Thread: Deal improves care at Texas facility for illegal immigrants

Deal improves care at Texas facility for illegal immigrants

By Miguel Bustillo, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
2:30 PM PDT, August 27, 2007

HOUSTON -- Children detained with their parents in a Texas center for illegal immigrants will receive more nutritious meals, better healthcare, increased freedom to move about and the right to wear pajamas under a legal settlement announced today by the federal government and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The agreement was reached just before the start of a federal trial challenging conditions at the controversial T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas -- a former jail reopened by a Department of Homeland Security contractor in 2006 to house families caught in the country illegally.

"We still believe Hutto is an inappropriate facility for children," said Vanita Gupta, an ACLU attorney who served as co-counsel on the case. "But as long as Congress and the White House allow this to happen, we want to make sure it is the most humane place possible."

From the start, the decision to house children and their parents in jail cells at the Hutto facility has been criticized as needlessly draconian by human rights groups and immigrants' rights organizations.

But U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials have defended Hutto as the most humane solution possible, noting that at least it kept families united until they were deported or their legal appeals were heard.

"Keeping families together through the removal process ensures that illegal alien children remain with parents, their best caregivers," the agency said in a statement. "In addition, ICE's family detention program serves as an effective deterrent to families who risk the dangerous journey to the United States."

Before Hutto began receiving national media attention this year, most of the more than 350 inmates at the facility were minors who dressed in jail-style uniforms and were forced to stand by their cots for bed checks several times a day like regular inmates.

Families from more than two dozen nations were being housed. The average stay was just over a month, but seekers of political asylum, who were also being held at the facility, were spending longer -- one family stayed more than 200 days. Pregnant women complained they were not getting prenatal care. Parents complained that children were being fed unhealthy meals and constrained to prison cellblocks.

Under the settlement, the Hutto facility will mainly be used to detain families that are caught crossing the border and are quickly being deported under the federal government's "expedited removal" policy -- not asylum seekers or other, more complicated cases. If a family winds up being held for 30 days, government officials will have to consider releasing them on bond. If a family is held longer than 60 days, government officials must explain why.

Privacy curtains will be put up around toilets. Children will be able to bring toys into their rooms and wear pajamas to bed.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Andrew W. Austin will periodically tour Hutto to ensure that the reforms are being followed.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials said that they had already made most of the changes.

miguel.bustillo@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... crosspromo

Pregnant women complained they were not getting prenatal care.

Get pregnant and run for the border. Apparently they got a head start on their anchor. I also wonder if these women even knew what pre-natal care was and if anybody actually complained. I think the ACLU saw a huge money-making opportunity and could care less about the actual conditions. Changes like wearing pajamas??? A lot of these people probably felt like they were in the Hilton compared to where they lived before.