first visited the facility, which is a former prison, in December of 2006 I was shocked at what I saw -- kids getting only one hour of school a day, terribly inadequate medical care, insufficient time to eat, and, worst of all, inappropriately severe discipline. (See my report: Locking Up Family Values: The Detention of Immigrant Families.)

The facility was part of the Bush administration's plan to end what they called "catch and release." That administration gave the impression that families were swarming across the border and that smugglers were using babies as "mules" to prevent the detention of their clients. But they were never able to fill Hutto and they never to my knowledge identified a trafficked child through the new process.

What I saw at the facility were families -- mostly women, many of them pregnant, most with very young children -- who were fleeing to the United States for protection. The trek north through the desert is extremely dangerous and difficult. Many die on the journey. This is not a trip you make with your young children unless you are desperate. It also doesn't make sense to bring your toddler with you if you sole intention is to work illegally. It was clear from speaking with these women that they had real fears and valid claims to asylum.

But at Hutto they were treated as criminals, and their children were punished as well. Families slept in actual jail cells -- with prison cots and toilets in the cells. Children had some toys in the common areas but were not allowed to take anything into their cells at night. One family told me about a six-year-old child who cried when a prison guard told him he could not take the picture he had drawn into his cell. The guard yelled at him for crying, and the child's father tried to intervene. As punishment, the child and his father were separated -- to different wings of the facility -- for three days!

Following our report and the ensuing media attention and an ALCU lawsuit, the facility underwent improvements -- including providing education for the children, recreation opportunities, freedom of movement -- but family detention standards that were implemented are entirely inappropriate and still do not address issues of discipline and common decency. I couldn't be happier that families will no longer be placed in this facility. And the administration's decision is a clear indication that they are taking steps in the right direction.

I am worried though. Because the administration has made it clear that they will continue to detain families at another facility I have visited many times. The Berks County Family Shelter Care facility in Leesburg, Pennsylvania. That facility is not as blatantly disturbing as Hutto. It is a former nursing home -- not a prison. But the term "shelter" is still misleading. In 2006, I met families that had been detained there for two years. Children over five are separated from their parents at night. The same sort of disciplinary issues I mentioned above exist at Berks, too. The administration has indicated that they will be looking into alternatives to detention. I hope they mean it and I hope they do it quickly.

Advocates for immigrant rights are losing patience. The administration has been reviewing the system for six months and saying that they understand that the current criminal model of immigration detention is inappropriate for civil detainees. But they have also made it clear in statements and through their actions that they will continue aggressive enforcement operations and that they expect the detained population to grow. That means that some 440,000 immigrants and asylum-seekers are expected to be detained in the U.S. this year. We need to be realistic. We need immigration reform and that has to come from Congress.

Our current laws are unforgiving and unrealistic. We also need to be patient and give the administration time to overhaul a detention system that is a mess. I am not saying we should give them a free pass -- but my interaction with ICE headquarters since the change in administration has been positive. I think they are sincere in their desire to make the system more humane. We have no choice. We have to take a big of a leap of faith -- both sides, and work together. We can still hold them accountable -- especially if we don't see improvement. The announcement to stop using Hutto for families is the administration's attempt to show us they mean it and are trying. The former administration had been planning to increase family detention space with a request for proposals for up to three new facilities. This week, we went from fearing an increase to a cut in family bed space of 75 percent. That is pretty good.

The Obama administration has a lot more work to do to demonstrate that they mean what they say. For now, we have to trust that and do what we can to help them implement change while still holding them accountable.

CCA's response...

2009-08-07T15:54:00.001-05:00

From Business of Detention:

CCA Welcomes Fed’s New Immigrant Detention Strategy

On the heels of Immigration and Custom Enforcement’s announcement that it will stop holding children in Corrections Corporation of America’s T. Don Hutto Detention Center, the company assured investors that they still expect plenty of business from the federal government. “In some respects there may not have been much of a change,” said Damon Hininger, CCA’s President and Chief Operating Officer during a conference call on Thursday with investors.

Hininger said CCA had “just learned yesterday that ICE wants us to renegotiate” the Hutto contract and that a timetable for the negotiations had not been set for transitioning Hutto to hold female immigrants. But he pointed to the Obama administration’s expansion of the Bush administration’s Secure Communities program as proof that demand for immigrant detention beds would continue.

Other highlights from the 2nd quarterly earnings report of the nation’s largest private prison provider:

Revenues increased 5.7%, and average per diem rates are up 2.3%
Inmate populations were larger than expected at U.S. Marshall’s facilities - likely from the ongoing Operation Streamline along parts of the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona and Texas
During the next quarter CCA expects the commencement of a new 20-year contract with ICE to detain immigrants in a 502-bed former county jail that it just finished renovating in Hall County, Georgia
Watch for a more detailed update next week from BusinessofDetention.com!

Berks County Family Center full

2009-08-07T15:09:00.003-05:00

The Reading Eagle reports that Berks County officials were unaware of ICE's policy change, and have no room for families transferred from Texas:

Federal officials announced Thursday that they were closing a detention center for immigrant families in Texas and sending the detained families to the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility in the former Berks Heim.

But nobody told Berks County. And the Berks facility is full.

County Commissioner Kevin S. Barnhardt, who is chairman of the county prison board, said he was unaware of the move by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Kenneth A. Borkey Jr., executive director of the Bern Township facility, which houses families awaiting immigration hearings, said the center is at capacity.

Immigration officials could not be reached for comment.

In the announcement, they said the closing of the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas, was the first step in shifting illegal-immigration cases from the criminal to the civil court system.

Officials said they would send detained families to the Berks facility until it was filled and then develop alternative programs, such as supervised release, to monitor families awaiting deportation hearings.

Borkey said he was drafting a memo with the bad news for the immigration agency.

"We have an 84-bed capacity and we are at capacity," Borkey said.

Borkey said he planned to notify county commissioners and consult with immigration officials about reconfiguring the building to make room for more detainee families.

The county, which signed a contract with ICE that became effective Thursday, is reimbursed $197 a day per individual.

Borkey said news of the Texas closing rattled his employees, who feared their jobs also might be in jeopardy.

"At this time the county has not been informed of any changes to our program," Borkey said.

No word yet on whether Hutto's families will, indeed, be transferred or whether ICE will allow the detained family population to shrink gradually.

Practically speaking, it seems preferable to release families on bond, parole, and recognizance and as their claims are processed through immigration courts.

Most families detained at Hutto and Berks are asylum-seeking, and are therefore eligible for various forms of release. In fact, detaining refugees and asylum-seekers in prison-like conditions is generally considered bad policy and against international law, as this can re-traumatize people fleeing persecution, abuse, violence, and torture.

What about Berks?

2009-08-07T14:56:00.005-05:00

The numerous reports highlighting the transfer of families from Hutto to Berks have brought attention to this rather under-publicized family residential facility, and I thought I'd provide some information about Berks. (The Reading Eagle reports, however, that the Berks Family Shelter Care Center is full. See previous post.)

Berks was opened in March of 2001, as an extension of Berks County's contract with then-INS' juvenile detention program. It is located on a large tract of land in Bernville Township that holds a number of county services: recycling, water treatment, an elderly care facility, a prison, a youth corrections center, a juvenile detention center, a community college, and an agricultural center.

The family detention center is located in an old nursing home, built in the 1950s. Still called Berks Heim by locals, the facility was a state of the art residence for elderly folks that required specialized care. Built as a residence, rather than a prison, Berks has been held up as an alternative to T Don Hutto. Licensed by the state of Pennsylvania and run according to child welfar principles, Berks has not been subject to the same media or legal attention as Hutto.

But as the Women's Refugee Commission's Michell Brané pointed out in Locking up Family Values, Berks is far from perfect. In response to ICE's policy change, Brané maintains: "While conditions there were not as shocking as those at Hutto, they are not appropriate. For example, children over five, are separated from their parents at night. We believe that families should not be detained unless absolutely necessary and only for an extremely short period of time.” (See the Women's Commissions full press release here.)

Both the ACLU and the Women's Commission (as well as others) have argued the authority structure of detention is harmful to families, since it strips parents of their role as arbiters of the family unit. While much of the attention has been focused on the conditions of detention, people often forget the effects any institutional environment will have on the less tangible--but fundamental--relationships between parents and children.

Mentioned even less often is how institutionalization effects relationships between parents, since their contact is highly constrained. Married couples cannot, for example, sleep together nor show affection towards each other. These kinds of relationships require some degree of privacy, which is difficult to balance with security and authority structures inherent to institutional custody.

There is no research on this, but as human beings, we can expect that compiling the stress of filing and pursuing claims with an inability to care for each other in familiar ways will have long terms effects on family relationships. This points to the larger question, which Brané has repeated asked, about the suitability detaining any families at all.

What will happen to the families at Hutto?

2009-08-07T14:49:00.002-05:00

Many have been asking us what will happen to the families currently detained at Hutto. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer,

Morton said the process of transferring families from Texas to Pennsylvania would begin immediately.

"For the immediate future we will use Berks to its capacity," Morton said. To the extent that ICE needs more capacity for families, he said, the agency would explore alternatives to detention, including supervised release and electronic monitoring with ankle bracelets.

ICE is not ending family detention policy, but is making use of the more humane of the two facilities and a range of non-detention forms of custody. Despite what critics have argued, this is not a "catch and release" policy, but more like a "catch and follow" policy. Families can expect to be required to call ICE at daily, weekly, or other regular intervals, to have ICE officers visit them at home or work, to be assigned electronic monitoring ankle bracelets, and other forms of supervision. Bond and parole may be used more widely, as well, which requires that families post $4-10,000 for each adult (less for children) to guarantee court appearance.

More News Coverage

2009-08-07T11:53:00.005-05:00

Google found 791 articles reporting on ICE' changes to family and immigrant detention policy, but here are just a few. For the most part, we're all waiting for more information. Family detention at Hutto may be ending, but we have few details about how the rampant problems in the detention system as a whole will be addressed. For now, here are some words...

From Houston Chronicle: ICE will revamp detainee system, policy of using converted prisons to hold families of illegal immigrants is on its way out

Three years ago, immigrant families sent to a Central Texas immigration detention center found themselves at a converted prison rimmed in razor wire. Child inmates slept with their parents in cells monitored by lasers, stood still for daily head counts and donned navy detention uniforms available in sizes as small as infant onesies. They reported getting only one hour of school a day and going weeks without playing in the sun.

As word spread about conditions for families at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility, critics pointed to the former medium-security prison as being emblematic of problems associated with the Bush administration's immigration detention practices. ...

The detention centers have been sharply criticized in recent years amid reports of substandard medical care, detainee deaths and poor access to attorneys. Morton said the system will be revamped to get away from a penal detention model that relies heavily on contracts with correctional facilities and private industry. Within the next three to five years, he said, the agency aims to use facilities designed, located and operated specifically for immigration purposes.

“What we're trying to do is design a system that reflects the unique civil detention authorities that we're exercising,” Morton said. “The population that we detain is different than the population that is detained in a traditional prison or jail setting.” ...

Barbara Hines, an attorney who oversees the University of Texas immigration law clinic and was one of the first nonprofit attorneys to visit the Hutto facility, praised ICE's addition of monitors to oversee daily operations at larger immigration facilities.

“Having ICE monitors in prisons is a good step forward because I think in the last couple years, the expansion of detention has gotten out of control, leading to deaths and a lack of medical care,” Hines said. “But I don't think ICE is capable of policing itself.” ...

Morton stressed that ICE is not shying away from immigration detention in general. “We are going to continue to detain people, and we are going to continue to detain people on a large scale,” he said.

From the San Antonio Express-News: Detention overhaul hits Austin area site

Several years ago, the Bush administration hailed the 512-bed Hutto facility as a model center, which was operated under contract by Corrections Corp. of America.

However, a federal lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union forced the Bush administration to make improvements to the former state prison and to make it more family-friendly.

But civil rights groups and immigrant advocacy organizations continued to call conditions at the Texas center deplorable.

“Ending family detention at Hutto is extremely welcome and long overdue,” said Joanne Lin, ACLU legislative counsel.

The ACLU said it would continue to push for reform of the immigration detention system to ensure detainees are given access to due process and not inappropriately locked up for prolonged periods of time.

[what your representatives REALLY think] Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, questioned whether the detention system changes would be a return to the controversial catch-and-release system that was ended by the creation of the detention facilities under the Bush administration.

Alternatives to detention, like supervised release and catch-and-release programs, for immigrants scheduled to be deported do not work, said Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio and the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, which oversees immigration law.

“I hope that the Obama administration will not repeat past mistakes and return to a policy that puts more illegal immigrants on the streets of American communities,” Smith said.

From the LA Times: Obama aims to overhaul immigration jail system

Pledging more oversight and accountability, the Obama administration announced plans Thursday to transform the nation's immigration detention system from one reliant on a scattered network of local jails and private prisons to a centralized one designed specifically for civil detainees.

The reforms are aimed at establishing greater control over a system that houses about 33,000 detainees a day and that has been sharply criticized as having unsafe and inhumane conditions and as lacking the medical care that may have prevented many of the 90 deaths that have occurred since 2003. ...

Immigrant rights advocates welcomed the changes but said there was still no clear policy on how detention facilities would be penalized if problems were found.

"We are encouraged that the administration is taking a hard look at what has traditionally been a dark spot in our immigration system," said Karen Tumlin, a staff attorney at the Los Angeles-based National Immigration Law Center. "However, only time will tell if the reforms announced today amount to lasting change or simply creative repackaging of prior policies."

Tumlin and others said the detention standards needed to be made legally binding to guarantee immigrants access to counseling, family visits, legal materials and recreation time. Legislation has been introduced aimed at accomplishing this.

Advocates also said that the government should use less punitive and less costly alternatives to detention, such as ankle bracelets or intensive supervision, for certain immigrants.

"We are very disappointed by the failure to discuss alternatives to detention in the proposal," said Ahilan Arulanantham, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "The system now detains thousands of people who are not a danger and not a flight risk."

To increase oversight, the immigration agency would place federal monitors in 23 large facilities, which house more than 40% of the detainees. The agency also plans to hire experts in healthcare administration and detention management, and someone to review medical complaints.

"We need a system that is open, transparent and accountable," Morton said.

A crackdown on illegal immigrants under the George W. Bush administration led to a dramatic increase in the detainee population, from 19,700 in fiscal year 2006 to 33,400 today. The budget for detention and deportation is nearly $2.5 billion, much of which is spent on contracts with private prison companies such as Corrections Corp. of America.

Morton said the agency did not plan to reduce the number of detainees or stop contracting with local governments and private corporations. But he said his staff would assess where detainees should be housed.

He said that many -- including some asylum seekers and those without criminal records waiting to be deported -- should be in facilities less restrictive than jails and prisons.

Austin-America Statesman: Hutto to cease detaining families

2009-08-06T10:46:00.001-05:00

Report: Government plans to stop sending families to Taylor detention center
T. Don Hutto would be converted to facility for immigrant women, Obama Administration official says.

COMPILED FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Thursday, August 06, 2009
The Obama administration plans to announce today that the government will stop sending families to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor — where families are held while they await adjudication of their immigration cases — as part of an overhaul of the nation's immigration detention system, The New York Times reported.

Details of the overall plan are sketchy, and even the first steps will take months or years to complete, the newspaper reported.

The plan includes reviewing the federal government's contracts with more than 350 local jails and private prisons, with an eye toward consolidating many detainees in places more suitable for noncriminals facing deportation — some possibly in centers built and run by the government.

But the government would take immediate action on Hutto, a 512-bed center run for profit by the Corrections Corp. of America under a $2.8-million-a-month federal contract.

The facility was a centerpiece of the Bush administration's approach to immigration enforcement when it opened in 2006. The decision to stop sending families there — and to set aside plans for three more family detention centers — is the Obama administration's clearest departure from its predecessor's immigration enforcement policies, the newspaper said.

Dan Kowalski, an Austin immigration attorney who represents a woman formerly housed at the Hutto facility in Taylor, welcomed the announcement.

"I'm happy to hear it. My only question is, 'What are they going to do with the people that they would have sent to Hutto?' " he said.

John Morton, who heads the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as assistant secretary of homeland security, told The New York Times on Wednesday that Hutto will be converted into an immigration jail for women. He said that he hasn't ruled out the possibility of detaining families but that the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility, an 84-bed former nursing home in Leesport, Pa., is a better facility for those detainees.

Reached by phone Wednesday evening, Williamson County Judge Dan A. Gattis' first reaction was, "Good. My quote is: Good."

The facility has drawn unwanted attention to Williamson County. Opponents including the American Civil Liberties Union have lobbied Congress and held protests urging that the facility be closed, and citizens have spoken against it before county commissioners.

The University of Texas School of Law's Immigration Clinic and the ACLU of Texas won a settlement in a federal suit that accused the government of violating the rights of minors held at the center.

The 2007 settlement agreement ordered enforceable standards at the center, including requirements that families be able to spend an unlimited time together in their rooms with the door open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., eliminating scheduled head counts and ordered five hours of schooling per day for children, among other things. That agreement was scheduled to expire Aug. 29.

"We're happy that the administration is taking a look at its policies on family detention," said Jose Medina, a spokesman for the ACLU of Texas. "We're eagerly waiting to see what the details are. But this is clearly a positive development."

Gattis said the administration's move would take the pressure off the county, which he described as acting as a middle man between the federal government and Corrections Corp. of America. Williamson County receives about $15,800 a month under its latest 2-year contract with the company, which commissioners voted to renew in December.

"I've always said, whatever (the federal government's) policy is, we're here to help," he said. "It's really their policy, not ours."

The new policy, according to The New York Times, aims to establish more centralized authority over the detention system, which holds about 400,000 immigration detainees over the course of a year, and more direct oversight of detention centers.

The number detained at Hutto has dropped sharply, to 127 individuals from as many as 450, the newspaper said.

Additional material from staff writers Miguel Liscano and Andrea Lorenz

BREAKING NEWS: ICE ENDS FAMILY DETENTION AT T DON HUTTO

2009-08-06T07:21:00.003-05:00

At 11 pm last night, the New York Times led with the following story:

The Obama administration intends to announce an ambitious plan on Thursday to overhaul the much-criticized way the nation detains immigration violators, trying to transform it from a patchwork of jail and prison cells to what its new chief called a “truly civil detention system.”

One move starts immediately: the government will stop sending families to
the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former state prison near Austin, Tex.,
that drew an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit and scathing news coverage for putting young children behind razor wire.

“We’re trying to move away from ‘one size fits all,’ ” John
Morton, who heads the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency as
assistant secretary of homeland security, said in an interview on Wednesday.
Detention on a large scale must continue, he said, “but it needs to be done
thoughtfully and humanely.”

Hutto, a 512-bed center run for profit by the Corrections Corporation
of America under a $2.8 million-a-month federal contract, was presented as a
centerpiece of the Bush administration’s tough approach to immigration
enforcement when it opened in 2006. The decision to stop sending families there
— and to set aside plans for three new family detention centers — is the Obama
administration’s clearest departure from its predecessor’s immigration
enforcement policies. ...
Ms. Gupta said the changes at Hutto since 2006 illustrated the importance of enforceable rules. Before the A.C.L.U. lawsuit was settled in 2007, some children under 10 stayed as long as a year, mainly confined to family cells with open toilets, with only one hour of schooling a day. Children told of being threatened by guards with separation from their parents, many of them asylum-seekers from around the world.

Only through judicial enforcement of the settlement, she said, have children been granted such liberties as wearing pajamas at night and taking crayons into family cells. The settlement also required the agency to honor agency standards that had been ignored, like timely reviews of the decision to detain a family at all. Some families have been deported, but others were released or are now awaiting asylum decisions in housing run by nonprofit social service agencies.

That kind of stepped-up triage could be part of the more civil detention system envisioned by Mr. Morton and Dr. Schriro, who has been reviewing the detention system for months and is expected to report her recommendations soon.
But the Hutto case also points to the limits of their approach, advocates say. Under the settlement, parents and children accused of immigration violations were detained when possible at the country’s only other family detention center, an 84-bed former nursing home in Leesport, Pa., called the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility. The number detained at Hutto has dropped sharply, to 127 individuals from as many as 450.

Advocates noted that Berks, though eclipsed by the criticism of Hutto — the subject of protest vigils, a New Yorker article and a documentary — also has a history of problems, like guards who disciplined children by sending them across the parking lot to a juvenile detention center, and families’ being held for two years.
The Hutto legal settlement expires Aug. 29. In the most recent monitoring report last month, Magistrate Judge Andrew W. Austin wrote: “Although the use of this facility to hold families is not a violation of the settlement agreement, it seems fundamentally wrong to house children and their noncriminal parents this way. We can do better.”

Mr. Morton, a career prosecutor, seemed to agree. Hutto will be converted into an immigration jail for women, he said, adding: “I’m not ruling out the possibility of detaining families. But Berks is the better facility for that. Hutto is not the long-term answer.”

Texas Organizations Support Protext Citizens from Unlawful Detention Act & Strong STANDARDS Act

2009-08-03T09:17:00.002-05:00

Thanks to the Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Service for circulating this letter.

July 30, 2009.

Support S. 1549, the Protect Citizens from Unlawful Detention Act, and S. 1550,
the Strong STANDARDS Act (Safe Treatment, Avoiding Needless Deaths, and
Abuse Reduction in the Detention System)

We, the undersigned organizations, urge you to support S. 1549, the Protect Citizens from Unlawful Detention Act, sponsored by Senators Gillibrand (D-NY), Kennedy (D-MA) and Menendez (D-NJ), and S. 1550, the Strong STANDARDS Act (Safe Treatment, Avoiding Needless Deaths, and Abuse Reduction in the Detention System), sponsored by Senators Gillibrand (D-NY) and Menendez (D-NJ). We represent a broad cross-section of religious, immigration, asylum/refugee, human rights, civil liberties and community groups from across the country. We call upon Congress to enact these important reforms that will ensure America’s most basic values of liberty, dignity and respect are protected for all those living on our soil.

Since 2005 the Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has dramatically increased and intensified immigration enforcement, using ever increasing detentions as a poor proxy for reforming the immigration system. As a result of aggressive enforcement policies and insufficient protections in the system, U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents have been mistakenly and unlawfully detained, mistreated by government agents, and deported, including at least one U. S. citizen who was deported to Mexico illegally. These troubling outcomes are a direct result of an immigration system that relies on blanket detention policies instead of targeted immigration enforcement.

With ICE detaining more than 300,000 people last year in a swollen detention system, and predicting over 440,000 individuals will be detained this year, the vast network of federal, state, local and private prisons fail to adequately provide for the basic needs of those detained by ICE. Lacking adequate process and judicial discretion, hundreds of thousands of ICE detainees, including the sick, children, pregnant women and asylum seekers, are funneled into a detention system that was not designed to handle the large numbers or the long term detentions that result from indiscriminate enforcement of unjust immigrations laws without much-needed reform. As a result, people arrested and detained by ICE are transferred across the country, far from their families and attorneys, asylum seekers spend months and sometimes years in detention, and at least 90 people have died in custody since 2003, including some in recent months.

Legislation is urgently needed to regulate and curb ICE’s sweeping and reckless enforcement actions, focusing immigration enforcement in a way that is targeted and calibrated, and detaining people only where necessary. Smart enforcement coupled with secure alternatives to custodial detention would increase efficiency in the system and could potentially save millions in detention costs and lawsuits by those wrongfully detained, deported or abused while in custody. We are heartened by Secretary Napolitano’s attention to issues surrounding conditions and medical care in immigration detention, and her appointment of Dr. Dora Schriro as Special Advisor on Detention and Removal Operations. We understand that Dr. Schriro is preparing a set of recommendations designed to address some of the most serious problems in the system, but also believe that changes need to come from Congress, delivered in a way that ensures consistency across administrations as well as proper accountability and oversight by Congress.

The Protect Citizens from Unlawful Detention Act would establish screening mechanisms so that vulnerable populations, such as children and pregnant women, and others who are swept up in immigration enforcement operations are considered for alternatives to detention. Screening mechanisms would also help prevent situations in which U.S. citizens are mistakenly placed into the immigration system. This bill would ensure that all people arrested or detained by ICE are advised of the right to access immigration counsel and are notified of the immigration charges against them. The right to know why one is being held, to retain and access counsel, and to be free from arbitrary detention are fundamental American values that reach back to the founding fathers.

The Strong STANDARDS Act (Safe Treatment, Avoiding Needless Deaths, and Abuse Reduction in the Detention System) would require DHS to provide access to adequate medical care, establish protocols when ICE transfers immigrants away from family and counsel, ensure access to functioning telephones inside detention centers, as well as many other improvements to conditions of detention. This bill also establishes an “alternatives to immigration detention” program that is more humane and cost-effective than penal-style detention, and more appropriate to the civil nature of immigration proceedings. These programs would ensure that people appear at immigration court hearings while also redirecting vulnerable populations such as pregnant and nursing women, the elderly and asylum seekers into cost-saving, community-based, non-custodial alternatives to detention.

[Please note: both bills define families with children as "vulnerable populations," qualifying them for expanded release, bond, and parole options, and limiting the use of detention and electronic monitoring for families.]

We commend Senators Gillibrand, Kennedy and Menendez for sponsoring these vital pieces of legislation at a time when fiscal responsibility and a return to the rule of law sit prominently on the list of priorities for a new administration and new Congress. Our Constitution guarantees all individuals in our country the right to due process, and we must ensure that immigration enforcement is conducted in a way that is fair, humane and cost efficient. The time for Congressional action to avoid more preventable deaths in immigration detention and more detentions and deportations of U.S. citizens is now.

Sincerely,
Border Ambassadors, East Williamston County Democratic Club, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Texans United for Families, Welcoming Immigrants Network

Austin-American Statesman: Critics push for immigrant detention center to close

2009-08-03T08:40:00.002-05:00

Thanks to the Liscano and Osborn for the article, but just to clarify... The Hutto Settlement required that Immigration and Customs Enforcement create and implement Family Residential Standards. The article is referring to the stipulations of In re: Hutto as "enforceable standards." Compliance with this long list of physical and operational changes was overseen by a magistrate at the federal court. The Family Residential Standards, however, are unenforceable and do not include third party or external oversight. The magistrate's final report reflects questionable compliance in a number of areas, even two years after the settlement. Needless to say, this worries us.

Critics push for immigrant detention center in Taylor to close

Enforceable standards, mandated by a federal court, are set to expire Aug. 29.

By Miguel Liscano, Claire Osborn

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Critics of an immigrant detention center in Taylor are stepping up efforts to shut it down as a court mandate for improved conditions at the facility is set to expire.

A 2007 settlement agreement ordered enforceable standards, including external oversight and improved education, nutrition and medical care, at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former medium-security state prison.

But that agreement is scheduled to expire Aug. 29, and questions linger about whether the new standards will continue. Opponents of the 512-bed facility, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have lobbied members of Congress and held protests urging that the facility be closed.

Last week, several people spoke against the facility at the Williamson County Commissioners Court meeting.

"I do not believe that we should be placing the burden of our unresolved issues on children and families while they are waiting for an administrative resolution of their immigrant status," said Allene Booth-Judson, a retired director of special programs, including bilingual education and at-risk programming, at the Round Rock Independent School District. "Our country has many unresolved issues dealing with immigration."

The for-profit facility is operated by Corrections Corp. of America through a contract with Williamson County. The county receives about $15,800 a month from the company.

The Commissioners Court has sent a request to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Corrections Corp. of America for written documentation that the standards will be upheld, said Williamson County Judge Dan Gattis.

"My beliefs are that the stipulations sent down by the court should be followed," Gattis said. "The county has little role in this because it's a federal deal."

Corrections Corp. of America spokesman Steve Owen referred questions about future standards at the facility to the immigration and customs agency.

A spokeswoman for ICE, which oversees the center, declined to comment on the matter.

The center, opened in 2006, holds families awaiting adjudication in immigration cases and has been criticized even after the settlement for what some have said are substandard living conditions for those held at the facility.

Detainees hail from all over the world and are seeking asylum or are being held on noncriminal violations of immigration law.

Two years ago , the University of Texas School of Law's Immigration Clinic and the ACLU of Texas won a settlement in a federal suit that accused the government of violating the rights of minors held at the center.

"The conditions at Hutto when we first began to work there in September 2006 and throughout our litigation were deplorable and are an example of what happens without external oversight," said Barbara Hines, director of the immigration clinic. "No modifications to Hutto would have been made without community advocacy and litigation."

The settlement mandated that each family be able to spend an unlimited time together in their rooms with the door open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.

It also eliminated scheduled head counts of residents, instead allowing them to check in with staff members three times a day, and ordered that children at the center be given five hours of schooling per day and that adult education classes be provided.

It also mandated that the government provide Spanish-speaking medical staff and a limited number of over-the-counter medications.

The immigration and customs agency also agreed to allow a federal magistrate to conduct periodic on-site reviews of the facility, which will end with the expiration of the settlement.

"I cannot imagine that they will literally roll back the clock and go back to treatment that I think has been roundly condemned as egregious," said Lisa Graybill, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, at a recent news conference. "That said, it is really worrisome to us that there will be no external oversight."

Graybill acknowledged improvements at the facility, but she is still pushing to shut it down.

"Some cosmetic improvements, which are significant, don't change the fact that it's a jail," Graybill said.

Late last year, the county commissioners extended a contract with Corrections Corp. of America for two years. The county has had a contract with the company and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since 2006 to act as the intermediary between the two and to disburse federal funds for the facility.

Graybill said the county could possibly shut down the facility if it decides to no longer take part in the agreement.

"Whether the government could operate the Hutto detention center absent Williamson County is a harder question," she said.

Susan Wakusch: County Must Cut Ties to T. Don Hutto

2009-08-03T08:31:00.003-05:00

IACHR Releases Initial Reactions to Detention Center Visits

2009-07-28T15:09:00.004-05:00

Last week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Special Rapporteur visited detention facilities in the US, including the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility (see previous post). Today, they issued a press release containing their initial impressions. Read the full press release in English and Spanish; below are exerpts addressing family detention.

Washington, D.C., July 28, 2009 - The Rapporteurship on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their Families of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights completed a week of visits to various types of U.S. immigration detention facilities in Arizona and Texas. The purpose of the visit was to gather information from detention officials, detainees and civil society organizations regarding immigration enforcement, detention, and due process issues in the United States. ...

From July 20th to the 24th, a delegation from the Rapporteurship visited two unaccompanied minor shelters, a family detention facility, three adult detention facilities, and met with various representatives from civil society organizations focused on U.S. immigration issues. The delegation, headed by the Rapporteur, Felipe González, visited the Southwest Key Unaccompanied Minor Shelter (Phoenix, Arizona), the Florence Service Processing Center (Florence, Arizona), Pinal County Jail (Florence, Arizona), the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center (Taylor, Texas), the Willacy Detention Center (Raymondville, Texas), and International Education Services (IES) Unaccompanied Minor Shelter (Los Fresnos, Texas). The Rapporteurship’s delegation also met with representatives of civil society organizations focused on immigration issues in Arizona and Texas. ...

Family Detention

The delegation observed that the physical conditions and services at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center have improved since the initiation of a class action lawsuit in 2007. The Rapporteurship, however, is concerned that it required a lawsuit and ultimately a settlement agreement to bring the physical conditions and services to their current levels. The Rapporteurship took note that the judge’s July 2009 monitoring report on the settlement agreement found the Government and the Correctional Corporation of America (CCA), the Government’s privately-contracted service provider for the family detention center, only recently came into compliance on at least one of the requirements under the Settlement Agreement – nearly two years after it went into effect. It was reported to the delegation that the Settlement Agreement is set to expire at the end of August 2009. Given the slow compliance by the Government, the improvements gained under the Settlement Agreement, including more transparency in parole assessments, may deteriorate absent monitoring.

More importantly, the Rapporteurship is concerned by the Government’s broad use of detention for asylum seekers and their accompanying minor children. The Government reported that over ninety percent of the families at the Hutto family detention facility are asylum seekers and their children. While the services at the Hutto facility have improved considerably, the detention of asylum seekers and their children in the manner observed is not in compliance with the principle of the “best interest of the child” to be in the least restrictive environment or with the principles applicable to the detention of asylum seekers under international law. Asylum seekers are fleeing persecution in their country of origin and the psychological impact of detention on the asylum seekers and their children is detrimental to their well being. The Rapporteurship observed an example of an alternative to detention in the Austin, Texas area that allows asylum seekers and their children to live in a home environment while their cases proceed. The Rapporteurship was troubled to receive reports that the Government was still considering the possibility of opening three more family detention facilities. ...

They go on to express grave concerns regarding adult detention, the custody of unaccompanied minors, and the local enforcement of federal civil immigration laws. They note that "frequent sub-contracting of the staffing for the facilities to private correctional service companies create significant obstacles to providing immigrant detainees care that comports with their basic human rights." The Rapporteurship also noted the remote location of adult detention centers created staffing difficulties, which prevented adequate provision of basic medical care, food services, and so on. Further, they criticized the use of solitary confinement to "protect" vulnerable populations (e.g. homosexuals, those with mental illness, other minorities), noting that this measure "effectively punishes the victims." And while Maricopa County's now infamous racial profiling and detainee abuses drew their attention, as well, the Rapporteurship noted that local law enforcement have used coercive tactics to force noncitizens to sign immigration-related documents, without legal counsel.

As in last week's meeting with the IAHCR delegation, it is clear that human rights abuses cannot be reduced to isolated incidents, rogue guards or police officials, nor accidents of geography. Rather, it the toxic combination of private--and unaccountable--prison corporations, a tacit acceptance of rights-infringement for noncitizens, and criminalization of civil immigration violatings that allows these abuses to continue.

ACLU meets with Inter-American Commission on Human Rights about T. Don Hutto facility

2009-07-27T14:58:00.004-05:00

On July 20, 2009, the ACLU, Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition, Texans United for Families (that's us), Grassroots Leadership, attorneys representing Hutto detainees, and researchers from the Center for Public Policy Priorities met with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) at the Texas ACLU office in Austin. The meeting followed a press conference at the University of Texas Law School. Both events highlighted the expiration of the 2007 settlement that dramatically improved conditions at Hutto.

Who is the IACHR? They are the independent, judicial arm of the Organization of American States, the supranational organization that oversees foreign relations in the Western Hemisphere. They seek to enforce human rights under the American Convention of Human Rights (ACHR). Find out more here.

Why the IACHR? The IACHR hears cases on human rights violations that have no further legal recourse in the country in question, and can only hear cases from countries that have ratified the ACHR. However, they also receive petitions to investigate and report on specific themes or problems, outside of a specific case. In 2007, they received a petition to investigate family detention and conditions of federal custody for unaccopmanied minors in the US. Due to onerous preconditions set by the Bush administration, they could not perform their duties.

The IACHR delegation visited the Hutto facility as part of a larger investigation into allegations of human rights violations in the U.S. immigration enforcement system.

The 2+ hour discussion revolved around:

the lack of licensing, external oversight of Hutto's conditions, and enforcability of ICE's existing standards.
the long detention stays for asylum-seekers, who are fleeing abuse, torture, and trauma.
the ongoing expansion of private detention facilities in remote locations, which prevents detainees from accessing legal counsel, know-your-rights orientations, and social services available in urban areas.
the color-coding of detainees, and the security measures that accompany this system, which results in the lock-down of detention centers.
limited medical and mental health care (often 1 hour per week) that is a direct result of for-profit prison companies' desire to keep costs low, rather than provide full-time medical care.
routine sexual abuse of female detainees, in detention centers and by border patrol officers.
care for unaccompanied children.
increased federal prosecution of noncitizens for immigration-related offenses (e.g., document fraud), which as resulted in the separation of husbands and wives from their families and increased jail time.
serious due process concerns surrounding these prosecution, in which 20+ noncitizens are prosecuted "in batches," represented by a single federal defender.
the lack of discretion afforded immigration judges to issues stays of deportation or visas to parents with US citizen children with serious needs.

Information collected from these meetings and detention center visits will go into an IAHCR report on immigration enforcement, to be published later this year.

The IACHR has long been concerned with conditions in US immigration detention centers, but has been rebuffed in its requests to collect information. (The US has not ratified the American Declaration of Human Rights.) The delegation showed much interest and concern over the sharp rise in immigration-related complaints received by the IACHR in recent years. In addition, the delegation expressed deep concern over the lack of due process that continues to plague the detention system in the US.

We'll be sure to post the report and advocates' reactions to it here, so stay tuned.

Texans Protest Williamson County's Hutto Contract

2009-07-20T08:34:00.006-05:00

On Tuesday, July 28, Williamson County residents will attend the weekly County Commissioners Court session (9:15 am, 710 Main Street, Georgetown, Tx). The county continues to serve as the intermediary between the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). County residents are outraged that, despite a federal lawsuit and loads of bad press, the county continues to facilitate the detention of families.

County residents are especially concerned that when the legal settlement between the ACLU/University of Texas Immigration Law Clinic and ICE expires in August, there will be no enforceable oversight. As the contractor, Williamson County is liable to ICE for violations and infractions at the facility.

While the facility has been much improved by the stipulations of the settlement (overseen by regular visits from a federal magistrate) Williamson County residents and the families' attorneys remain gravely concerned about conditions at T. Don Hutto. Two facts remain. First, ICE's Family Residential Standards are based on policies used at adult prisons, making them an inappropriate model for the care of families. Second, these standards are not enforceable. That means that CCA and Williamson County can fall out of compliance with little legal recourse by families detained there. While this may be legally convenient for the contractors, it does not release them from the responsibility for the care and welfare of families at Hutto.

For some Williamson County residents, T. Don Hutto is a bad deal for the county, places too much liability on their shoulders, and generates too much bad press for the home towns. They call on the Commissioners' Court to end the contract and close Hutto down.

Least of These: Premieres in New York and Georgetown, Tx

2009-07-20T08:17:00.007-05:00

Clark Lyda and Jesse Lyda's renowned film, The Least of These, will premiere in NYC at the New York International Latino Film Festival. And next Monday, it will show in Georgetown, Texas, county seat of Williamson County, home of the T. Don Hutto Center and holder of the federal contract to detain families.

Monday, July 27, 7 pm Georgetown Public Library, Hewlett Room, 402 West 8th, Georgetown, TX.
Contact Susan Wukasch 868-2586/963-3969.

Wednesday, July 29, 8:30 pm
Clearview Cinemas Chelsea, 260 W. 23rd, between 7th & 8th Ave., NY, NY.
Followed by Q & A with Vanita Gupta (ACLU), Michelle Brané (Women's Refugee Commission), and the film's directors.
Tickets: $12~~Buy in advance here.
Followed by special film reception at Sala One Nine, located at 35 West 19th Street between 5th and 6th Avenue
(just bring your ticket stub).

House of Representatives Report on DHS Appropriations, 2010

2009-06-27T21:38:00.005-05:00

A House of Representatives report on the Department of Homeland Security's 2010 appropriations dedicates a section to Child and Family Detention, Alternatives to Detention, and unaccompanied children in ICE custody in its review of Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities. On family detention, in particular, the Appropriations Committee

believes that detention is not generally appropriate for families and is concerned that the Department does not routinely make Alternatives to Detention available to families it takes into custody. In addition, while the Committee is pleased that ICE developed and implemented detention standards for families held in its custody, it remains concerned that ICE family detention standards are based on adult prison standards. The Committee directs the Department to prioritize the use of Alternatives to Detention program for families who do not need to be held in immigration detention. The Committee further directs the Office of Professional Responsibility to conduct a review of families detained in ICE custody since 2007 and determine whether ICE complied with its own internal guidance for when to hold families in custody and when to release them to Alternatives to Detention programs. The Committee directs ICE to report on the results of this review no later than the submission of the 2011 budget.

In addition, the Committee has heard reports of ICE prosecutors inappropriately using personal information about children when presenting cases in immigration court, such as medical records and psychological reviews. The Committee directs ICE to respect the privacy and confidentiality of detained children's case information, including privileged medical, psychological and social worker reports, and only to request access to those files when relevant to the case.

Congress appears to be hearing us on the key issues--prison-like conditions, lack of accountability, inadequate use of alternatives, and long stays in detention. As we near the August expiration of the Hutto Settlement, and the federal district court oversight that goes along with it, these issues are critical to families detained at Hutto.

While this report does not go as far as ending family detention (nor could it), it is encouraging that Congress find detainings families with children increasingly distasteful. It's time to keep the pressure on. Immigration reform is on the horizon, and reforming the detention system must be a key part of this conversation!

Thanks to Adrienne for bring this to our attention!

Press Coverage of June 20 World Refugee Day Vigil

2009-06-24T22:24:00.007-05:00

Thanks to all who turned out last Saturday! Here's a rundown of the press coverage...

The Williamson County Sun carried an article on the protest (see above).

Protestors ask President to shut down T. Don Hutto Russell Wilde, News 8 Austin.

The demonstraters called for the president to shut down the detention center, where refugees, including children, are held. "Immigration has a lot of challenges to it. I think we all realize there are situations we need to confront, but that these people, particularly the children, shouldn't be bearing the brunt of that," [St. Andrew's Presbyterian church minister Jim] Rigby said.

Immigration officials said the center allows them to enforce the law while allowing families to stay together.

Protesters said the people being held in the center are refugees and should not be held in a former prison.

"A message to our president to free the children. It's a message to our president to do it now," Johnson-Castro said. "That's a change we can believe in. It's a change we need."

Texans March Against Hutto Family Detention Center on World Refugee Day, MediaHacker via YouTube.

Three videos, Social Justice TV via YouTube. **Newly added** 2 videos on the vigil, by CECLEF. AND 2 videos from closehuttodown.

Houston Indymedia has a video and and photo coverage, which you can also read at the Houston Students for a Democratic Society blog.

Thank y'all, and keep sending things my way!

Diana Claitor: "We need to show the world we don't approve"

2009-06-13T19:35:00.002-05:00

Diana Claitor of the Texas Jail Project, posting at The Rag Blog, calls on Austinites "to take every chance to show the feds and the world that we don’t approve, that we are not okay with refugee mamas and their babies and kids being incarcerated in a prison camp while their cases are decided."

She continues: "...one basic truth applies: it’s just not right. More humane and less-costly alternatives exist that keep families together and out of prison-like detention centers. A study by the Vera Institute found that more than 90% of immigrants on a supervised release program attended their immigration hearings. The average cost of a supervision program is $12 a day compared to reportedly over $200 a day to detain a person at Hutto."

Now's the time, Texans! Join us next week and show the world the US is better than family detention. Details above...

2009-06-12T17:24:00.004-05:00

Austin City Council World Refugee Day Resolution

2009-06-11T11:20:00.002-05:00

Austinites! Contact your councilperson and urge them to support refugees, migrants, and the rights of children in Austin and around the world. Special thanks to Free the Children for their advocacy!

Free the Children
Proposed Draft World Refugee Day Proclamation
Revised June 8, 2009

Be it known that,

Whereas

The City of Austin recognizes that the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas

On World Refugee Day, we turn our attention to the millions of refugees who live without material, social and legal protection.

Whereas

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is an internationally recognized agreement between nations that establishes a comprehensive set of goals for individual nations to achieve on behalf of their children.

Whereas

We are willing to join in harmony with voices worldwide to claim more reasonable and humane immigration policies.

The City of Austin, as a leader in the global community of urban centers, does

Proclaim

1. June 20 the day to recognize and celebrate World Refugee Day;

2. Support for the ratification of the United Nations Covenant on the Rights of the Child; and

3. Compassion for a just and viable alternatives to institutional detention of children and families within these United States and elsewhere, while such families await administrative resolution of their immigrant status.

HispanicNashville.com covers CCA reactions to Hutto Criticism

2009-06-09T19:03:00.003-05:00

Hispanic Nashville interviews Louise Grant, public relations officer for CCA360.com, CCA's new website aimed at improving CCA's public image. Should we take it as a compliment that CCA has an image problem?

The Hispanic Nashville Notebook asked CCA how the company views the detention of children and families, or allegations of overincarceration - and whether the board or the company wrestles with the moral issues raised by opponents, or whether there is a limit to the kind of policies the company is willing to help implement. Here is the response of CCA VP of Marketing and Communications Louise Grant:

Our government customers don't ask us our opinions on the moral implications. ... They make public policy decisions. ... Once those decisions have been made, they decide "Is the public government sector going to manage these individuals, or is the private sector?" ... We are not in the business of making moral decisions on U.S. public policy. ... Where we can have an influence is in our own facilities.

When describing the moment when ICE approached CCA to turn Hutto into a family facility, Grant said that CCA initially turned the government down:

Grant: Specifically in regard to Hutto, I can say our customer - Immigration and Customs Enforcement, again, they have been our customer for 25 years, they trust us - they came to us and asked us to operate a family detention center. We said no initially.

Hispanic Nashville Notebook: Why was that?

Grant: We said we have not had that expertise before - you know, we've managed adults. We've had a few juvenile facilities, but we have not managed a family detention center. Obviously, there was only one at the time in the country, in Pennsylvania, and we said no. And ICE came back to us and said, we've made the public policy decision that we are going to do this, and we want to partner who we trust; you've been a good partner for 25 years; we know you have high standards, you have integrity and strong ethics, and we would like you to do this. And we knew it was going to be an evolutionary process, because it was new for ICE and it was new for us, but we said OK we will do this. And we knew that there would be scrutiny. There was obviously the concern about safety and security to say, how can we ensure the absolute safest, most humane environment for these individuals. And our staff, who already goes through very rigorous training, went through a great deal more specialized training, and all of our counselors. And it has been an evolutionary process.

I've been to that facility several times. The warden Evelyn Hernandez is a wonderful woman from Puerto Rico who has the greatest sensitivity, and her staff has the greatest sensitivity to the mothers and the children and the fathers. We do believe that keeping those children with their families is something we're proud of. Again, we've worked extremely hard not to get involved in the public policy decisions...

...and check out the great timeline at the end of the full article.

LULAC Returns CCA Sponsorship

2009-06-09T18:58:00.002-05:00

Elaine Wolf of the San Antonio Current blogs about LULAC's relationship with Corrections Corporation of America, the private prison corporation that runs TDH: (read the full piece)

As a growing coalition of activists prepares for what they hope will be the most high-profile protest yet at the immigrant-family detention center in Taylor, Texas, fellow activists are challenging LULAC over sponsorship monies received from the private company that runs the prison. ...

LULAC National Treasurer Jaime Martinez, a longtime San Antonio labor activist, says that when he was made aware of the sponsorship, he and President Rosa Rosales immediately initiated the return of the $10,000 that year.

"We don't want any sponsorships from CCA," said Martinez, calling the money "tainted."

LULAC National Executive Director Brent Wilkes confirms Martinez's account, and says he believes the CCA money was returned in 2007, the last year that LULAC accepted sponsorship money from CCA for its conference. Previous years' funds were not returned, he said, in part because they were probably already spent.

Prior to the Hutto conflict, says Wilkes, LULAC found many things to like about CCA, including a program the corporation initiated to give Mexican Nationals who would face deportation upon release from prison the opportunity to obtain the equivalent of a GED. Wilkes says he believes the CCA sponsorship money was for a Latino law-enforcement awards breakfast held at the conference.

"But when we found out about the Hutto facility," Wilkes said, "we returned the funds."

"We felt very strongly that we didn't want to be associated with that," he added.

Congressional Screening of "Least of These"

2009-06-04T12:34:00.003-05:00

Please join the Women’s Refugee Commission and the American Civil Liberties Union for a Congressional screening of “The Least of These,” a remarkable new documentary on our efforts to improve and eliminate the detention of immigrant parents and their children.

Date: June 10, 2009

Location: The Capitol Visitor Center, South Congressional Meeting Room

Time: 6:00 pm

Featuring Remarks by Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA-34th) and Representative Lynn C. Woolsey (CA-6th)

RSVP required to Sharita Gruberg (sharitag at wrcommission dot org)

(seating for the general public will be limited; refreshments will be provided)

By telling the powerful stories of detained families and their American advocates, the film draws attention to one of the most controversial aspects of U.S. immigration policy. There will be a Q&A following the screening featuring advocates Michelle Brané (Women’s Refugee Commission), Vanita Gupta (ACLU) and Clark Lyda, one of the film’s directors.

2009-06-04T10:10:00.000-05:00

Film Series May 28: Altered Lives: An Immigration Film Series

2009-05-26T22:11:00.003-05:00

America's Family Prison showing at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum! Learn more about the history of border crossing in Texas beyond and including family detention. It's only 5 bucks!

In conjunction with the special exhibit, Forgotten Gateway, the Museum
continues its "Altered Lives: An Immigration Film Series" this
Thursday evening with a series of short films presented by Austin Film
Festival. Thursday at 7pm; Museum members FREE; non-members $5.

Altered Lives: An Immigration Film Series
February – June 2009 7-9 PM
Spirit Theater
Film Organizations Members and Museum Members FREE
Non-Members, $5

The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum is located at 1800 N.
Congress Avenue at the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd.
in downtown Austin, Texas. With close proximity to Interstate Highway
35 and MoPAC Expressway (Loop 1), the Museum is easy to access.

To help tell the story illustrated in the special exhibition,
Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America Through Galveston Island, the
Museum is hosting a film series that will run from February through
June.

May 28, 2009:
Austin Film Festival presents Stories of Borders: Short Films about
Immigration. Join us for an evening of film and an appearance by
local filmmakers Matthew Gossage (Director of America's Family Prison)
and Angela Torres Camarena (Director of Exiled in America). The short
film lineup includes:

Wet Foot/Dry Foot – Finding themselves stranded on a deserted island,
two Cuban refugees must struggle against nature and each other to
stand a chance at freedom. Get caught in the water, and they send you
home, but touch dry land and you’re allowed to stay. (USA, 17 min.)
Directed by: Carlos Gutierrez

Muertas – A young American journalist attempts to piece together the
fractured memories of a love lost amidst the ongoing Juarez, Mexico
murders. (USA, 9 min.) Directed by: Ryan Piers Williams

Victoria Para Chino – In May 2003 a refrigerated truck carrying more
than 80 undocumented immigrants from the Mexican border drove into the
Heartland of Texas. This is a story of that journey. (USA, 13 min.)
Directed by: Cary Fukunaga

America’s Family Prison – A determined people stand in solidarity with
imprisoned, non-criminal immigrant families to close the for-profit
“residential facility” which holds them. (USA, 18 min.) Directed by:
Matthew Gossage

Exiled in America – A group of siblings cope with the deportation of
their mother, a legal U.S. citizen, while calling into question the
legality and morality of the nation’s zero tolerance laws. (USA,
10min.) Directed by Angela Torres Camarena

T. Don Hutto featured on The Sanctuary blog

2009-05-19T08:12:00.002-05:00

Award-winning blog, The Sanctuary, posted on the patterns of abuse in immigrant detention centers here in the US, beginning with T. Don Hutto. While the case of sexual abuse at Hutto is a couple years old, issues like the shackling of women giving birth and medical care continue to plague the immigration detention system. Regardless of the fact that the CCA staff person involved in Hutto sexual abuse case claimed it was a consensual relationship, as one of the largest corrections companies in the US, CCA should have been well aware of the rules prohibiting sexual relationships between guards and staff. In a context where the staff stands between mundane items like blankets and toys and essential services like medical care, there can never be an equal and consensual relationship between a male guard and detained female.

Check out the Sanctuary's other posts, too- a great resources for US immigration news.

American Progress Interviews Least of These Directors

2009-05-12T10:26:00.002-05:00

The Least of These has been showing to sold-out audiences around the country, provoking much-needed discussions about family detention at a national level. If you haven't seen the film yet, you can watch it online at Snag Films.

The Center for American Progress interviewed with the film's director, Clark Lyda, and Michelle Brané, of the Women's Refugee Commission. Please think about scheduling a screening in your town, community, or home! With immigration reform on the horizon, let's get people talking about an end to family detention now!

Rally for Immigrant Rights!

2009-05-01T09:12:00.002-05:00

It's May 1, otherwise known as May Day, so get out and celebrate the 8 hour work day, brought to you by years of working class struggle.

Around the country immigrant rights advocates are organizing marches, rallies, vigils, speakers, shout outs, and hooplas. Texans United for Families will be marching in Austin's rally, calling for an end to family detention. If you're in Central Texas, please join us!

For the rest of the world, please join a rally near you. If you're unable, take a few minutes to contact your representatives and senators and call for an end to family detention and to reform the immigration system to restore American values of family and freedom.

¡MARCHA POR REFORMA MIGRATORIA JUSTA Y HUMANA!

MARCH FOR JUST AND HUMANE IMMIGRATION REFORM!

6 p.m. Junte en las Escaleras del Sur del Capitolio del Estado de Texas

(Meet at Texas Capitol South Steps)

7 p.m. Marcha al Concilio de la Ciudad empieza

(March to City Hall begins)

En el Día Internaciónal de los Trabajadores, apoye reforma migratoria que incluye:

* legalización

* derechos laborales

* aceso a la educación, salud y vivienda

* una parada a las redadas y separación de familias

On International Workers Day come out to support immigration reform that includes:

* a pathway to legalization

* worker rights

* access to education, healthcare and housing

* an end to raids and family separation

Para más información (For more information):

caroline@austinirc.org, 512.524.2012

**Textea "Justicia" a 69866 para recibir noticias y alertas de accion de la lucha por los derechos migratorios.**

**Text "Justice" to 69866 to get updates and ways to take action on immigration reform**

Patrocinadores (Sponsors): Austin Immigrants Rights Coalition · Grassroots Leadership · PODER · Mamas of Color Rising · Workers Defense Project · Cristo Rey · NICA

Austin Center for Peace & Justice · American Friends Service Committee

Paul Parsons, P.C., Immigration Attorney · Inmigrantes Latinos en Accion

MEChA · ALLGO · Alma de Mujer · Resistencia · Austin Voices · ISO

Monkeywrench · Fair Food Austin · El Shaddai Church · Palestine Solidarity Committee · Pax Christi Austin

News Coverage: Houston's El Día Highlights the Movement against Family Detention

2009-04-27T17:34:00.002-05:00

A Spanish-language newspaper in Houston, Texas, published a feature on Hutto and family detention:

Familias inmigrantes encarceladas: Unidas, pero en el sufrimiento

Huyen de las guerras, de las pandillas, de la violencia doméstica y cuando llegan a solicitar asilo, terminan encerrados con sus hijos en una cárcel de inmigración.

José Carrera
DIARIO EL DÍA

HOUSTON.— Es un edificio acondicionado con todas las comodidades. Allí, incluso, las familias pueden aprender inglés y hasta pueden dormir en camas cómodas. Además, les dan consejería a las madres para que, supuestamente, sean mejores madres. Reciben cuidados médicos de calidad y por sobre todo, el objetivo de este centro es mantener a las familias juntas para que no se extrañen. ¿Es este lugar un centro comunitario o un centro de albergue de familias necesitadas? No exactamente. Se trata más bien del Centro Residencial Familiar T. Don Hutto, como lo dice la Agencia de Inmigración y Control de Aduanas (ICE, por sus siglas en inglés). Hasta los que les contamos antes, el objetivo del centro parece noble y su nombre suena bonito y hasta atractivo. Lo que sucede adentro, sin embargo, ha sido motivo de demandas judiciales, denuncias públicas y ha indignado a muchos.

En realidad se trata exactamente de una prisión. Está ubicada a unas 150 millas de Houston, al noreste de Austin, donde actualmente se encuentran encerrados 500 inmigrantes indocumentados en vía de deportación o que están esperando la aceptación de su petición de asilo político en los Estados Unidos.

Revueltos, pero no juntos
De los 500 inmigrantes, unos 120 son madres con cerca de 130 niños –entre ellos varios recién nacidos- y unas 250 mujeres sin niño. Así se lo contó a El Día Bob Libal, miembro de “Grassroots Leadership” con sede en Austin y que junto a otras organizaciones de Texas y de todo Estados Unidos, están librando una batalla masiva para que todos los detenidos sean liberados y luego clausurar definitivamente la prisión, a la que llaman al “Guantánamo de Texas”.

La prisión Hutto fue habilitada por ICE en mayo de 2006 tras firmar un acuerdo intergubernamental con el condado Williamson para de esa manera poner un fin al sistema de “atrapado y luego liberado”, que consiste en que los indocumentados arrestados por la ‘migra’ salen libres con la promesa expresa de que se presentarán ante un juez de inmigración. “Sin embargo, antes de la apertura de Hutto, era rara la vez que se presentaban”, dice ICE. Y agrega: “Antes, los coyotes preferían traer a adultos con niños con la intención de evitar que los ilegales sean detenidos”.

Campaña de 100 días
“Nuestra meta es lograr que el presidente Barack Obama ordene el cierre de esta prisión. El sabe lo que sucede adentro de esta cárcel desde que andaba en campaña política”, expresó Libal. “Es vergonzoso encerrar a niños en una cárcel”, añadió. En Houston también hay un movimiento fuerte de abogados, líderes comunitarios y principalmente estudiantes universitarios que educan al público hispano y a la misma sociedad americana sobre los sufrimientos de las familias inmigrantes en Hutto.

Uno de los grupos más activos son los que forman parte de Estudiantes por una Sociedad Democrática (SDS, por sus siglas en inglés), que en la actualidad están en medio de una campaña de cien días en la que incluyen protestas frente a la prisión Hutton en Taylor, vigilias, recolección de firmas y manifestación en Houston delante del centro de detención de inmigrantes. En días recientes, el SDS armó una minicelda en el “Butler Plaza” de la Universidad de Houston, donde se encerraron familias completas y niños, para de esa manera concientizar a los estudiantes sobre los terribles efectos que tiene el encierro sobre las familias inmigrantes.

Rechazan la lógica del gobierno federal
Rob Block, miembro de SDS, y otros compañeros ya juntaron en Houston más de 600 firmas –a nivel nacional 47 mil- que serán enviadas al presidente Obama y al Departamento de Seguridad Interna –de la que forma parte el ICE- expresándoles su indignación sobre esta prisión y exigen su cierre.

“En ninguna circunstancia es justo aprisionar a los niños que no han cometido ningún crimen. Hutto es un claro ejemplo de cuán obsoleto es el actual sistema migratorio”, comentó Block. El y otros activistas rechazan la lógica del gobierno federal de poner a los padres (en este caso en su gran mayoría madres) indocumentados con sus hijos como una manera para mantenerlos unidos.”Es una buena premisa pero una mala solución. La prisión no es una herramienta para lidiar con la inmigración”, acotó.

Cárceles privadas = $$$
De acuerdo con “Grassroots Leadership”, Hutto deja una ganancia directa al condado Williamson unos 246.000 dólares por año, mientras que CCA recibe de ICE cerca de 2.8 millones de dólares mensualmente. Cada inmigrante encerrado costaría al gobierno federal unos 95 dólares por día, mientras que otras estimaciones indican que el costo real es 200 dólares por día. De ser así, comentan, convendría más poner a los inmigrantes presos en el hotel Hilton y todavía les sobrará mucho dinero. CCA opera alrededor de 70 centros de detenciones, cárceles y prisiones en 20 estados, 15 de ellas en Texas, añade Grassroots.
Stephanie Caballero, estudiante de Ciencias Políticas y Estudios Latinoamericanos en la Universidad de Houston, busca que más personas, especialmente los estudiantes, se unan al movimiento en contra de la proliferación de las cárceles privadas en donde los humildes inmigrantes –no aquellos que hayan cometido crímenes serios- son encerrados. “Queremos que los estudiantes se levanten para presionar a los poderosos”, dijo. “Estas cárceles no deben seguir existiendo. Tener prisiones como éstas es inmoral e inhumano”. Su parecer es que los niños no deben ser encerrados en prisiones, muchos menos por razones migratorias y especialmente para que los únicos beneficiados sean las empresas que promueven el aumento de las cárceles privadas.

Ella ha participado en varias protestas en Taylor y cada vez que se encuentra en el lugar siente una gran indignación. “Muy enojada”, dijo al contestar la pregunta sobre qué siente al visitar esa prisión. “Esta gente de ICE y CCA no tiene conciencia, no tiene moral. Cómo es que pueden tratar a los inmigrantes como criminales. No lo puedo creer. ¿Esto está pasando en mi propio estado?”, aseveró.

Es inhumano encarcelar a niños y mujeres
Delfina Pei, estudiante de tercer año de Ciencias Políticas en UH, comentó: “Me gustaría ver que todas estas prisiones privadas sean cerradas. Al proveer menos servicios a los inmigrantes encerrados, cárceles como Hutto están ganando más dinero”, expresó. Añade que al acercarse a la prisión Hutto, la primera cosa que le llama la atención es la zona de juegos para los niños, pero al prestar más atención, ve que todo el complejo carcelario está rodeado de altos cercos con alambre de púa. “Es un lugar donde no quisieras ver a tus hijos crecer”, comentó.
Lisa Delaune, madre de dos hijos y miembro de la organización WHEW, que presta ayuda a mujeres de minorías que acaban de salir de la cárcel o que no tienen casas o hayan sido víctima de violencia doméstica, se “encerró” en la celda de protesta en la Universidad de Houston para mandar un mensaje al público: “La inmigración ilegal no debería ser lo mismo que criminalidad. Es inhumano encarcelar a niños y mujeres. Como madre simplemente me indigna el solo hecho imaginar que tengo que estar encerrada en un cárcel con mis hijos de 6 y 12 años”.
Cambio a fuerza de demanda
• La Unión Americana de Libertades Civiles (ACLU) ha presentado el año pasado una demanda para obligar a al ICE mejorar las condiciones de vida de los niños en la prisión Hutto. Muchos de los niños a los que ACLU representó ya salieron libres y se están quedando con otros familiares.
• De acuerdo a ACLU, la demanda surgió debido a la Hutto viola varias provisiones de una decisión de corte de 1997 “Flores vs. Meese”, que estableció ciertos requisitos que deben cumplir en la forma de tratar a los menores que se encuentran bajo la custodia federal.

La demanda contra ICE permite a ACLU a ingresar a Hutto para monitorear si se ha cumplido
o no los acuerdos de corte, pero este derecho se vence en agosto y los activistas temen que la situación se empeore. Tras la demanda contra ICE, éstas son algunas de las condiciones expuestas en el trato que en busca de mejoras dentro de dicho centro de detención

• Niños mayores de 12 años tendrán la libertad de movilizarse libremente dentro de las instalaciones.
• Todos los niños contarán con un médico pediatra las 24 horas del día.
• No se usará más el sistema de conteo de tiempo para evitar que las familias no estén forzadas a permanecer 12 horas del día dentro de una celda.
• Se instalarán cortinas alrededor de las salas sanitarias (toilets y duchas).
• Se les ofrecerán paseos recreacionales a los niños.
• Los niños tendrán nuevos juguetes, y nuevos libros.
• Se mejorarán los menús (valor nutricional).
• ICE también permitirá la orientación legal por parte de organizaciones comunitarias.
• Permitir la visita por parte de familiares y amigos los siete días de la semana.
• La agencia (ICE) solo llevará al centro Hutto a las familias que estén por ser deportadas.
La alternativa a la prisión Hutto
- Cerrar esta prisión.
- Que las madres y sus hijos indocumentados sean dejados libres sin pagar fianza, esto hasta que se resuelva sus casos migratorios en corte.
- Si van a pagar fianza, no sea más de 1.500 dólares -que los niños queden con otros familiares.
- Implementar un sistema de monitoreo (grillete electrónico, etc.) de los que salen libres.
Fuente: “Grassroots Leadership”

Las frases
- “Ser indocumentado no es lo mismo que ser criminal. Es muy normal que las personas traten de buscar mejoras para su familia”. Stephanie Caballero, estudiante de Ciencias Políticas.
- “Nuestra meta es lograr que el presidente Barack Obama ordene el cierre de esta prisión”. Bob Libal, miembro de “Grassroots Leadership”.
- “Me gustaría ver que todas estas prisiones privadas sean cerradas”. Delfina Pei, estudiante de Ciencias Políticas en UH.
- “Como madre simplemente me indigna el solo hecho imaginar que tengo que estar encerrada en un cárcel con mis hijos de 6 y 12 años”. Lisa Delaune, la organización WHEW.
Documental de sufrimiento y lucha

"The Least of These" es un documental sobre la prisión de Hutto y la lucha por mejorar las condiciones adentro o inclusive para cerrarlo. La cinta ya fue estrenada en Austin y ya hay en DVD.

Llanto de niños
Algunos testimonios de niños encerrados en esta prisión. Muchos de ellos ya salieron libres, mientras que otros siguen encerrados.

• “Tengo miedo de los guardias”.
• “Nos tratan como si no fuéramos nadie”.
• “Estoy aterrorizada de que me separen de mi madre. No me puedo imaginar cómo será mi vida sin ella”.
• Estoy muy deprimida y sin madre creo que me volveré totalmente loca”.
• “No me gusta quedarme en esta cárcel. Tengo solamente nueve años de edad. Este lugar no es bueno para mí. Quisiera salir de la celda”. Fuente: ACLU

Business Of Detention Website Nominated for Webby Awards!

2009-04-22T22:07:00.002-05:00

The Business of Detention project has been nominated for best student website in the 13th Annual Webby Awards!

If you haven't checked it out, please do. It is one of the most thorough investigations of the role of private contractors--especially the Corrections Corporation of America--out there. They use amazing graphics and interactive design to great effect. Please support them!

The Business of Detention project was created by reporters Renee Feltz ('08) and Stokely Baksh ('08), while graduate students at Columbia University's Graduate of Journalism. The purpose of their project was to create an innovative way to present the business of privatized immigration detention management — using solid reporting skills in a 4-part print story and pairing that up with video, audio and interactive info graphics. The project became the first investigative-new media project for Columbia and has since won the Melvin Mencher Award for Superior Reporting and James A. Wechsler Award for National Reporting, and been a finalist for the SxSW Interactive Award.

Please visit http://pv.webbyawards.com to vote for us to win the People's Choice Award for best student category - under 'Websites' and then 'Connections' and then 'Student.' You can vote until April 30th. Winners will be announced on May 5th.

Pass this along and tell your friends, family, and students!

Grassroots Leadership Calls for End to Family Detention

2009-04-21T19:40:00.003-05:00

On Saturday, advocates gathered from around Central Texas and the country to call for non-penal alternatives to family detention.

And in the Texas state legislature, HCR 95 is gaining momentum! Dora Olivo (Missouri City, Tx) and Marisa Marquez (Austin, Tx) have also signed on as co-authors.

If you live in Texas, call your house representatives! If you don't live in Texas, but have friends that do, tell them to call their representatives! To find your local rep, go here.

Texas State Legislature Considers Resolution Calling for Alternatives to Family Detention

2009-04-15T17:12:00.002-05:00

Signalling a nation-wide sentiment that times are changing in immigration policy, State Representative Elliot Naishtat has signed on as a co-author of HCR 95, originally filed by Representative Anchia (Dallas area)! Special thanks to both authors for their support for finding cost-effective and family-appropriate alternatives to family detention.

Residents of Texas: Please take a minute to call, write, or personally ask your state senators and reps to support this resolution. To find out who your reps are, type your address into the online form here.

HCR 95 reads:

WHEREAS, The Texas portion of the border between the United States and Mexico comprises more than half of the nearly 2,000-mile boundary between the two countries; as a result of this proximity, the State of Texas is uniquely aware of the importance of the border to the security of the nation as a whole and sensitive to the impact of immigration on the economic and social well-being of both countries; and

WHEREAS, The Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security estimates the costs of detaining undocumented immigrants to be $1.7 billion annually, and current research indicates that detaining immigrant and asylum-seeking families does not deter illegal immigration; and

WHEREAS, In 2006, Homeland Security re-opened the T. Don Hutto Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas, operated by private prison firm Corrections Corporation of America, for the purpose of detaining immigrant and asylum-seeking families who are awaiting immigration proceedings; Of the up to 250 individuals detained in the facility's family unit, at least half are children; and

WHEREAS, Children who have had no decisive role in their migration or flight should not be exposed to unnecessary trauma, and should not be detained in a regimented facility run by a for-profit prison corporation with significant restrictions on their liberty while their parents await immigration proceedings; and

WHEREAS, The United States House and Senate committees on appropriations has each expressed concern about children of families in immigrant detention centers, and has stated that family detention should be the last alternative and not the first; and

WHEREAS, Studies have shown high rates of immigration court appearances for people in supervised release programs; A valid alternative to detaining immigrant families would be to release and reunite these children and their parents but monitor them under supervised release programs, thereby reducing the emotional consequences to young children; and

WHEREAS, Supervised release programs cost American taxpayers significantly less than detention; Considering the long-term consequences of family detention for children and the nation's economic well-being, every possible alternative to family detention should be examined, considered, and exhausted before such action is taken; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That the 81st Legislature of the State of Texas hereby respectfully request that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security consider all alternatives to the detention of immigrant and asylum-seeking families with children; and, be it further

RESOLVED, That the Texas secretary of state forward official copies of this resolution to the president of the United States, the speaker of the house of representatives and the president of the senate of the United States Congress, all members of the Texas delegation to the congress, and the secretary of the United States Department of Homeland Security, with the request that this resolution be officially entered in the Congressional Record as a memorial to the Congress of the United States of America.

Commentary: US Should Stop Locking Up Immigrant Kids

2009-04-14T21:44:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Marcy Garriot for this one! SperoNews posted commentary by John Rausch, a Catholic priest working with Appalachian communities, on the practice of family detention. He calls upon his fellow Catholics to advocate for the humane alternatives acknowledged and funded by ICE.

Immigration officials defend family detention saying it guarantees immigrants and asylum seekers appearing for hearings and prevents them from fleeing the country. Separating the children from the parents would also introduce additional problems with foster care or locating relatives. The U.S. currently has three family detention centers with plans for three more.

Yet, ICE initiated an alternative pilot program without incarceration in 2004 that produced a 94 percent appearance rate. The program involved people facing deportation getting intensive supervision and connecting to social service agencies. Agency specialists were assigned a limited caseload of detainees that they monitored by home visits and telephone calls. No detention, families intact. Cost: $14 per detainee per day.

This approach reflects the 2003 joint statement, “Strangers No Longer,” of the Mexican and American Catholic bishops: “Those who flee wars and persecution should be protected by the global community. This requires, at a minimum, that migrants have a right to claim refugee status without incarceration and to have their claims fully considered by a competent authority” (#37). Given this alternative, people of faith can ask for a creative solution for the sake of the children.

If you are part of a community of faith, and would like to join Mr. Rausch in taking a stand against family detention, please consider issuing a faith statement. For sample statements or letters to Congress, please contact Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership (see right sidebar).

April 18! Vigil at T Don Hutto.

2009-04-13T14:07:00.003-05:00

Join concerned citizens from Central Texas at a vigil on April 18th at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas!

The vigil will begin at 5pm and run until around 6:30. A caravan will be leaving from PODER at 4pm, 2604 Cesar Chavez, Austin, Texas.

The T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility is located at: 1001 Welch Street, Taylor, Texas (yes, you can google it!)

See y'all there.

Our Approach to People Keeping: The Economist Reviews 'Least of These'

2009-03-20T11:30:00.005-05:00

Our Approach to People Keeping, from the Austin desk of the Economist...

THE Associated Press reported yesterday that according to a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement database, there were 32,000 detainees in custody in January, about 19,000 of whom have no criminal convictions and some of whom have been there for more than a year. The idea is that detainment helps ensure compliance with court hearings, but the problem is that detainees aren't guaranteed lawyers, or speedy hearings, so you have people, including children, being held in a quasi-prison-ish environment. In some cases, they are actually being held in converted prisons. That is the case at the Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas. The centre opened in 2006, and in 2007 the American Civil Liberties Union and the University of Texas School of Law Immigration Clinic sued the government for housing children in substandard conditions. "The Least of These", a documentary about Hutto and some of the families detained there, premiered at SXSW this year.

The lawsuit yielded a settlement which entailed numerous reforms and improvements at Hutto—commendable work by the ACLU and the Immigration Law Clinic (and the protestors who helped call media attention to Hutto). A quibble: I would say it muddies the picture when all the world's problems are attributed to Republican malfeasance. The film opens with a clip of George Bush, and cuts to Ann Coulter and Pat Buchanan, which in this case seems to be shorthand for "what you are about to see will arouse your righteous liberal ire."

A reporter once asked the late Tony Snow, who was White House press secretary at the time, whether the detainees couldn't be held in some other sort of facility. "Such as?" he responded. "A sports stadium?" He was right: the government hasn't figured out the way to house families, whether they're detained immigrants or hurricane victims. The film suggests a couple of alternatives for immigrants, such as releasing them and requiring them to check in with a sort of parole officer. That would cost the state much less, but then it's not clear how easily a poor immigrant with young children and no legal standing can find a safe and affordable place to live while awaiting the hearing. The entire film can be viewed online and is worth watching as the issue of detainee treatment is obviously ongoing.

Pictures from March 7 Rally

2009-03-17T16:52:00.001-05:00

Check out these pictures of Houston SDS' March 7 rally at T. Don Hutto!

Least of These: Premiere a resounding success

2009-03-16T14:52:00.002-05:00

The Least of These, a new documentary on the T. Don Hutto facility, opened this morning to a full house at the Alamo Ritz Theater in Austin, Texas. Congratulations to Jesse and Clark Lyda, the film's director's and to all involved in the film's production!

And guess what? The film is now available online for you to view, thanks to Snag Films! So for those of you who couldn't make it Austin's SXSW film festival, never fear...

World Premiere: The Least of These, a new documentary on family detention in the U.S.

2009-03-08T12:58:00.002-05:00

Please join us at one of the world premiere screenings of the documentary THE LEAST OF THESE, at SXSW 2009.

The Least of These takes a penetrating look at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a former medium-security prison that re-opened in 2006 as a prototype family detention center. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings. As information about troubling conditions at the facility began to leak out, three activist attorneys sought to investigate and address the issues. In telling the story of their quest, the film explores the role (and limits) of community activism in bringing about change. The film leads viewers to consider how core American rights and values – presumption of innocence, the protection of children, upholding the family structure as the basic unit of civil society, and America as a refuge of last resort – should apply to immigrants, particularly children.

The SXSW screening schedule is as follows:

Monday March 16, 11 am, Alamo Ritz (320 E. 6th St.)
Wednesday March 18, 7 pm, Alamo South Lamar (1120 S. Lamar Blvd.)
Friday March 20, 11 am, Paramount (713 Congress Ave.)

There will be a Q&A after each screening featuring the directors, Barbara Hines of the University of Texas School of Law, Michelle Brané of the Women's Refugee Commission, and former detainees.

Admission is with a SXSW Film badge, SXSW film pass, or single ticket (available at each venue 30 minutes before the screening time; price $10.)

For more information, and the trailer, please visit www.theleastofthese-film.com.

(After the premiere, the film will be distributed to the educational/institutional market by Cinema Guild, and to the home video and download-to-own markets by Indiepix. It will also be available for on-line streaming by SnagFilms.)

Get on the Van! March 7th

2009-02-22T10:31:00.006-06:00

this just in from UH's SDS Chapter....

UH SDS March 7th Protest Flyer

Publish at Scribd or explore others: flyer protest

Shut Hutto Down! - Change we can believe in

Students for a Democratic Society of the University of Houston is callingfor a protest at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center in Taylor Texas on Saturday March 7th. The T. Don Hutto Facility is a retrofitted medium security prison run by the Tennessee based Corections Corporation of America, that detains pregnant women and women with children awaiting immigration court hearings.

This is a violation of the rights of children, a draconian false solution to the issues raised by human migration, a huge waste of taxpayer dollars going into the pockets of CCA shareholders, and a bad public policy, period. The intersection of xenophobia and anti-immigrant hysteria and thecontinual growth of prisons for profit is a threat to human rights. We cannot sit by and allow private companies to profit of off the incarceration of children.

As part of the 100 actions in 100 days to end family detention we arecalling on people and organization from throughout Texas to join us on March 7th in Taylor Texas at 11am at the T. Don Hutto Residential Facility 1001 Welch St, Taylor, TX, 76574. Please get in touch if you wouldlike to be listed as a co-sponsor.

SDS in Houston will be leaving from the University of Houston campus at 7:30am to caravan to Taylor. If you would like a space in one of our vans (we are also asking for a deposit for the rental), or to carpool with us, please write us an email SDSUHtx [at ] gmail [dot] com.

New Film about Hutto: The Least of These

2009-02-12T19:08:00.007-06:00

2.12.2009: A new feature-length documentary on Hutto will be premiering at Austin's South by Southwest Film Festival. Directed by Clark and Jesse Lyda, The Least of These follows the development of family detention policy, its implementation, the movement against Hutto, and changes in family detention policy. We'll keep you posted on viewing times, but for now, here's an UPDATED synopsis:

'The Least of These' explores one of the most controversial aspects of American immigration policy: family detention.

As part of the Bush administration policy to end what they termed the "catch and release'" of undocumented immigrants, the U.S. government opened the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in May 2006 as a prototype family detention facility. The facility is a former medium-security prison in central Texas operated by CCA, the largest private prison operator in the country. The facility houses immigrant children and their parents from all over the world who are awaiting asylum hearings or deportation proceedings.

The facility was initially activated with little media attention or public knowledge. Soon, however, immigration attorney Barbara Hines was contacted by detainees seeking representation, and she became increasingly concerned about the troubling conditions there. She joined forces with Vanita Gupta of the ACLU and Michelle Brané of the Women's Refugee Commission to investigate conditions and seek changes. Their efforts were initially hampered by a lack of openness and oversight within the Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) organization. Undeterred, the three attorneys attempted to bring about changes in both policy and conditions, by making their findings public, encouraging involvement by activists and the media, and ultimately by filing a historic lawsuit.

As these events unfold, the film explores the government rationale for family detention, conditions at the facility, collateral damage, and the role (and limits) of community activism in bringing change. The film leads viewers to consider how core American rights and values – due process, presumption of innocence, upholding the family structure as the basic unit of civil society, and America as a refuge of last resort – should apply to immigrants, particularly children.

UPDATE: The SXSW Schedule is out! Here's the showing info for The Least of These:

11:00 AM, Monday March 16th - Alamo Ritz 1, 320 E. 6th Street, Austin, Tx.

7:00 PM, Wednesday March 18th - Alamo Lamar 3, 1120 S. Lamar, Austin, Tx.

11:00 AM, Friday March 20th - Paramount Theater, 713 Congress, Austin, Tx.

**Everything subject to change, so check www.sxsw.com for updates!**

Send Valentines to Hutto's Children!

2009-02-12T19:05:00.003-06:00

I know it's only a couple days away, but take a few minutes to drop a few cards to the kids at Hutto.

About 130 Children will be incarcerated on Valentines Day. Let them know you are thinking of them by sending Valentines!

Valentines for Children
T. Don Hutto
1001 Welch
Taylor, TX 76574

If you mail individual Valentines, address to (for example): Girl, Age 5.

If you prefer to send a large packet of Valentines, just send them to the address above.

You may also send toys and books.

Hutto's inmates include:
5 - infants
5 - 1 year olds
10 - 2 & 3 year olds
15 - 4 & 5 year olds
15 - 6 & 7 year olds
15 - 8 & 9 year olds
15 - 10 & 11 year olds
15 - 12 & 13 year olds
20 - 14 & 15 year olds
15 - 16 & 17 year olds

A message from Rev. Milton Jordan, Georgetown, Tx

2009-02-10T13:00:00.001-06:00

February 5, 2009

Subject: An Ecumenical Time of Prayer for Immigrants

Dear members of the Central Texas faith community,

In the New Testament, Jesus asks us to welcome the stranger, for "what you do to the least of my brethren, you do unto me" (Matthew 25:40). The Old Testament counsels the Hebrews: "The strangers who sojourn with you shall be to you as the natives among you, and you shall love them as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:33-34). The Qur'an demands that we "do good toŠthose in need, neighbors who are near, neighbors who are strangers, the companion by your side, the wayfarer that you meet" (4:36). The Hindu Taitiriya Upanishad tells us: "The guest is a representative of God" (1.11.2).

As we begin a new century and a new millenium, our American immigration system is broken, causing havoc for both immigrants and hosts. It's time to talk about ways to create new policies that will better serve us all. As this dialogue opens, I'd like to invite you and your congregation to join us in an Ecumenical Time of Prayer for Immigrants on February 15, 7:00 p.m., at the First United Methodist Church (at University and Ash) in Georgetown. This vigil, sponsored by the Southwest Texas Methodist Federation for Social Action, is one of many to be held across the nation Feb. 13-16 to call all people of faith to welcome the stranger in our midst.

Reworking our immigration system will require a strong statement from a united community of conscience; but although the hierarchies of the Roman Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Lutheran, and other Christian churches have come out strongly in favor of welcoming our new immigrants, we find that many Americans are too concerned about survival issues to be anything but suspicious of those who want to share the shrinking economic pie. The enclosed immigration fact sheet can be used an impetus for opening discussions with your members to help us all come to a better understanding of the problems that exist for various players in this drama. Other useful resources will be available at our vigil.

We hope you will join us as we pray for all immigrants and their families, remembering that most of our ancestors were immigrants as well.

Sincerely,
Rev. Milton S. Jordan

The American Prospect: The Big Business of Family Detention

2009-02-03T09:07:00.003-06:00

Courtney Martin, of The American Prospect, says family detention should be at the top of the immigration rights agenda for Obama's administration. While the costs of immigration and family detention are high--totaling 2.7 billion dollars this year in ICE's budget this year--the moral costs are higher:

The bottom line is not just economic, however. Children and families have suffered inexcusable indignities under this new policy, which treats them like convicted criminals instead of asylum-seekers and potential citizens. Despite the fact that myriad human rights and community groups -- such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Immigration Studies -- have condemned the practice of detaining children in prison-like environments, ICE is seeking to open three new family detention centers, doubling its capacity. As of this writing, ICE still hasn't released the names of the winning contractors and/or locations, but the announcement is expected to be made sometime this year with the new facilities scheduled to open in 2010. ...
Thanks to lawsuits against CCA, children can now wear pajamas, play, and attend classes during the day, and pregnant women are receiving some neonatal care, but the spirit of incarceration continues. Immigration officials claim that family detention is necessary in order to prevent immigrants and asylum-seekers from fleeing the country. However, even ICE admits that alternatives -- like its own pilot program in 2004 where specialists were assigned a limited caseload of detainees whom they monitored using home visits and telephone calls -- have a 94 percent appearance rate overall.
Family detention centers may provide a meager 6 percent reduction in flight risk, but this country pays a far bigger price in lost integrity. We lock up children and their families -- many of whom have suffered economic deprivation, exploitation, and oftentimes, domestic and sexual abuse -- before they've even had a hearing as to their immigration status.
Renee Feltz, a multimedia investigative journalist based in New York City who co-runs a project on the business of immigrant detention, reports that waiting in such unbearable conditions often brings immigrants -- especially women with children -- to their knees. "Many of the people we talked to are so miserable in these facilities that they will eventually agree to being deported even if they think they have a legitimate claim to asylum," Feltz says. "They just want to get out as fast as possible."
In this way, one of the first lessons we teach potential new citizens about America is one of cruel, Orwellian hypocrisy. You must earn your freedom, if at all, via imprisonment. Dignity comes only by bearing undignified conditions. The last administration's obsession with family values is glaringly absent from this Civics 101 course. We welcome children who have heard tall tales of the abundance and liberty of America with rehabbed cells and 10 minutes to wolf down an inadequate lunch of cheap starches on a prison tray.
First and foremost, immigrant family detention must stop. On Jan. 21, Grassroots Leadership, a Southern community organizing group, launched a campaign with this goal, calling it 100 Actions in 100 Days. Given the new administration, hope for immigration reform, and a renewed focus on addressing corporate corruption, it's an opportune time to reactivate the country around this issue.
But there's an even bigger picture here that we must not lose sight of. Immigrant detention, on the whole, is riddled with corruption, inefficiencies, and indignities. Comprehensive immigration reform is a vital component of our country's next few years of healing and reform.
And an even bigger picture still: We live in a society that has bought blindly into the privatization and proliferation of our prisons. It's not so surprising that we force immigrant children to live in cells and wear hospital garb when you consider the national tendency toward incarceration, racism, and xenophobia.
We've got a lot to heal. Let's start by abolishing family detention centers immediately.

Download the "official" End Family Detention Calendar!

2009-02-03T08:18:00.008-06:00

A very special thanks to Peter Dana for putting together this 2009 calendar!

Each month features an image of the movement to end family detention.

Keep track of the campaign to end family, send it to your favorite immigrant rights advocate, and spread the message!

History Marches Against T Don Hutto Family Prison in Taylor, Tx

2009-01-23T17:54:00.000-06:00

Letter to the Editor, by Mary Ellen Kersch
Williamson County Sun, January 22, 2009.
History Marches Against T Don Hutto Family Prison in Taylor, Tx

This is truly an historic week for our Nation and the world. Tuesday we witnessed the peaceful transition of power at the highest level with the swearing-in of President Barack Obama. We moved away from demonization and divisiveness to a promise of unity, inclusivity, dignity, and responsibility. This nation came together to bring our focus, again, on the forward movement to fulfill our founders’ promise of a more perfect union.

On Monday we honored Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man who also dedicated himself to America’s promise with non-violent action to awaken us to the voices of our better angels. His violent assassination by those who opposed that call failed to still those voices, or our dedication to following them.

The Christian concept of the brotherhood of man is integral to every great religion and it is the very basis of the American principle that all men are created equal. Barack Obama’s election marks a giant step forward in overcoming the stain that slavery has left on our body politic. Dr King’s martyrdom was, perhaps, the greatest of many sacrifices that made this historical election possible.

It is now essential that our Williamson County Commissioners Court join in the new birth of freedom promised by presidents Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama by the simple act of removing this county from partnership in T Don Hutto family prison in Taylor.

No more can Williamson citizens partner in the jailing of non-criminal, innocent people (including little children) and justify doing so because the for-profit prison that holds them has computers and a play-scape. We are called by our American moral tradition to treat all people as we would want to be treated—as we would want our children to be treated. The fact that those people don’t look like us, or speak our language, does not justify our treating them as less than us -- and our children. And it is inconceivable that T Don Hutto prison is a place that any Williamson County citizen would approve for our own children if they were, sadly and simply, awaiting the processing of their application for citizenship and/or asylum.

Judge Gattis was quoted recently as having said that those who oppose T Don Hutto have a right to be heard, but not a right to win. Judge Gattis is wrong; we have every right to win. Our position it the moral, ethical, constitutional one. And we will win because the march of history is on our side.

Texas has had a bit of bad press lately but it is imperative for us to recall that the incredible events of this week are possible, in part, because an improbable Texan took a very risky—but principled—step in moving us to a more perfect union with his introduction of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. Additionally, Williamson County citizens have a rightful pride in our place in history, reflecting the best of the American promise, as a result of Dan Moody’s defeat of the Ku Klux Klan and its assault on the rights of Williamson County citizens.

In this time, when our American electorate has rejected torture and deception and division, it is certain that history will take note of T Don Hutto family prison. How we in Williamson County are depicted by that historical account will be a reflection of whether our commissioners and Judge Gattis live up to the heroic standard of Lyndon Johnson and Dan Moody that is the essence of our wonderful Nation.

It is time for Williamson County to reclaim our moral greatness by ending our partnership in the disgraceful family prison in Taylor.

Media Coverage: Shout Out to Obama for Immigrant Rights

2009-01-23T07:30:00.004-06:00

KSAT had a blurb: Protesters Rally Against Immigration Officials

Univision posted video, including interviews with protestors about their message for President Obama.

The San Antonio Express-News featured this week's rally in front of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in San Antonio, Texas: (picture by Delcia Lopez, S.A. Express News)

Immigrant Advocates Waste No Time
By Hernán Rozemberg

On Obama's first day on the job, immigrant advocates in San Antonio and throughout the nation rallied Wednesday, calling on him to fulfill his campaign promise to overhaul immigration policies.
Part of an effort organized by the Fair Immigration Reform Movement in the nation's capital, a group of about 35 activists gathered outside the San Antonio office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Interstate 35 North and Loop 410 East to demand immediate changes.
The protesters, about half from San Antonio and the rest from Austin, said Obama does not need to wait on Congress to take action — he could immediately put an end to ICE work-site and home raids by signing an executive order, for example.
On the legislative front, immigration policy experts said Obama will not look for a major overhaul but tackle the issue piecemeal, trying at first to push Congress to pass previously proposed measures with bipartisan backing.
“Just like he promised to close Guantánamo Bay, we want him to close down Hutto with detained little children,” said Luissana Santibáñez with the Austin Immigrant Rights Coalition, referring to the ICE family detention center northeast of Austin.
Protesters also called for Obama to halt construction of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border and pull back programs giving city, county and state law enforcement agencies authority to double as immigration agents.
They also asked for an about-face on “Operation Streamline,” an effort launched in Del Rio and expanded to other border areas to prosecute first-time unauthorized border crossers, a practice previously limited to suspected repeat offenders.
Asked for comment on these demands, the spokeswoman for ICE in San Antonio, Nina Pruneda, issued a statement with the agency's standard reply: ICE agents enforce the laws “professionally and humanely with an acute awareness of the impact that enforcement has on the individuals we encounter.”
Protesters insisted that it's the lack of humanity in the agency's approach that needs the most change.
They said ICE detains babies and toddlers at the Hutto detention center, and that its raids split up families, some long settled in the country.
“Our families are being terrorized,” said Iris Rodríguez, a San Antonio native now living in Austin, who edits the activist newspaperLa Nueva Raza. “We had all that talk about change — let's see it happen.”
The protest, which lasted about an hour and a half, drew two police officers who watched from their cars.
Many drivers passing by honked and gave thumbs-up signs.
But not everybody appreciated the effort — one pickup driver shouted profanities, while another, waving an American flag, cried out: “Go back home! Go back home!”

Kick Off 100 Events to End Family Detention!

2009-01-14T13:25:00.009-06:00

Pictures from today's Shout Out to Obama to End Family detention, immigration raids, operation streamline, border wall construction and ICE-local law enforcement collaboration.

Austin Chronicle: Lipstick on a Doberman

2009-01-08T17:03:00.004-06:00

The Austin Chronicle's Patricia Ruland offers some welcomed analysis of the Williamson County Commissioners' rationale for renewing the T. Don Hutto contract:

On Dec. 23, the Williamson County Com missioners Court reinvented the commissioners' motives for renewing the contract for the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Tay lor, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement incarcerates families, including children, awaiting deportation or related legal procedures. Before voting to renew a 2006 contract naming the county as administrator of the center (and Correc tions Corporation of America as operator), officials described the prison as if it were a home away from home where children laugh and play and are provided plenty of gym equipment and 22 computers.

"The international language, the smile, hasn't been removed from the children's faces," said Precinct 4 Commissioner Ron Morrison. "I talked to a little boy, and he liked it there," said Precinct 2 Commis sion er Cynthia Long. Then came a shout from the audience: "How would you like it if your child was in there?"

The court's newfound humanitarianism stood in stark contrast to its purely financial justification for signing the contract in 2005 and its panic in 2007 over possible county liability for an alleged sexual assault by a guard and employment of undocumented workers at the center. The new court perspective did little to appease the gathered protesters, who still remember when the first children were spotted in prison garb by Taylor residents and who have since sponsored vigils, walks, and forums that have fueled an international outrage over T. Don Hutto as a prison for children. Only Precinct 1 Com mis sion er Lisa Birkman broke with her past record, casting the lone dissenting vote Tuesday.

Ruland also covered Williamson County residents' responses...

During citizens' comments, area residents spoke passionately, and some broke into tears. "I was really shocked to hear about Hutto. I spread the word to any people I know," said Felix Peter Szafran. "Kids are in prison for no reason." Ann Brown noted that CCA's CEO made about $1.8 million last year "on the backs of children," adding, "This is on your conscience – this is on the conscience of everyone in William son County." Retired Methodist Bishop Joe Wilson said, "We have not honored the gracious gift of life."

Jaime Martinez, board member of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), also spoke to the Chronicle about President-elect Obama's response to family detention. We covered it last summer, and encourage everyone to make it a priority for the new Obama administration. As Martinez states in the article, Congress has appropriated funds for nonpenal family custody and other models do exist.

Leaving aside the false choice of family separation vs. Hutto, the idea that detaining families is good for children is a flimsy delusion at best. As one WilCo resident asked,

How would you like it if your child was in there?

(Photo by Jana Birchum)

Ask Obama for Comprehensive Immigration Reform

2009-01-07T09:38:00.002-06:00

Last week we asked you to post questions to the Obama transition team. Well, the votes were tallied and the top three ideas from each issue area have selected for the final round.

We're asking you to vote for immigration reform and to post comments demanding the end of family detention. Let's put ending family detention in the national immigration policy debate!

This blog supports: Pass the Dream Act, Provide Relief for Families of Immigrants, and Equal Immigration Rights for Same Sex Binational Couples, because ALL FAMILIES have the right to live in peace and prosperity.

Here is how it works: Go to change.gov/ideas. To vote you must log in, and if you do not currently have a user name, it takes a quick second. You get to vote for 10 ideas, in any issue area.

Voting ends January 15.

Action Alert: Include Judge Sam Sparks' conditions requirement for Hutto

2009-01-06T18:04:00.002-06:00

Central Texas Residents: Email the county commissioners of Williamson County and urge them to include the provisions of the 2007 settlement in the contract renewal. A message from Mary Ellen Kersch, WilCo resident:

We all know how utterly terrible and inhumane conditions were at T Don Hutto prior to the ACLU suit that resulted in Judge Sparks requiring some very minimal changes; prisoners were wakened in the middle of the night for head count, mothers had to have their young children in the room with them when they detailed the horrors that had led them to seek asylum in this country, no toys in their rooms, spoiled food to eat, etc.

Judge Sparks' order expires in August, at which time there will be nothing to prevent the return of those horrid conditions. WCCC approved renewal of the contract with no amendment to incorporate Sparks' mandates. Bad as it is that they voted to renew, it is totally essential that they add those standards to the renewal. Next Tuesday we will ask them to do that.

Please add your voice to this tragic plea. And tell everyone you know who has a conscience to call their commissioner and Judge Gattis, and email them. Repeatedly.

Message to Williamson County Commissioners' Court: If you refuse to remove Williamson County from partnering with imprisoning children, at least require Judge Sparks' standards to be part of the renewal contract.

Ask Obama to Close Hutto

2009-01-02T11:01:00.003-06:00

In their infinite creativity with internet engagement, the Obama team has an online forum where we, the people, can ask Obama what he will do about issues that matter to us. His team will collect and analyze the questions and votes, so it's a great chance to vote for specific changes in policy. There are a number of Hutto-related questions, as well as immigration and detention in general-- please log on and vote "YES!" to make ending family detention a priority for the new administration.

Once you click here, you can search the questions with keywords. "Hutto" and "immigration" will bring you to relevant questions.

Taylor Daily Press: The T. Don Hutto Question

2008-12-26T10:40:00.004-06:00

Philip Jankowski weighed different sides of the T. Don Hutto controversy--jobs, county revenue, and the morality of detaining potential citizens-- in the Taylor Daily Press on Monday:

Today county higher ups will make their most controversial annual decision: whether or not to continue the operation of T. Don Hutto Residential Facility.

The facility draws lines in this community between those who support the detention of those who enter the country illegally and those appalled that our government would keep children in a prison.

In its third year in Taylor, the former medium-security prison is now a lightning rod for the ACLU, who accuses the facility of violating immigrants’ civil rights, and LULAC, who seeks to defend the rights of a prison population whose vast majority is Hispanic or Latino.

It is not my place to pass judgement on the facility or the policies that brought it into existence. Each side’s argument holds merit.

America is a nation of immigrants. Our economy relies on the low-cost labor of illegal immigrants. How can we hold these people behind bars?

Yet with the challenges of a country that faces psychotic insurgents hell bent on causing destruction inside our borders, how can we not detain those who enter it illegally?

Locally, the question of revenue comes to mind. The facility brings in hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue for the city and the school district. It provides well paid jobs for unskilled workers. Corrections Corporation of America has offered continued annual raises to Hutto employees at wages that are more than competitive with typical jobs that do not require a college degree.

But is the financial upside nothing more than selling our morals one tax dollar at a time?

No matter what you call it, T. Don Hutto is a prison. It has 12-foot fences strung with razor-sharp barbed wire. And it is designed for families. Not criminals. Not one immigrant currently housed there is guilty of any other crime than wanting to be an American.

To its credit, the facility has made improvements over its dubious beginnings. It has been redecorated to appear more kid friendly. Detainee turnaround has reduced greatly. Yet some of those improvements were the result of a law suit filed by the ACLU and The University of Texas Law School.

The current freedoms of the facility should have been in place at its opening. Government should not have been forced into treating these children ethically, it should have led the way.

And since then, the facility has continued to linger ominously. Immigrations Custom Enforcement continues to keep security as tight as a snare drum. Reporters are let in once annually.

Even when rarely blessed with positive press, the facility remained closed. In one instance I had a heated back and forth to get in and take a bland and benign photo of a former employee who painted cartoon caricatures on the cinder block walls. In the end, a staff member of the prison ended up taking that photo. It was pretty bad.

Maybe it’s the reporter in me, but the more I’m kept out of a place, the more I feel like something is going on inside that ICE does not want people to see.

Regardless, I do not envy the decision commissioners make today. I expect scores of protesters and people to curse the commissioners’ decision, whatever it is.

Media Coverage of Dec. 20 Toy Delivery

2008-12-22T16:07:00.005-06:00

December 24, 2008: The Williamson County Sun* gave extensive front page coverage of Saturday's Toy Drive, including interviews with former detainees who have received asylum and now live in the United States. As you can see from the pictures, hundreds of toys were delivered. But as Denia Borjas points out, received donated toys pales in comparison to receiving gifts from family in the comfort and safety of a home.

The article also notes some of CCA's intimidation tactics--driving past protestors at high speeds, filming the protest, and the inspection of toys prior to delivery. According to the article, there is still some doubt about whether the detainees would receive the toys. If you have information regarding toy delivery, please share it with us...

Thank you to each and all who donated. Please continue to support the closing of Hutto in our "100 events in the first hundred days" campaign! (Check this blog for more information on that in the coming weeks, and contact us if you would like to schedule a film screening, vigil, forum, letter writing, or other event.)

*There is no online version of this article available... please click on the image to view and download a scanned version of the article.

December 22, 2008: New America Media's Roberto Lavalo gives us some "Hope for the Holidays" that begins with the Hutto toy delivery and vigil last Saturday, recounts the Chicago Republic Window factory occupation, and ends with workers' protests for backpay at a San Francisco poultry processings plant. Interviewing Grassroots Leadership's Luissana Santibañez, he writes...

One of the many measures of the hardness of our times can be found in South Texas, where even the simple act of bringing Christmas cheer to children can sometimes require more than just a spirit of charity. In some cases, it often requires the kind of stonecutter's determination one finds in a (Charles) Dickens tale, the determination of someone like Luissana Santinbañez.

"The fact that we're able to bring these toys to children is a huge victory. It took an incredible amount of struggle" says Santibañez, a 25 year-old San Antonio resident who is one of the organizers of a toy drive for children detained along with their immigrant parents behind the concrete walls and barbed wire fences of the T. Don Hutto Detention Center.

"We only got to deliver these toys as a result of lots of litigation and many protests" she says adding "We got to do this because of the community outcry about what's going on behind the walls of those privately-run immigrant detention centers: children and families living in horrific conditions –the lack of medical treatment, the bathrooms without soap, the food with cockroaches, the people dying in detention, the suicides. We can't let them be so cruel to kids; We can't let them hide this."

The "we" Santibañez mentions includes a very broad and diverse group of people of numerous religious, racial, ethnic and class backgrounds, many of whom had never been involved in immigrant rights or any other activism.

The determination exemplified by Santibañez, who got involved in immigrant detention issues after her mother, a former permanent resident detained and eventually deported for allegedly transporting undocumented immigrants, is spreading across the entire country; It mirrors how the plight of immigrants in the United States has given rise to a different kind of hope, a hope rising out of the darkly fertile soil of very hard times.

"I'm committed to this because of people like my mother," she says, her throat trembling with conviction as she also describes how she and her four siblings must rely on one another now that they are "left without a mother." In a country facing colossal challenges – poverty and economic divisions not seen since the Great Depression, fabulous political and corporate corruption surpassing anything seen during the Gilded Age, panic and fear of epic proportions – immigrant stories in the United States are inspiring people around the world.

Austin American-Statesman: Commissioners to Vote on Hutto

2008-12-18T21:46:00.003-06:00

The Austin American-Statesman's David Doolittle covered the upcoming vote his WillCo blog Thursday and in the paper Friday.

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

Press Release: T. Don Hutto Contract Risky Business

2008-12-18T10:36:00.000-06:00

12/18/2008 Press Release: T Don Hutto Contract Risky Business

Opponents to the T Don Hutto prison for non-criminal immigrant families and children located in Taylor, Texas, have consistently protested its basic inhumane conception and operation. The United States’ Congress has ordered that non-criminal immigrant families awaiting disposition of requests for citizenship applications and/or asylum be detained in the “least restrictive” manner possible. T Don Hutto is a former medium-security prison that fails this standard, they maintain. Additionally, the lack of any governmental oversight for T Don Hutto has lead to documented abuse, including the sexual assault of a female prisoner by her guard, in the presence of her young child.

With the dramatic decline in the American economy, and a major change in the political climate, opponents point out that Williamson County Commissioners Court (WCCC) should refuse to renew its contractual role in that operation on the grounds that it is a risky business deal. The prison is owned and run by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), funded (at a cost of nearly $3 million per month) by Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE), on a pass-through contract with WCCC, in which the County is paid $1 per day per prisoner for its role as “contract administrator,” potentially amounting to around $15,000 per month at capacity.

Opponents contend that CCA is no longer a strong business partner, given the almost certain decline of funds available for this costly approach; effective alternatives are available at a fraction of the cost of running T Don Hutto. Growth of immigrant detention had previously been assumed to assure CCA a strong financial future; that assumption, according to opponents, no longer is reliable. Recent, dramatic, reduction in stock value and the uncertainty of future profits raises the question of capacity to perform on the contract at a responsible level, they say.

ICE’s future, they point out, is questionable as well, with some speculation that it may even be moved from the Department of Homeland Security to the Commerce Department. Incoming President Obama has pledged to deal effectively with the lack of comprehensive immigration reform in his first year in office, indicting that the past policy of detention during processing will not comprise the major strategy. In any case, it is not unlikely that ICE will have a different model of operation in the near future.

Therefore, they argue, the other two parties to this proposed renewal contract are not the same strong business partners in place at the time of the original agreement, with only WCCC’s strength remaining as it was at that time of the original agreement.

Adding to that imbalance, monitoring of the facility ordered under Judge Sparks’ settlement agreement as a result of lawsuits brought against the operation will lapse in August of 2009, leaving a void in that essential function. This lack, say the opponents, increases the risk that conditions that led to that lawsuit will re-emerge. This, in their view, increases the possibility of greater responsibility and legal risk to WCCC and County taxpayers.

T Don Hutto opponent MaryEllen Kersch contends that “under any realistic assessment of the business risks this renewal poses to the citizens of Williamson County, WCCC should decline to partner in the renewal of the contract.”

WCCC is scheduled to vote on the renewal at its December 23^rd meeting at the courthouse in Georgetown.

For more information, please contact MaryEllen Kersch, 512-863-7174. maryellenkersch@verizon.net

Williamson Co. to Vote on Hutto Contract 12/23

2008-12-16T21:20:00.000-06:00

Williamson County Judge Gattis announced this morning (12/16/08) that the vote on the proposed renewal of the contract(s) with CCA/DHS to operate T Don Hutto Detention Facility will take place on December 23 at the Williamson County Commissioners Court's weekly meeting.

After that announcement, several citizens spoke against the renewal, and WCCC was reminded that:

Putting families in prison for infractions comparable to running a stop sign is “inappropriate.”
The lack of oversight and assurance of humane treatment for families held at T Don Hutto is alarming, and contradicted by our national sense of right and wrong, ---and does serious emotional damage to the young prisoners who end up gaining American citizenship.
Communities that locate a prison in their borders suffer immense long-term economic damage because “clean” economic growth avoids them. The uglier the facility, the greater the damage.
There are alternatives to locking up babies and families, and they are proven to be less expensive-- and just as effective. But they provide no profit for the prison industry.

So, between now and the eve of Christmas Eve, it is essential that those who opposing contract renewal:

1. Contact anyone in the county hierarchy who might be able to help us; certainly the WCCC members, but also anyone who could talk to them with good audience.--minister, friends, family members, etc. WCCC contact info can be found atwww.wiliamson-county.org.

2. Write letters to the editor to the Williamson County Sun, Austin American-Statesman, Austin Chronicle, or other newspaper; contact your local TV affiliate station's news department. Ask for folks to join our effort on the blogs and email lists.

3 Consider getting a few other supporters to go with you to visit with your Williamson County commissioner--or go on your own; small settings can work far better than large, public ones because the commissioner needn't be defensive of the issue.

4. Come to Saturday, December 20 vigil in front of the Hutto facility from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. to show support and generate more. (see next post)

5. Attend the December 23 WCCC meeting that starts at 9:30 a.m.; come early ( CCA often tries to pack the place before it starts), bring others, and seriously consider speaking. Write a three-minute speech to deliver.

The new faces and voices who have recently come out against the contract renewal have had a huge impact. We can’t lapse now; let’s celebrate Christmas with the gift of an end to imprisoning innocent families and babies in Williamson County ----in Texas----in the United States of America.

For more information, to share ideas, and to get involved, contact MaryEllen Kersch, maryellenkersch [at] verizon [dot] net, 512-863-7174.

Toy Delivery and Vigil to End Family Detention

2008-12-16T07:55:00.001-06:00

Saturday, December 20th, 3-5 pm, T. Don Hutto Detention Center

Please join Texans United for Families, Grassroots Leadership, WilCo Family Justice Alliance, Border Ambassadors, CodePink Austin, the Brown Berets and other organizations and individuals from across the state in the third annual December vigil to end family detention, Saturday, December 20th, from 3-5pm. Organizers will deliver more than 500 toys to the facility in time for the holiday season. Toys should be in their original packaging and not on a recall-list to be accepted into the facility. A carpool will leave 2604 E. Cesar Chavez in Austin at 2pm for the Hutto detention center.

If you plan to drive on your own, T. Don Hutto is located at 1001 Welch Drive in Taylor, Texas.

Directions from Austin

Directions from Dallas

Directions from San Antonio

Directions from Houston

For more information, contact Bob at 512-971-0487 or blibal [at] grassrootsleadership [dot] org.

Update! If you are interested in joining a caravan from Houston, contact Maria Elena Castellanos at castellanoslaw1 [at] gmail [dot] com. Folks will be leaving from the parking lot of Fedex Kinko's (Magnum exit, Hwy 290, Houston) at around 10:30. Meet up at 9:30 if you would like to make posters for the vigil.

Update! The Brown Berets are organizing a caravan, to leave from the Cesar Chavez Learning Center,1504 E. Commerce Street, San Antonio. Arrive at 11am to get organized; the caravan will leave at noon. Please contact Carlos De Leon at 210-627-3647 for more information.

Williamson Co. Residents Take Action Against Family Detention

2008-12-15T22:53:00.003-06:00

On December 9, 2008, Sherry Dana and Mary Ellen Kirsch let the County Commissioners know how they feel about T. Don Hutto.

A group of citizens opposing the renewal of the T Don Hutto contract will address that elected body, again on Dec. 16, during the "Citizen Comments" section of the agenda at the start of the meeting.

Local opposition is growing and becoming more vocal in their determination to end WCCC's involvement in this corrupt contract. Last week saw a number of new faces and heard some forceful new voices opposing the renewal of the county's participation in this tragic abuse of power. The WCCC is in the process of considering the terms of the up-dated proposal and it is essential for them to hear our arguments before the item appears on the agenda for formal approval.

Click here for a speech called "Nativity and Immigration" delivered by retired United Methodist minister, Milton Jordon, on December 7. He reminds us that Mary and Joseph were immigrants, too, and calls on us to maintain the spirit of hospitality by affirming the civil rights of everyone and welcoming diversity into our communities.

From Sherry Dana,

As you are well aware, the detention of innocent children violates international law, federal law, and Congressional mandates.

You looked the other way when a detainee was raped by a CCA employee. You were unphased when U. S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks found it inexplicable that defendants spent untold amounts of time, effort, and taxpayer dollars to establish the Hutto family detention program, knowing that a federal ruling required immigration authorities to house children in the least restrictive conditions possible.

You ignored the testimony of the detained children and the results of investigations by reputable organizations such as Lutheran Social Services.

Your concern has not been that abuses were occurring but that the county could be held liable. Rather than showing concern for human rights abuses, you chose to add an indemnity clause requiring CCA to pay for an attorney to defend the county in a lawsuit resulting from these abuses.

A speaker at Sunday's vigil just returned from meeting with Sen. Kennedy's staff about T. Don Hutto, one met personally with Pres. elect Obama about T. Don Hutto. Several weren't with us because they were speaking in Washington D.C. and NYC about T. Don Hutto.

As of January 20th, George Bush, Dick Cheney and Michael Chertoff will no longer be in Washington to protect their friends in the private for-profit prison industry. We will have an administration that has vowed to uphold international law, that respects the judicial system, Congress, and the Constitution.

CCA's lawyers will work to protect CCA, not the county, from liability for our complicity in the inhumane treatment of these innocent women and children.

If you cannot find it in your heart to release these children, then look at your financial responsibilities to the county. Protect us from the financial repercussions that will surely come if you renew the Agreement between Williamson County and CCA to imprison women and children who ask for our help and instead are thrown in a private for profit prison.

From Mary Ellen Kersch:

Each Tuesday, this meeting opens with a pledge to our flag, appropriately declaring “liberty and justice for all, ” and that we are “one nation, under God.” That’s followed with a prayer, submitting to the will of God and the teachings of Christ. But when anything relating to T Don Hutto is on the agenda, this body seems to go into an amnesia state and ends up acting in contradiction to those standards of good government and brotherly love. The Golden Rule is regularly broken whenever the corrupt contract with ICE and CCA is under review.

T Don Hutto family prison does not exist for national security interests, or out of a sense of justice or patriotism; it’s driven by greed. Simple avarice. This contract personifies the corrupt business model of exploiting the very weakest among us to further enrich the most wealthy. At taxpayer expense.

Imprisoning innocent children of God, charged with no crime, is flat out un-American. It’s also un-Christian. (What WOULD Jesus do?)

I’ve previously told you a bit about my own son-in-law’s experience with ICE. That uncontrolled bureaucracy failed to follow their own rules, which they acknowledged, but then just decided to go ahead and punish the victim of their own sloth, anyway. ( I guess maybe the paperwork would have been too much trouble for them.) My family spent several terrified months as a result, during which ICE could have hauled him off, deported him, and/or imprisoned him in T Don Hutto. And it was THEIR error!

Maybe if he’d been a family member of someone on this dais, you’d be less complacent about this corruption for corporate profit. At taxpayer expense.

The fact is that there are humane, effective, and moral-- and far more “Republican”—i.e., “cost-effective,” alternatives to the T Don Hutto, for–profit- prison-for-non-criminal-immigrants. While you didn’t initiate this activity, your failure to require any of those alternatives makes you accomplices.

Well, here’s your chance for redemption: You can vote to remove us from this unholy union and notify the world that we do not put innocent people-- or children-- in prison in Williamson County, Texas.

Austin, Texas: Toy drive for families at Hutto

2008-12-01T10:48:00.001-06:00

The University of Texas Immigration Law Clinic is collecting toys for children detained at Hutto, to be delivered close to the Christmas holiday. Help make their Christmas merry and bright by donating toys made in the USA and in their original packaging. Hutto could also use:

- books for kids of all ages as well as adults, especially those in Spanish, Arabic, Chaldean, Urdu, Portuguese, and Creole;

- CDs or DVDs (please, no movies rated above PG-13 or with sexual or violent scenes and no music with a parental advisory sticker);

- gently used coats, jackets, sweaters, and other warm clothes for kids or adults;

- phone cards.

Please bring any donations to the next Austin Immigrant Rights Council meeting (Dec. 18, 7-9 p.m. at Cristo Rey Church) OR contact Karla Vargas KMV229 at gmail dot com any time.

Your gifts are deeply appreciated!

Dec. 7, New York, NY: Worship Service and Workshop on Families and Detention

2008-11-30T12:20:00.002-06:00

Please join Grassroots Leadership at historic Judson Memorial Church on Sunday, December 7, 2008, 55 Washington Square South, New York, for a service and workshop on immigrant family detention and the campaign to end it. The schedule is as follows:

11:00 am: Service and Agape Meal
Messsage: Luissana Santibañez
Music: Monica Simpson and Si Kahn

1:00 pm: Workshop: Families In Jail in America:
The Campaign to Abolish Immigrant Family Detention: Join Grassroots Leadership staff and board members Luissana Santibañez, Bob Libal, Si Kahn, Monica Simpson, Mafruza Khan and Mitty Owens for a short film screening of Hutto: America's Family Prison, a discussion of the issue and the campaign, and to find out what you can do to help stop 'immigrant family detention' before it spreads. Workshop space is limited, so please RSVP to Monica Simpson at msimpson@grassrootsleadership.org or 704-968-0658

Obama taps AZ Gov. Janet Napolitano for DHS Secretary

2008-11-27T20:48:00.000-06:00

Many are wondering what to think about President-elect Obama's possible nomination of Arizona governor Janet Napolitano for Department of Homeland Security Secretary. After looking into a few commentaries, I thought I would post some here.

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman discussed the nomination with Aarti Shahani of Families for Freedom, a NYC-based advocacy group. While Shahani notes that we should be very pleased with the change in security leadership, she also points out that Napolitano has led the expansion of 287(g) programs, lobbied DHS for escalations in immigration enforcement in Arizona, and cooperated with the notoriously racist Maricopa County Sherriff Arpaio. You can listen, watch, or read their discussion here.

In 2007, Napolitano asked the country not "to forget the border" in an NYTimes op-ed. There she argued for comprehensive immigration reform--especially a temporary worker program--but criticized proposals for two year work permits and requiring undocumented migrants to "touchback" in their home countries before getting visas.

According the Arizona Daily Star, the governor recently called for National Guard troops to return to the border. Chertoff decided that they were no longer necessary and pulled the troops last summer. Guard troops have provided support for ICE and CBP officers for years, but their presence has raised some questions about the role of military personnel in civilian life and the status of posse comitatus, which limits the role of the military in domestic law enforcement and policing.

For a critical review of Napolitano's gubernatorial legacy on more than just immigration, read Michael Lacy of the Village Voice.

Cheney, Gonzales, Lucio, & GEO Group Indicted in Willacy County, Texas

2008-11-27T19:40:00.003-06:00

Not directed related to family detention--yet. Willacy County, the home of the Raymondville detention complex, has returned indictments for Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Texas state legislature representative Eddie Lucio, and the GEO Group (formerly Wackenhut) for their roles in the immigration detention system and the 2001 death of an inmate.

The Valley Morning Star reports:

The indictment charges Cheney with illegally profiting, by virtue of his office, from $85 million in investments in the Vanguard Group. The group invests in companies that house federal detainees. He also is charged with exerting pressure on how much prisons are paid to house detainees. ...

The indictment alleges that Gonzales used his position to stop investigations into assaults committed in the private prison managed by the GEO Group in Willacy County.

The GEO Group, formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., was also indicted on murder charges involving the 2001 death of an inmate killed in a Raymondville prison. The indictment accuses GEO of allowing inmates to beat Gregorio De La Rosa Jr., 33, of Laredo, to death with padlocks stuffed into socks. ...

Lucio is charged with profiting from public office when he acted as a consultant for Management and Training Corp., CorPlan Corrections, Aguirre Inc., Hale Mills Corp., TEDSI Infrastructure Group, Inc., and Dannenbaum Engineering Corp.

Last summer, Raymondville city council supported a bid for a new family detention center there, though ICE has not yet awarded those contracts. Needless to say, this series of indictments raises serious concerns about the viability of any facility that would house small children and families. (For more about these bids, see our previous blog posts.)

The case will be interesting because, as Will Bunch of Philly.com and ABC News blogger Jan Greenberg, point out, the county doesn't have jurisdiction over federal crimes. In addition, the DA, Juan Angel Guerra, is in his last lame duck days as DA for the county. Further, four of the eight defendants participated in an earlier suit of Guerra, begging accusations of political vindictiveness. The Willacy County Sherriff even responded with a suit against Guerra, charging retaliation. According to Guerra, however, he has been investigating this case under the radar for some time.

It is unfortunate that these indictments emerge from such a wild political climate because the conflict of interests for public officials, serious problems with detainee care, and massive goverment spending on the incarceration for non-criminal violations should demand the attention of policy-makers and judge far beyond South Texas. The indictment hearings have been set for December 1, and we'll follow up here as soon as we can.

December 7, 2008: Vigil for Families in Detention

2008-11-26T10:41:00.006-06:00

Williamson County Courthouse | December 7, 2008

On Sunday, December 7, at 4 p.m. a peaceful coalition of individuals and groups opposing Willliamson County's participation in the detention of asylum seekers will gather on the Williamson County Courthouse steps in downtown Georgetown.  

Although federal law requires the "least restrictive setting possible" for immigrant families, in 2006 Williamson County contracted with Corrections Corporation of America, a private for-profit prison company, to incarcerate non-criminal women and children in the T. Don Hutto detention facility in Taylor. The contracts between ICE, Williamson County, and CCA are up for renewal in January.  Please help us show Williamson County, Homeland Security, and the private prison industry that imprisoning innocent children will no longer be tolerated in the United States of America.

We will meet in the parking lot on Austin Ave. between 4th and 5th Streets in Georgetown at 3:30 p.m. and walk 3 blocks to the County Courthouse to hear community leaders speak in support of alternatives to the incarceration of families awaiting asylum or immigration hearings.  

There are currently 385 detainees in T. Don Hutto including 92 children. As a result of the lawsuits brought by ACLU and the UT School of Law Immigration Clinic, detainees are now allowed to wear their own clothing. Thanks to a recent intervention by the UT School of Law Immigration Clinic, ICE has also agreed to allow detainees to use phone cards given to them rather than having to buy the cards through CCA.

  If you would like to bring a gift to the vigil, suggestions include new toys in their original packaging (and made in the USA), books, music players, music, lotions, shampoos, candy, phone cards, and clothing such as sweaters and warm socks.

For further information or to sign up to speak, please contact Sherry Dana at sdana787[ at] gmail [dot] com.

2008-10-31T12:40:00.000-05:00

The best laid plans... are posted on blogs at the last minute:

From Antonio Diaz, Texas Indigenous Council:

Native people celebrate death as it is a part of the circle of life, there is not need to fear physical death, the death of innocence on the other hand is a sad thing indeed. We will be going to Taylor on Saturday, November 1 to recognize the Death of Innocence of the Children Detained at T. Don Hutto Prison. November 1st is know as "Dia do los Inocentes," Dia do los Muertes from November 1st to the 2nd. This loss of innocence due to incarceration because of greed of private prison corporations like Corrections Corp. of Ameria must be addressed and the policy of fear and division that allows for rampant greed to dictate immoral immigration legislation much come to an end. Ending the Catch and Release program will be the first step to bring justice into immigration reform. Join us if you are able: 6-8 pm, Saturday, November 1st at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center. For more info, call Antonio Diaz at (210) 396-9805.

Bill to Improve Detention Conditions Introduced to the House

2008-10-13T10:44:00.001-05:00

On October 3, Lucille Royball-Alard (D-California) introduced the Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act (H.R. 7255), a bill that would reform detention conditions for the 300,000+ detained in the U.S. each year. This bill seeks to set enforceable minimum standards for all in detention and sets more specific standards for unaccompanied children and detained women.

This bill followed the Protect Citizens and Residents from Unlawful Raids and Detention Act (S. 3594) introduced by Senators Menendez (D- NJ) and Ted Kennedy (D- MA). This bill takes aim at the Department of Homeland Security / Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids that have hit the headlines in the past few months.

And earlier this year, Lofgren (D-CA) introduced the Detainee Basic Medical Care Act (H.R. 5950), which responded to the 82 detainee deaths in detention highlighted by the New York Times and Washington Post.

Why are these bills important? ICE has developed Family Residential Standards, which we have covered on this blog, and Adult Detention Standards. These serve as guidance documents for the government and non-governmental contractors that run detention facilities. Yet, the only real oversight remains internal to ICE-- that is, ICE inspects ICE facilities. The issue of internal oversight arose during the Hutto lawsuit, and the government repeatedly argued that there was no need for external inspections. While the Hutto Settlement contained court oversight, those of you familiar with the Hutto Settlement will remember that this will end in August 2009, when the settlement expires.

The bills above are Congress' efforts to give these standards "teeth," and hopefully set the bar a little higher for the treatment of detainees.

Numerous organizations have published statements, press releases, and reports on these bills. A few of them are:

Check back for more information as these bills move through Congress...