Submitted by CRIN on
[6 September 2014] -
Federal officials are due to open a huge family detention centre in southern Texas that will house immigrant adults with children while they await deportation.
The Texas Observer reports that federal officials are preparing to open the nation’s largest family detention centre, a 2,400-bed facility that will nearly double the current capacity to house immigrant families awaiting deportation. The centre will be developed on a sprawling 50-acre property near the town of Dilley, 70 miles south-west of San Antonio, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials told the monthly magazine.
The Observer says the centre will be run by the nation’s largest for-profit corrections company, the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The company, which operates more than 60 detention centres and prisons across the country, has been mired by controversies that include inmate abuse, falsifying official records and aggressive lobbying tactics.
The announcement enraged advocates, who argue that detention is no place for children.
“The Obama administration should be ashamed of itself for returning to the policy of mass for-profit detention of immigrant families,” said Bob Libal, executive director of Grassroots Leadership, an advocacy group opposed to for-profit prisons.
Family detention centres operated by private prison companies have a poor track record, especially in Texas. In 2009, federal officials removed all immigrants with children from a 490-bed Texas facility operated by CCA. The facility had been the focus of a damning 2007 report on family detention by the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children that concluded detention was wildly inappropriate for children.
“While little kids and their families will suffer in this remote private prison, far away from legal or social services, this multibillion private prison company stands to make enormous profits,” Libal said.
An obscure provision tucked into the Department of Homeland Security’s spending plan, known as the “bed mandate”, requires law enforcement officials to hold an average of 34,000 immigrants in detention each day. The quota keeps detention centres full, a huge boon for the for-profit corrections companies that get paid per bed. In 2013, CCA’s revenue nearly topped $1.7bn (£1bn).
In July, the Obama administration announced its plans to expand family detention in response to the increasing surge of Central American migrants arriving at the southern Texas border. The announcement was met by strong criticism from rights groups.
An open letter to the homeland security secretary, Jeh Johnson, signed by more than 100 criminal justice, legal, immigrant and children’s rights organisations, asked the agency to abandon plans to expand family detention.
“We are gravely concerned by the Obama administration’s announcement that it will expand the use of family detention,” said the letter, dated 7 July.
“Family detention profoundly impacts the emotional and physical wellbeing of children and breaks down family relationships. While the administration is understandably under pressure to respond to the current humanitarian crisis at the border, locking babies in prison cells and deporting women and young children to dangerous situations are not the solution.”
Earlier this year, federal officials opened family detention centres in Artesia, New Mexico, and Karnes, Texas, in addition to a handful of other facilities which are being used to to detain and expedite the removal of families who crossed the US-Mexico border illegally.
“In the face of unprecedented levels of illegal migration of adults with children and unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley, we have reiterated that our borders are not open to illegal migration; if you come here illegally, and don’t have a legal basis to stay under our laws, we will send you back,” Johnson said of the Karnes facility in July.
“The opening of this additional facility represents our continued commitment to provide temporary facilities for adults with children while they undergo removal proceedings, and it is part of DHS’s sustained and aggressive campaign to stem the tide of illegal migration from Central America.”
A request for comment from ICE was not returned in time for publication.
Country: