Hutto IS child abuse and can be reported

The ACLU, University of Texas Law School Immigration Clinic and the international law firm LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae LLP have filed suit against Michael Chertoff (Oberführer of Homeland Security) and six Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on behalf of ten children from Lithuania, Canada, Haiti, Honduras, Somalia, Guyana and other countries, presently “detained” at the T. Don Hutto Concentration Camp Rent-a-Prison in Tyler, Texas

Approximately 400 people are currently detained in Hutto, half of them children, and many of them are refugees seeking political asylum. What ICE calls a “Family Residential Facility” is in fact a converted medium-security prison that is still functionally and structurally a prison. Children are required to wear prison garb, receive only one hour of recreation a day, Monday through Friday, and some children did not go outdoors in the fresh air the whole month of December, 2006, according to legal papers filed today.

They are detained in small cells for 11-12 hours each day where they cannot keep food and toys and they have no privacy, even when using the toilet.

(ACLU, via Aztlan Electronic News)

From this morning’s Houston Chronicle:

The children at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, 35 miles northeast of Austin, live in cells; they wear uniforms and receive inadequate medical and educational services, are often cold and hungry, separated from their parents as punishment, and until recently received one hour of schooling per day and rarely played outside. They are guilty of no crimes, and endanger no one. Their parents, who are incarcerated here because they are seeking asylum after fleeing such circumstances as war, torture, political persecution and rape, or are accused of violating civil immigration laws, have committed no crimes.

…

It is difficult to fathom why Hutto was ever considered an appropriate shelter for families: It is still essentially a prison, arranged in pods with cells furnished with two metal bunks and a toilet, and a central day room. Cell door systems prevent parents from attending to children after “lights out.”

Teachers at the center are not required to be licensed in Texas, and the state’s family welfare agency exempted Hutto from child care licensing requirements. Along with one other, less prison-like facility in Pennsylvania, Hutto is operated without official regulations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the arm of Homeland Security that runs the two centers, relies on custody rules designed for inmates.

Given the sorry record of incarceration of childen in Texas (where there is a HUGE scandal going on right now over the organized sexual abuse of boys — who at least went before a judge and were sentenced to the place — at the West Texas State School) — caused in part by the juvie’s location in a rural Pyote out of the public spotlight — and the dubious requirements for becoming a private prison guard… AND… the little question of whether or not these kids are receiving even the minimum education required in Texas (“home schooled” kids have to recieve a minimum of 170 days of instruction a year – I can’t find what the minimum is for incarcerated kids. Maybe at Hutto they figure “prison is an education.”).

I’d be really worried that this is going to blow up into a massive scandal. And maybe we can help make it one…

Hutto’s phone number is 512-218-2400. (Fax): 512-218-2450.

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Child Abuse Hotline Number is

1-800-252-5400.

The Smith County Sheriff is J.B. Smith: 903-590-2661 (Fax: 903-590-2659. Email: jbsmith@smith-county.com

The Superintendent of the Tyler Independent School District (which is legally responsible for these children’s education) is Gary Mooring: 903-262-1001

Tyler is in Texas’ First Congressional District, represented by Republican Representative Louie Gohmert

United States House of Representatives
510 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515-4301

(Phone: 202-225-7742 ; Fax: 202-226-1134)