Thread: 200 illegal aliens moved into Dilley, TX. immigration detention center

200 detainees move into Dilley immigration center

By Jason Buch, SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
January 9, 2015

HOUSTON

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DILLEY - About 200 women and children from Central America have been moved into portable housing at a new detention center here being built to deal with the surge of families that crossed the Rio Grande into South Texas last year.


On a state highway west of town, next to the Dolph Briscoe state prison where guards on horseback oversee inmates harvesting spinach and mustard greens, the onetime camp for oil field workers is now a 480-bed detention center for families from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

By May, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement expects to have the capacity to hold 2,400 people here, making it the largest immigrant detention center in the country.

In the 12 months that ended Sept. 30, Border Patrol agents in the Valley apprehended more than 60,000 immigrants, with some traveling as families, others as unaccompanied children. The vast majority of them came from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras - Central American countries suffering from serious economic problems and largely unchecked gang violence.

Surge response
The center, which will cost $290 million to build and operate, helps fill the sudden demand for space caused by the surge, which overwhelmed immigration officers. The U.S. government had all but abandoned family detention until last year - the one immigration holding center in the country that housed families had fewer than 100 beds.

With almost no place to hold people, ICE revamped a second detention center in Karnes County for families and was forced to release thousands of people with orders to appear later at immigration hearings.

With the large new facility, Dilley becomes a focus of the national debate over whether it's appropriate to detain families. Activists say many of these women and children have legitimate asylum claims and will be allowed to stay in the U.S. eventually, and that holding them in a prison-like setting is inhumane.

Now, administration officials say, they need to hold women and children from Central America until their court cases are resolved to send a message to those considering coming to the U.S. illegally, even as President Barack Obama takes executive action to give millions who have been in the country illegally for at least five years protection from deportation.

Information, ads
This week, federal officials announced they would begin informational campaigns to teach immigrants in the U.S. illegally about the president's new deferred action program, as well as advertising campaigns in Mexico and Central America warning potential immigrants that the policy won't apply to them.

Congressman Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, introduced legislation Thursday that would, among other things, prevent the Department of Homeland Security from using fees to carry out the president's deferred action policy and make it easier to quickly deport children back to countries that don't border the U.S.

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news...er-6005531.php

First family deported on Jan. 13, 2015.

Immigration News 2015: Immigrant Detention Center in Dilley, Texas Reveals Language Barriers, High Costs

By Michael Oleaga (m.oleaga@latinpost.com)
First Posted: Jan 16, 2015 09:11 AM EST

A boy from Honduras watches a movie at a detention facility run by the U.S. Border Patrol on September 8, 2014 in McAllen, Texas. (Photo : John Moore/Getty Images)

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) visited and disclosed details of the newest and largest immigrant detention center for undocumented women and children.

The South Texas Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, is the latest detention facility by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Representatives of the NGOs Women's Refugee Commission (WRC), American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and the National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) visited the Dilley facility on Tuesday, Jan. 13.

Royce Murray, director of policy at NIJC, acknowledged the Dilley facility will contain 2,400 beds for the detainees. While the Jan. 13 visit featured 239 detainees, Murray said the facility is expected to reach full capacity later this spring, potentially May or June.

Of the 239 detainees in Dilley, 108 are mothers and 131 are children -- the youngest child is 18 months month. Murray noted 108 people are from El Salvador, 67 people from Guatemala, 43 people from Honduras and nine are from Brazil and Ecuador. Coincidentally during the Tuesday trip, the first family was deported from Dilley on the same day.

The cost for family detention is "astronomical" with estimates per day ranging $266 to $300 per person. Murray added, "That's on top of what's been existing detention budget of over $2 billion a year."

Murray noted a distinct issue at the facility pertains to indigenous languages since there is no expert to provide interpretation, except for some staffers being bilingual. "For individuals who don't speak Spanish, the ability to communicate with guards, with ICE staff, with medical staff, with attorneys, is infinitely complicated," said Murray.

Katharina Obser, program officer in the Migrant Rights and Justice Program for WRC, said many families at Dilley had faced persecution, violence and trauma and sought safety in the U.S. Obser said she was told 80 percent of the population at Dilley expressed fears of returning to their native country.

"These mothers and their children do not pose any public safety or national security risk and in many cases they are volunteering themselves to law enforcement officials," said Obser.

Christina Brown, lead attorney for the AILA - Immigration Council Artesia Pro Bono Project, identified nearly all the detained women and children are asylum seekers with "a vast majority" having legitimate asylum claims. Access to legal counsel is another concern, particularly those who speak with an indigenous language and not understanding the legal proceedings surrounding them.

The South Texas Family Detention Center, located nearly 70 miles southwest of San Antonio, is run by the private company Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), under a contract with ICE, under an Intergovernmental Service Agreement (IGSA), and the city of Eloy, Arizona.

http://www.latinpost.com/articles/32...ter-dilley.htm