Immigrant detention facility raises questions
By Steve Ramirez Sun-News reporter
Posted: 02/18/2010 12:00:00 AM MST

LAS CRUCES - Would it be a detention facility or a family residential center, as the development group pushing the plan refers to it?

Perhaps more importantly, would it be an economic boost for Las Cruces, or a dangerous, risky endeavor?

There are far more questions than answers among Las Cruces residents and city officials about a proposed facility on the city's West Mesa where undocumented migrants would be kept.

"There's still a lot of information out there that has to be gathered," Mayor Ken Miyagishima said. "As a result, we will bring this issue up at the six City Council district meetings that are planned. We'll then schedule at least two additional meetings after that, one of those at City Hall, and then go from there. Based on what we hear, we hope to be ready to make a decision about the facility by either late April or early May."

Emily Carey, program coordinator for the Regional Center for Border Rights, in Las Cruces, said she supports efforts for more public participation on the proposal.

"Certainly, I would encourage greater public transparency, I would encourage a public hearing," said Carey, a representative of the New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "I would encourage the City Council to exercise due diligence on this highly complex issue."

With an introduction from Davin Lopez, executive director of the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance, Toby Michael, a representative for Corplan Corrections, made a formal presentation Tuesday to the Las Cruces City Council about building what he emphasized would be a "family residential center" on the West Mesa where undocumented migrants and people seeking asylum in to the United States would be housed while the federal government completed the processes of deportation or determining asylum.

"This is definitely a project we bring the public into so early," Lopez said.

"This is not a detention center. It is an extended-stay center," said Michael, a retired lawyer and state legislator from Grants. "We're not going to be housing criminals, but for the fact that they are undocumented immigrants. ...There will be no bars, no cells, no razor wire on the fences. Residents will be housed in a safe and secure environment."

According to its Web site, Corplan Corrections has developed prisons, jails, correction centers and detention centers throughout the United States, but mostly in Texas and New Mexico. The corporation "is able to provide full service, from conception, to 'selling' the concept to your community, interface with government officials, design, build, manage and financing. If your community is in need of jobs, financial development and economic growth and you want to participate in the benefits of a correctional facility to your economy, Corplan Corrections can make it happen."

Corplan has developed 13 projects in New Mexico since 1986, including the feasibility analysis and documentation of the Do a Ana County Detention Center that was completed in 1993.

But even though Michael stressed several times that the facility is not intended to be a detention facility, the company's extensive involvement in jails and correction and detention centers has also drawn concern.

"They can still be nightmares," Bishop Ricardo Ramirez said. "No matter how gilded you make the cage, it's still a cage."

Other residents are also looking for assurances that people who would stay at the facility will be properly cared for.

"This sounds good," Tomas Torres Jr. said. "There has to be a humane way to treat immigrants."

Barbara Rose Farber added, "If this is going to be a place where people will be treated humanely, then why are families being separated? Where are the fathers, why are they being put in another facility? I find it very disconcerting."

Farber, who said her husband is a retired district attorney, added, "I've been to too many jails in my life and this is exactly what this sounds like."

But Michael countered that the proposed facility would be the first of its kind in U.S. and would stress the humane treatment of undocumented migrants and people seeking asylum.

"This would be a campus setting where education would be stressed because the majority of people staying there would be children," Michael said. "As it stands now, many people who are under those circumstances have no protection, because many times they have no place to stay."

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., said Wednesday he was unaware of any federal initiatives under way to establish a facility such as the one being proposed. He, too, has some questions.

"If this were to be a federal program, as inferred, I would think that the Department of Homeland Security would be involved in seeking requests for proposals or bids," said Bingaman, who was in Las Cruces this week. "I'd be interested in knowing why DHS hasn't been mentioned in any of the discussions so far, and what role they would have in something like this."


Family residential center

• A 20-acre campus where undocumented migrants and people seeking asylum in to the U.S. would be kept has been proposed for Las Cruces' West Mesa.

• The facility would house as many as 200 people, most of those women and children.

• The migrants would stay there while awaiting deportation to the country they were originally from.

• The migrants would be from countries that don't have immigration agreements with the U.S., such as Central America, Russia, the Ukraine, and Eastern Bloc countries.

• The private company that wants to invest in the facility is Corplan Corrections, of Argyle, Texas.

• The city would not have to commit any public money to build or maintain the facility, but would have to issue industrial revenue bonds for its construction.

• If built, the city would receive Payment In Lieu of Taxes funding from the U.S. government.

• After about 20 years, ownership of the facility would revert from the federal government to the city, or a nonprofit organization designated by city officials.

http://www.lcsun-news.com/las_cruces-news/ci_14423722