Taylor Daily Press: Vigil for detained families

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

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.

More News Coverage

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.

IACHR Releases Initial Reactions to Detention Center Visits

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.

The American Prospect: The Big Business of Family Detention

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!

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!

Kick Off 100 Events to End Family Detention!

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.

Taylor Daily Press: The T. Don Hutto Question

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.

Austin American-Statesman: Commissioners to Vote on Hutto

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

Williamson Co. Residents Take Action Against Family Detention

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

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!

Cheney, Gonzales, Lucio, & GEO Group Indicted in Willacy County, Texas

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

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.

Bill to Improve Detention Conditions Introduced to the House

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:

• American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA)
  
• Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Services (LIRS)
• National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC)
• American Civil Liberties Union
• Women's Commission on Refugee Women and Children

Check back for more information as these bills move through Congress...

Austin-America Statesman: Human Rights Group Investigates Hutto facility

Never far from the spotlight, Hutto returns again. In today's Austin-American Stateman, Juan Castillo reported that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a group within the Organization of American States (OAS), is in Texas investigating detention, border, and human rights issues. As Castillo reports, the human rights attorney, Denise Gilman, and the UT Immigration Law Clinic requested an investigation last year. For the story, click here.

To learn more about the OAS investigation of Hutto, read this report submitted to the OAS by Gilman and the UT Immigration Law Clinic. The report details family detention policy and the human rights problems documented there. A nice, short backgrounder on the subject...

Melissa Del Bosque, from the Texas Observer, blogged about the border wall investigation, as well.

Detention Watch Network Releases NEW Map

The Detention Watch Network has released a new and improved interactive map of immigration detention. The map includes detention centers, community organizations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement Offices, and Immigration Courts. A fantastic resource for public education!

Click here to learn more about immigrant detention.

Locked and Loaded: CCA, the private jailer and one of Nashville's richest companies, is facing heightened scrutiny after a year of particularly heinou

Read the full article at Nashville Scene. Below are only the excerpts pertaining to Hutto.

by Matt Pulle

Located in a bland, almost anonymous Green Hills office park of fake lakes and fountains is the headquarters of the nation's largest private prison company, which, at the moment, may be the most disparaged corporation in the country. Since its inception in 1983, CCA has encountered legions of angry detractors who believe that the business of punishing criminals should not be—well, a business. But if the company has become accustomed to criticism over the years—like a best-selling author whose novels garner predictably bad reviews—it is now mired in a series of scandals, embarrassments and public-relations catastrophes that may tar its reputation for years to come.

In the last 18 months alone, CCA has been the target of several stinging lawsuits supported by detailed affidavits and third-party reports alleging dangerous and inhumane practices that have put inmates' lives at risk. Whistle blowers, once in positions of trust at CCA, have emerged from the shadows to tell vivid tales of corporate misconduct. Federal authorities have castigated the publicly traded corporation for operating an immigration detention facility in Texas on the cheap. And at that CCA complex—which at one point forced children of immigrant detainees to dress in prison garb—dozens of incarcerated women and children have come forward with gut-wrenching tales of anguish and neglect.

...In 2005, Michael Chertoff, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which runs the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Division (ICE), ended the practice of "catch-and-release"—which permitted undocumented immigrants like Elsa to remain free at-large while they awaited their day in court. Under catch-and-release, no-shows were common. So after 9/11, the specter of illegal immigrants from all over the world roaming the country became a security issue. Pilot programs sprung up that tracked immigrants with electronic bracelets, though Chertoff went with a draconian plan instead: Throw many of these men, women and children in Hutto, a former medium-security prison that was surrounded by a 15-foot fence topped with rings of barbed wire when it reopened in 2006 as a place for immigrant families.

...Just about every affidavit from a child or mother portrayed Hutto the same way—as a rough and cold place, where kids lie awake at night hungry and crying in the dark. And if they act up, like children often do, a guard would threaten to remove them from their families. To hear the stories from inside the walls, Hutto seems more like a medieval dungeon than a 21st century facility run by a wealthy company.

"The conditions were shocking," says Barbara Hines, a University of Texas law professor who spent many hours inside the facility representing detainees. "There were children in prison garb dressed like their parents; it was like an adult prison system. Seven times a day parents and their children were required to stay in their pods so they could be counted. Laser beams shined through the cells at night."

Just about everyone else who walked through the gates at Hutto, including federal authorities, saw it as a deeply troubling facility. In March 2007, ICE inspectors visited Hutto and, in their own distinct bureaucratic language, corroborated the anguished accounts of the detainees. The inspectors noted that their "overall review of the facility can be accurately rated as deficient" and determined that the staff wasn't following basic standards of detention.

"The Review Team's observation of CCA's overall attitude is of disinterest and complacency in their work performance," the agency noted in its report.

A month later, an interoffice memo from ICE said that at Hutto, CCA is "losing staff as quick as they can hire them." That's because the company was only paying its detention officers around $10 an hour, nearly $4 less than what they could make at the county jail.

"As long as CCA continues to hire employees at this rate per hour, they will continue to experience the problems they are currently experiencing on the floor," read the memo. "The current problems CCA is experiencing are a direct result of what 'they are paying their employees for.' Unfortunately, it is at ICE's expense."

Among other issues, the Scene asked CCA to address the portrayal of Hutto that emerges from both federal officials and the people who lived there. The company declined to comment on any and all matters in this story, instead emailing news clips and a U.S. magistrate's report of the facility. That report, which came three months after the ACLU filed its federal lawsuit, depicted a more humane place than other earlier accounts and noted, "there have been attempts to 'soften' the feel of the building." The magistrate observed that the staff removed door locks and hung murals on the walls, "although the building still retains a very institutional feel."

...By all accounts, Hutto is no longer as oppressive as it was when Elsa and her family first arrived from Honduras. But why didn't CCA get it right from the start? Or to put it more bluntly, why did a rich company—one with $388 million in revenues last quarter—have to be told by the ACLU to cease treating innocent children like criminals?

"The point I'd like to make is that none of these changes were done voluntarily," says Hines, the attorney. "When you look at CCA and ICE, the question is, how would this facility have been if no one found out about it?"

New Yorker article on Hutto

The New Yorker feature A Reporter At Large this week has what may be one of the most comprehensive articles on the T Don Hutto facility and the national issue of family detention. Reporter Margaret Talbot's article "The Lost Children" includes discussions of immigrant detention, the role of corporations in lobbying for greater incarceration, the impact of detention on children, and some of the chronology of Hutto's evolution.

The complete article is available free on their website. In the meantime, some highlights from the abstract include:

Hutto is one of two immigrant-detention facilities in America that house families—the other is in Berks County, Pennsylvania—and is the only one owned and run by a private prison company. The detention of immigrants is the fastest-growing form of incarceration in this country, and, with the support of the Bush Administration, it is becoming a lucrative business. At the end of 2006, some fourteen thousand people were in government custody for immigration-law violations, in a patchwork of detention arrangements, including space rented out by hundreds of local and state jails, and seven freestanding facilities run by private contractors.

Last August, the A.C.L.U. settled its suit against the government. The agreement entails a number of changes at Hutto, including eliminating the head-count system, providing pajamas for children, letting kids keep a limited number of toys in their room during the day, making a priority of hiring people with experience in child welfare, and installing curtains around the toilets. In the months before the lawsuit was settled, Hutto had already started making changes: it got rid of the razor wire; expanded the length of educational instruction, first to four, then to seven hours a day; and began allowing detainees to wear their own clothes. Yet it seems unlikely that these changes would have been made without pressure from the A.C.L.U. lawsuit and from advocates like Barbara Hines and her students. The settlement also aimed to get people out of detention faster and stipulated that families at Hutto have their cases reviewed every thirty days, to determine if they could be released on parole or on bond.

It’s clear that Hutto is now a very different, and more humane, place than it was before the lawsuit. But, Gupta says, “it shouldn’t have taken the A.C.L.U. to make the government realize that holding innocent children in a converted medium-security adult prison is a bad idea.”

A separate internal memo, which was obtained by the A.C.L.U., expressed particular concern about the high turnover among employees at Hutto. The memo’s author, whose name is redacted, complains about how hard it was to get straight answers from C.C.A. about staffing. (“Approximately five requests were made.”) The memo goes on to report that, of the three hundred and thirty-eight employees who had been hired since Hutto opened, in May, 2006, two hundred and three had quit or been fired by March, 2007. That meant that “the average length of employment for the 170 critical positions of detention officer, program facilitator, correctional officer, and case manager is 3.01 months. C.C.A. is losing staff as quick as they can hire them.” The memo blames low pay—C.C.A. pays new employees $10.22 an hour, versus the county standard of $14.36. (In general, private prison companies pay considerably less than public prisons.) The memo continues, “Unfortunately, the caliber of some employees at the T. Don Hutto facility is not as high as it should be considering the nature of business that is required in managing a family residential detention facility.”

When we place families in a facility like Hutto, are we punishing them for coming to America? Or are we just keeping them somewhere safe, so that they don’t get separated or disappear while we figure out what to do with them? Or, rather, is our policy to try somehow to combine the practical and the punitive? After all, if the goal was simply to keep track of immigrants, in most cases an electronic monitoring bracelet would suffice. And if the goal was simply to keep families together, we could surely house them in something other than a former prison, in a place where employees are trained in child welfare and kids can get fresh air. The decision to house families in a former prison was, perhaps, not so arbitrary after all. At the meeting that day, Cynthia Long, one of the county commissioners, a woman in a businesslike red blazer and glasses, spoke about keeping families together. But she also said something that probably represented the gut feeling of a lot of people who are angry about illegal immigration. Long said, “The thing we forget is the adults who are being detained have broken the law.” Unfortunately, she went on, children sometimes “have to suffer with the sins of our parents”—“to suffer, if you can call it that, because of their parents’ choices.”

Click here to learn more about the history of T. Don Hutto.

Hutto, Texas

Hutto, Texas (78634) is in Williamson County. So is the T Don Hutto immigrant detention facility. This has been the source of some confusion.

According to Wikipedia, the population of Hutto, TX was 1,250 at the 2000 census but had swelled to 7,401 by the 2005 census estimate. A small town quickly becoming a sleeper community for people working in Austin.

Not to be confused with the T Don Hutto facility, a 512-bed facility designed to hold families. (Named for one of the original founders of the Corrections Corporation of America, the private company that operates the facility.)

And, as far as we can tell, it's thoroughly coincidental that the two happen to lie less than 10 miles apart.

Hutto an issue in Williamson Co Republican primary

Steve Laukhuf, an advertising executive in Round Rock, will be challenging incumbent Lisa Birkman in the Republican Precinct 1 primary for County Commissioner. In addition to to a platform centering on creating a fiscally conservative budget and government accessibility, Laukhuf has publicly opposed the T. Don Hutto facility.

From Melissa Mixon's Feb 14th article in the Austin-American Statesman:

Incumbent Lisa Birkman is being challenged by Round Rock advertising agency president Steve Laukhuf.

Laukhuf, who is chairman of the Round Rock Chamber of Commerce, said his campaign is centered on creating a fiscally conservative county budget, stopping wasteful spending and making government more open and accessible. He said he'd like to have Commissioners Court meetings aired on local television and posted online. He wants to eliminate a rule approved by Birkman and other commissioners in October that requires the public to abide by a dress code during their meetings.

He also said he's opposed to the county's involvement with the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a controversial immigrant detainment facility in Taylor.

Precinct 1 is in the southern central part of the county and includes most of Round Rock, along with parts of Austin, Georgetown and the Brushy Creek Municipal Utility District.

For more analysis, see Texas Prison Bid'ness.