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U.S. Gives Tour of Family Detention Center That Critics Liken to a Prison PDF Print E-mail
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Monday, 12 February 2007
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U.S. Gives Tour of Family Detention Center That Critics Liken to a Prison
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by RALPH BLUMENTHAL
TAYLOR, Tex., Feb. 9 — Responding to complaints about conditions at the nation’s main family detention center for illegal immigrants, officials threw open the gates on Friday for a first news media tour.

They portrayed the privately run converted prison, open since May, as a model facility “primarily focused on the safety of the children.”

"Once all the barbed wire comes down, Gary Mead, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official, said, “it’s going to look more like a community college with a very high chain-link fence.”
Among other things, critics have complained about the prisonlike conditions, the food and the limited amount of schooling and recreation provided for children.

Inside the fluorescent-lighted corridors, plastic plants had been hurriedly installed and some areas repainted, lawyers for some detainees said, and officials acknowledged that pizza was on the lunch menu for the first time. The detainees could not be interviewed.

The facility, the T. Don Hutto Family Detention Center, is operated for the government by the Corrections Corporation of America, under a $2.8-million-a-month contract with Williamson County. It is named for a founder of the company, which runs 64 facilities in 19 states.

It now holds about 400 illegal immigrants, including 170 children, in family groups from nearly 30 countries, Mr. Mead said. He called it a humane alternative to splitting up families while insuring their presence at legal proceedings.

There is only one other family detention center in the country, the smaller Berks Family Shelter Care Facility, a former nursing home, in Leesport, Pa.

Critics said the picture presented on Friday conflicted with what they had observed.

“At Hutto, we found prisonlike conditions imposed on families with no criminal background, including asylum seekers,” said Michelle Brané, a lawyer for the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service who co-authored a report on family detention to be released on Feb. 22.


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