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  1. #1
    JadedBaztard's Avatar
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    Media gets look at immigrant center

    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...r.1a9e3ad.html

    Media gets look at immigrant center

    Central Texas facility was home to Ibrahim family members

    08:47 AM CST on Saturday, February 10, 2007
    By PAUL MEYER / The Dallas Morning News
    pmeyer@dallasnews.com

    TAYLOR – It looks like a maximum-security daycare. Razor wire, strung high atop security fences, surrounds a "Backyard Adventures" swing set. Fake trees soften entrances to sunless cellblocks. And Sony PlayStations entertain immigrant children where Texas criminals once served hard time.

    Depending on whom you ask, this former jail turned immigration detention facility is either a national human rights blight or the newest and most humane way to keep track of families facing deportation.

    On Friday, amid mounting criticism, federal officials offered the media a first look inside Central Texas' T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility, one of two detention centers in the country for immigrant families, mostly mothers and children.

    The center, just northeast of Austin, has been home to three North Texas Palestinian families in recent months, including members of the Ibrahim family, whose controversial detention sparked a new round of criticism last week.

    The federal government opened Hutto in May, responding to complaints about the government's "catch-and-release" policy that allowed illegal immigrants to remain free until their hearings. In many cases, they would skip the hearings and go unapprehended.

    But human rights observers and civil rights advocates have condemned the decision to keep children in Hutto, citing abuses that include inadequate education, weight loss and psychological trauma. The government, they say, has a responsibility to find less-restrictive environments when the incarceration of minors is necessary.

    The government denies the abuses.

    "I think the criticisms are unfounded and based on limited anecdotal information," said Gary Mead, assistant director for the detention and removal operations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

    Mr. Mead, who led Friday's carefully choreographed tour, painted a picture of a place far removed from a penal environment – a place where children receive five hours of academic education daily, use a computer lab, play in a gymnasium and receive attentive medical care.

    The 512-bed Hutto center, run for the government by the privately owned Corrections Corp. of America, houses mostly Latin American families from countries other than Mexico.

    Others suggested that Friday's tour was nothing more than a staged charade, held after days of prettying up the former prison to make it seem less harsh.

    "The Hutto facility in particular is still very much of a prison setting," said Michelle Brané of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children, a national advocacy group.

    "It's a former prison, and it still looks like a prison. We don't believe that a prisonlike facility is appropriate for housing families."

    Ms. Brané is co-author of a study, set for release on Feb. 22, critical of the government's new family detention practices and the Hutto facility specifically. She has visited Hutto and the nation's other family detention center, a former nursing home in Pennsylvania.

    Barbara Hines, a University of Texas at Austin law professor and director of the law school's immigration clinic, confirmed this week that the clinic is exploring legal action to stop the detention of children in Hutto, in conjunction with the American Civil Liberties Union.

    But on Friday, workers inside Hutto defended their attempts to provide a safe and humane environment, replete with certified teachers who work with nine classrooms of students from as far away as El Salvador, Iraq and Somalia.

    "They care ... and they've been hurt by the press," said Jean Bellinger, assistant administrator of programs for CCA.

    Irving resident Nazmieh Juma Hazahza said there is only one way to describe her experience at the Hutto facility where she lived with her 11-year-old son, Mohammad: like being in hell.

    "A prison is a prison, no matter what. ... For me it was very hard, being there day after day, each day worse than the next one," said Mrs. Hazahza, who was released from the detention center Wednesday evening, after spending more than three months in custody.

    The Hazahzas are one of three Dallas-area Palestinian families recently detained inside Hutto. While one family has been deported to Jordan, the Hazahzas and the Ibrahims have been released.

    Fake plants are among the items recently added to the facility. Salaheddin Ibrahim, who was being held apart from his family at a facility near Abilene, was released Friday, a day after an immigration judge set his bail at $30,000, said his brother, Ahmad. Mr. Ibrahim's wife and fourchildren, ages 5 to 15, were released Feb. 3 from Hutto, where they had been held since their arrest Nov. 2.

    "It's just ridiculous to hold young children," said the Hazahzas' attorney, Michelle Saez-Rodriguez. "No. 1, they're lacking education, and there's no way a facility like that can provide proper education for children."

    "If you have one adult member of the family [detained], that should be enough leverage."

    Mrs. Hazahza and her son were sent to Hutto on an outstanding deportation order after the family's political asylum request was denied. Like many others from Palestinian areas, they have been unable to obtain travel documents to leave the U.S.

    Mrs. Hazahza's account of ill treatment inside Hutto is similar to that of other former detainees interviewed by The Dallas Morning News and by lawyers of clients inside the facility.

    "The way we were treated is not good for any child or woman," she said. "I feel like I lost my mind. I could not eat the food, it was so bad."

    Mrs. Hazahza said she had medical problems, with back and neck pain, but when she asked for assistance, all she got was over-the-counter pain medicine.

    Thomas Hochberg, the U.S. Public Health Service administrator in charge of Hutto, defended the facility's medical care Friday, citing a staff that includes a doctor, full-time dentist and two mental heath professionals.

    Mrs. Hazahza said that about two weeks ago, she started noticing efforts by the center officials to make the facility look better.

    Mohammad said he now knows why: "The only reason they did it was because they were going to bring cameras in."

    Mr. Mead said Hutto represented a well-thought-out effort to keep families together while better enforcing immigration laws. He said it also serves as a deterrent to smugglers using children as shields to escape arrest and deportation.

    Hutto houses about 380 detainees. Less than 10 percent of the population is male and the average stay for immigrants not facing asylum cases is about 40 days, Mr. Mead said. One detainee seeking asylum has been in Hutto for 205 days, he confirmed.

    "Everything we do here begins with the safety of children," he said.

    Ms. Brané and others, however, say the human toll is greater than whatever immigration enforcement benefit the facility may represent.

    "I think one of the primary things we're concerned about is the psychological effect [on children]", she said.


    Staff writer Frank Trejo contributed to this report.

  2. #2
    Senior Member Beckyal's Avatar
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    Sick next after parents with children deported

    deport the sick next after parents with children. These people were sick before they came to America and we should not have to pay for them. We hear about all the free medical care in latin america countries, sounds like they need to go home to be cared for. Americans have Americans that need care.

  3. #3
    April
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    It's a former prison, and it still looks like a prison. We don't believe that a prisonlike facility is appropriate for housing families."
    Me neither Round em up and head em back south

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