Thread: Texas Considering For Migrants A 500-bed "Hotel" Detention Center

US Immigration


Immigration officials consider bid for new 'hotel-like' detention center

Stratton Oilfield Systems seeks to turn former Texas work camp into 500-bed facility with improved living conditions, which activists say would still be ‘prison’

The US supreme court deadlocked this week on Obama’s immigration policy to shield undocumented immigrations from immediate deportation.

Rnée Feltz
Saturday 25 June 2016

Federal immigration officials are moving forward with plans for a new 500-bed family detention center to house migrant women and children, even as many advocates and politicians have called for the closure of such facilities altogether.

Officials in Dimmit County, 45 miles from the Texas border with Mexico, say they’ll consider a bid on Monday from a firm who says their facility in a 27-acre former work camp for oil workers would provide dramatically better conditionsthan two other family detention centers in the state.

Those facilities have faced complaints of poor food, inadequate medical care and allegations of sexual abuse from detainees, activists and the US Civil Rights Commission.

“Our facility offers a community-based alternative that will allow children to live in a home setting, attend school, and access critical legal and social services,” Stratton Oilfield Systems said in a pitch to potential partners.

“They want to have it with no fence,” said Mike Uriegas, a commissioner in Dimmit County, who says he first met with Stratton Oilfield Systems two weeks ago. “They don’t want to appear like a prison or detention center.”

But Cristina Parker, Immigration Programs Director for Grassroots Leadership, said she and other advocates object inherently to the concept of a detention center for families fleeing violence, regardless of the purported conditions.

“If you are not free to leave, then it doesn’t matter how nice it is,” Parker said. “It’s a prison.”

The Obama administration’s use of family detention centers that hold children and mothers has become one of the most contested elements of America’s border protection program.

Advocates have called on the Obama administration to pursue alternatives for families who are waiting for courts to hear pending asylum and immigration claims.

“Our families have witnessed their loved ones killed before their eyes, they have been the victim of rapes and robberies simply because of who they are,” said Jonathan Ryan, executive director of the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. “Our refugee families need protection, not jail.”

Earlier this month, a nearby Texas county had considered a bid with British firm Serco, which has a history of immigration detention center scandals in the UK and Australia. Jim Wells County voted not to bid on the contract, after some officials voiced concern over past abuse allegations against the firm.

Uriegas said he and other officials are undecided on the Stratton bid and will learn more at a meeting on Monday, which immigration advocates also plan to attend. One group had already heard of the company.

Last July, Stratton’s vice-president, Shannon A Stratton, tried to pitch the same idea for the closed worker housing in a letter to Grassroots Leadership, an Austin-based organization that opposes the prison industry.

A glossy proposal accompanying Stratton’s letter showed hotel-like two-bedroom studios with a living room, kitchenette and full bathroom. Stratton noted a federal judge has said women and children should be released from other detention centers where they are being held in “deplorable” conditions.

“The Studios in Carrizo Springs offers an excellent solution and is distinctly different from the facilities that are so highly criticized in the media and by human rights groups,” Stratton wrote. “Families could be free to come and go while they await immigration hearings, receive education about their rights and responsibilities, and pursue permanent relocation and employment.”

“It shows they don’t quite know what is going on,” said Cristina Parker, immigration programs director for Grassroots Leadership. “They’re confused about other things too, because it is blanketly untrue that the families will be free to come and go.”

Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s other two family residential centers in Texas are surrounded by razor wire and high fences.

The proposal emerges just days after the US supreme court blocked Obama’s plan to spare millions of immigrants from deportation. He vowed afterward: “What was unaffected by today’s ruling, or lack of a ruling, is the enforcement priorities that we’ve put in place.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...lfield-systems

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It is a short ride to the border on a bus. Or they could be delivered to their respective embassies in Texas.. Information for two of the most egregious countries.

• ADDRESS
• Guatemalan Consulate General in Houston, United States
  
  3013 Fountain View, Suite 210
  Houston, TX 77057
  United States
  
• TELEPHONE
• (+1) 713 953-9531
  
• FAX
• (+1) 713 953-9383
  
• EMAIL
• conshouston@minex.gob.gtright here in this country.
• Other Guatemalan representations in the United States
  
  • Washington, D.C., Embassy
  • Atlanta, Consulate General
  • Boston, Consulate
  • Charlotte, Consulate
  • Chicago, Consulate General
  • Columbia, Consulate General
  • Del Rio, Consulate
  • Denver, Consulate General
  • Fort Lauderdale, Consulate
  • Jupiter, Consulate General
  • Lafayette, Consulate
  • Las Vegas, Consulate
  • Los Angeles, Consulate General
  • Madison, Consulate
  • McAllen, Consulate General
  • Memphis, Consulate
  • Miami, Consulate General
  • Montgomery, Consulate
  • New York, Consulate General
  • Phoenix, Consulate General
  • Portland, OR, Consulate
  • Providence, Consulate General
  • San Bernardino, Consulate
  • San Diego, Consulate
  • San Francisco, Consulate General
  • Silver Spring, Consulate
  • Tucson, Consulate
  
  
  
  Or
  
  
  
  • ADDRESS
  • El Salvadoran Consulate General in Houston, United States
    
    10301 Harwin Dr, Suite "B"
    Houston, TX 77036
    United States
    
  • TELEPHONE
  • (+1) (713) 270-6239 / 7718
    
  • FAX
  • (+1) (713) 270-9683
    
  • EMAIL
  • congenhouston@compuserve.com
    
  • WEBSITE
  • consuladohouston.rree.gob.sv
    
  • OFFICE HOURS
  • 08.30-14.00
    
  • HEAD OF MISSION
  • Ana Lorena Siria de Lara, Consul General
  
  
  
  Other El Salvadoran representations in the United States
  
  
  
  • Washington, D.C., Embassy
  • Atlanta, Consulate General
  • Boston, Consulate General
  • Brentwood, Consulate General
  • Chicago, Consulate General
  • Dale City, Consulate General
  • Dallas, Consulate General
  • Las Vegas, Consulate General
  • Los Angeles, Consulate General
  • McAllen, Consulate General
  • Miami, Consulate General
  • New Orleans, Consulate
  • New York, Consulate General
  • Newark, Consulate
  • Oakland, Consulate
  • Philadelphia, Consulate
  • Phoenix, Consulate
  • Salt Lake City, Consulate
  • San Diego, Consulate
  • San Francisco, Consulate General
  • Seattle, Consulate
  • Tucson, Consulate General
  
  Or.
  
  We know that Mexico has over 50 consulates - their illegals should be delivered to them.
  
  
  These countries have established all of these consulates to "service" their citizens.
  
• They really should only have one embassy, in Washington DC. JMO

Yeah, it's pretty silly to settle them in Texas so close to the border. Wait, we aren't supposed to be settling illegal aliens. We're supposed to be deporting them. Right Texas? Come On!! Tell them you don't want illegal aliens being settled in hotels, you want them deported, swiftly, promptly. 24 to 48 hours.

County mulls request from feds to house illegal immigrants at Ordnance Road

Amanda Yeager Contact Reporter

Anne Arundel County is considering whether to follow other Maryland jurisdictions by allowing its jail cells to be used to hold people who came into the United States illegally.

County spokesman Owen McEvoy confirmed on Friday that officials are mulling a request from the federal government to use the Ordnance Road Correctional Center in Glen Burnie as a place to house people found to be in the country illegally while they await deportation, asylum or other legal action.

McEvoy said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has approached the county several times over the past few years with such requests. He confirmed that federal officials visited the jail earlier this year to assess its suitability.

"We are considering it, but no final decisions have been made," he said.

Located off of Interstate 695 in northern Glen Burnie, the Ordnance Road facility is a medium-security jail that holds men and women who are serving terms of up to 18 months, as well as people who are awaiting trial.

The correctional center can accommodate 432 inmates, but McEvoy said it's not currently filled to capacity and has a surplus of about 130 beds.

ICE would pay the county for use of those beds if an agreement is struck, he said.

McEvoy said County Executive Steve Schuh views the request as an opportunity to "efficiently (use) taxpayer-owned space" at "no cost to Anne Arundel County taxpayers."

But Gustavo Torres, the executive director of CASA de Maryland, a group that assists and advocates for immigrants to the United States, called a potential decision to use space at the Ordnance Road facility to detain immigrants "totally unacceptable."

"Instead of building more prisons, we would like the federal government to invest its resources in education and jobs. We need to focus on families, not detention centers," he said.

At least two other counties in Maryland already house immigrants being detained by the federal government.

A map on ICE's website lists the Worcester County Detention Center on Maryland's Eastern Shore as a detention facility partner. Though not included on the site, Howard County's director of corrections, Jack Kavanagh, said the Howard County Detention Center in Jessup also holds people detained on immigration violations.

The Jessup jail averages about 75 immigration detainees at a time, and they typically stay for a period of three or four months, Kavanagh said.

Because they are federal inmates, the detention center is bound by different rules when it comes to their treatment.

Kavanagh said federal standards require hourlong visits for the detainees and trips to the library five times a week. Howard County inmates are only entitled to 30-minute visits and a trip to the library once a week.

McEvoy said conforming to federal requirements might necessitate some improvements to the Ordnance Road facility if the county decides to accept ICE detainees, though he said the changes would be "nothing extensive."

He could not provide a timeline for when a decision might be made.

County mulls request from feds to house illegal immigrants at ...

By Jason Buch Updated 2:28 pm, Monday, June 27, 2016

CARRIZO SPRINGS — Dimmit County commissioners rejected a proposed holding center for immigrant families Monday after vocal opposition during a public meeting.

Residents packed the courthouse here to raise concerns about security and the impact on county infrastructure.

Dan Stratton, the president of a South Carolina company that wanted to build the facility, said families detained at the center would not be allowed to leave, and it would be operated by a licensed child-care provider. The facility would be designed to not look like a detention center, Stratton said.

That concerned residents who filled the courtroom benches and stood in the back, waiting for a chance to voice their opposition.

With a line still stretching across the courtroom, County Judge Francisco Ponce asked commissioners if they wanted to vote on the proposed partnership with the federal government.

“Today, I got it clear,” Ponce said afterward. “Now I know they still don't like it.”

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/loc...on-8327553.php