Thread: Illegal immigrants` last stop

July 6, 2008, 12:02AM
Illegal immigrants' last stop
Rare tour gives a glimpse of the ever-increasing activity at facility


By JAMES PINKERTON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle


Comments (42)


Complete coverage of immigration issues Tucked away in a landscaped corporate park in north Houston, a sprawling complex is barely noticeable to the public. But it's a well-known stop, a sort of symbolic exit door out of America, for about 1,500 illegal immigrants who come through this busy detention facility every month.

In Houston, the familiar image of immigration enforcement in recent months has been high-profile workplace raids such as the one at Shipley DoNuts. But what the public rarely sees is the back end of this enforcement process: detention and removal.

As the pace of immigration enforcement quickens in the Houston area, this detention center becomes increasingly vital to the government's strategy of deporting higher numbers of illegal immigrants.

Kenneth Landgrebe, who heads Detention and Removal Operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Houston area, said ICE has removed more than 7,000 illegal immigrants from Houston since January, and expects to exceed the 2007 tally of 12,000 this year.

Last week, reporters were granted a rare tour of the facility at a time when ICE is under fire nationally for a number of deaths of immigrants in its custody.

Critics say the deaths highlight shortcomings in medical care provided to a daily average of 28,700 immigration violators in ICE custody, housed in 53 facilities across the U.S.

Since 2004, 69 detainees have died in ICE custody, including a number of deaths attributed to inadequate medical care.

''There is a lack of prompt and professional attention to serious medical problems," said Michael Macleod-Ball, chief of legislative and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

''The evidence of that is this significant number of deaths, and in some instances deaths that could be avoided, and serious medical conditions that were left untreated."

The ACLU has filed suit against three ICE facilities operated by Corrections Corporations of America, which took in $1.5 billion in revenue last year, with 13 percent coming from ICE contracts to house immigrants. It is the same company that runs the Houston detention facility. CCA earns nearly $90 per day for housing each inmate at the 905-bed complex.

''People are treated humanely. They are in a safe environment," Landgrebe said about conditions inside the facility. "They receive excellent medical care, and although they are in detention, they are in a secure environment that protects them."


Many convicted criminals
During the tour, ICE and CCA officials escorted reporters through the main areas of the detention center where 798 immigrants were housed in 29 large cells.

Eighty percent of the detainees are convicted criminals being removed from federal and state prisons, as well as local jails.

Immigrants are classified in a system akin to the government's color-coded terrorism threat levels. Those whose only offense is unlawful entry into the U.S. are given blue overalls.

Those with nonviolent criminal histories don orange uniforms, and immigrants convicted of more serious offenses wear red.

Inmates are allowed an hour a day of recreation on outdoor basketball and soccer fields or in an exercise room inside.

''We try to do as much as we can to get these guys out of doors and active," said Assistant Warden David Price.

Detainees from various cellblocks held a soccer tournament just two weeks ago. The team from Cellblock 14, which houses high-risk detainees, won the tourney.

The detention center was noticeably clean and well-lit; the cells appeared spotless. Each of the 29 cellblocks contained bunk beds, a TV monitor, a microwave, a dining area and bathroom facilities.

The facility has a small law library and a commissary, although CCA officials refused to provide price lists for the items.

Inmates are screened for medical problems within 12 hours of arriving, said Cmdr. John Gary of the U.S. Public Health Service, medical administrator at CCA.

The medical staff here is authorized for 38 staff members, although last week they had six vacancies, Gary said.

The staff includes a full-time medical doctor, 13 registered nurses, eight licensed vocational nurses, a dentist, pharmacist, a psychologist and a social worker. The clinic has an X-ray facility, which is used as part of a tuberculosis surveillance program for detainees.

Gary said in the last four years there were two deaths at the facility, including a detainee who committed suicide and another who died of natural causes.

Officials would not provide any additional details.

Like most jails and prisons, the detention facility allows for religious practices.

Michael Davis, the detention center chaplain, said individual services are held for Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and Sikhs.

But not everyone is a believer.


Plenty of complaints
Humberto Adame, a 20-year-old Mexican immigrant from Houston, was transferred to CCA in April after he was jailed in Harris County for a hit-and-run accident.

Adame complained the food was often uncooked, even frozen, and the water in cell showers was either scalding or cold. He wasn't given a blanket and shivered through cold nights because the air conditioning units kept his cellblock cold.

''I'd rather just go back to Mexico than be in there. Any place was better than that," said Adame, who eventually agreed to return to Mexico. But he changed his mind and his family filed a lawsuit to halt ICE from removing him.

His attorney, Manuel Solis, said he was told several times Adame was not available to visit with him, something the attorney said has happened with other clients detained at CCA.

Another veteran Houston immigration attorney said there are no facilities at the complex to meet with clients, or their families, before or after court hearings.

''It's a nice facility that was poorly designed for its intended purpose, but it could be fixed with minor modifications if anyone gave a damn," said Brian Bates, an immigration lawyer in Houston for 17 years.

But opinions on the facility seem mixed.

''You know, I've had very good feedback from clients who have been detained there," said Elise Wilkinson, an immigration attorney from League City. ''Nobody wants to be detained, but people seem to think it's a very well-run deal."

Beyond the sterile floors and soccer fields, individual hard-luck stories abound.


A tough case
Dhanashree Gupte Lee, a 22-year-old University of Houston business major, has been in CCA for two weeks as she fights government efforts to deport her back to her native India.

Her case is an unusual one.

Lee, married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Houston on a theft charge. Harris County jail authorities learned a New York immigration judge had ordered her family to leave the U.S. in 1999, when she was 13. Her parents did not leave and told her she was here legally.

Lee is hoping she can stop the deportation, then return to court in New York and explain that she was not aware her family had been ordered to leave.

Landgrebe, the ICE official, acknowledges there are complaints.

''We hear a lot of complaining," he said. ''But anything that's of a serious nature that we can do anything about is addressed and taken care of."

james.pinkerton@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5873692.html

A tough case
Dhanashree Gupte Lee, a 22-year-old University of Houston business major, has been in CCA for two weeks as she fights government efforts to deport her back to her native India.

Her case is an unusual one.

Lee, married to a U.S. citizen, was arrested in Houston on a theft charge. Harris County jail authorities learned a New York immigration judge had ordered her family to leave the U.S. in 1999, when she was 13. Her parents did not leave and told her she was here legally.

Lee is hoping she can stop the deportation, then return to court in New York and explain that she was not aware her family had been ordered to leave

It's not a 'tough case' at all.

1. Her parents lied to her - so what? She needs to seek redress with and through her parents about that. She is still here illegally.

2. Even *if* she knew nothing of the specifics of the law, such ignorance [of it] is no defense from it.

3. A business major who is caught stealing - hmmm, I see too much emphasis on me, me, me and not enough of respecting the rules.
We don't need Americans-to-be like you.

4. The fact that the parents even faced an immigration judge suggests they either were illegal and were already caught - or - they were trying the asylum or refugee card. Whatever happened, they KNOWINGLY broke the rules and the dragged their kids through the dirt with them. It's too bad, but parents do stupid things that affect their kids all the time.

5. Actually, contrasted with what the author contends here, stories like these are not all that unusual. Especially whey they involved families (eg. more than a single IA) and where initial entry was done on a legit visa (tourist, student, etc).

6. Recall that Indians comprise the fastest growing source nation of IAs at the present time.

She needs to be deported. End of story.