Hutto… reforms on ICE
I admit it. I missed this story from last Tuesday’s Houston Chronicle. There’s only one of me right now, and Mexico is a huge enough country to try and keep up with, let alone the whole field of immigration. And, yes, I do have a semi-life, and also need to earn a living, pittance that it is…
This is semi-good news, but I still don’t think the detainees prisoners are receiving even the inadequate minimums of schooling required in the State of Texas. And that’s just for starters.
No word yet on the other immigration scandal here. There have been on-going scandals over sexual abuse at Texas Youth facilities, which were so bad, they’ve been put under a special master. Youths whose sentences were extended are being released early, for starts, and indictments are expected soon.
The press had a difficult time with this one… they had to go through all kinds of convolutions to basically say the jailers were forcing boys to blow them regularly, under threats of having their sentences extended or otherwise punished (it’s called rape) and that was just the tip of the iceberg. The Immigrant Youth facility run by the Lutheran Church (which has a good record for running facilities) was supposedly housing “unescorted minor” boys awaiting deportation. Thare are allegations of sexual abuse here as well, but being a federal contract facility, other than closing it down and moving out the boys, we’re not hearing anything more about it. I don’t know where the boys have been transferred, or if they’ve been deported, or put into regular jails or what. Hopefully, not in the Texas Youth Commission facilities.
But, the semi-good news from the Chron:
A federal judge called the continued detention of immigrant children in “substandard conditions” at a controversial center in Texas an “urgent problem,” but declined to release them from custody pending trial.
U.S. District Court Judge Sam Sparks raised concerns about the treatment of children in the Don T. Hutto Family Residential Center in Taylor in an order setting trial for August.
In March, attorneys for 10 immigrant children sued the federal government, saying the detainees were subject to psychological abuse from guards, received poor medical care and inadequate nutrition at the center, one of only two in the nation that houses immigrant families.
Sparks found the attorneys for the immigrant families were “highly likely” to prevail in arguments that immigration officials had violated legal standards for treatment of immigrant children. The guidelines for treatment of children in federal immigration detention were outlined in a class action settlement in 1997, often called the Flores settlement.
In the ruling, the judge ordered officials with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to allow detainees involved in the case “reasonable access” to their lawyers and to make available their medical and other records before trial.
The judge also noted that ICE recently has taken steps to improve the conditions at Hutto but found concerns about the licensing of the facility and overall living conditions, according to the order released Monday.
ICE officials issued a statement saying: “ICE is committed to the humane treatment of minors in our care and will continue to work with Williamson County, Texas, to ensure improvements are made as warranted.”
ICE officials opened the Hutto facility, a former medium-security prison, in May 2006 as part of a push to end the controversial “catch and release” policy.
Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, most families arrested for entering the country illegally or overstaying visas were released because of a shortage of space in detention centers. The relatively few families detained were split up, separating the children from the parents.
Sparks wrote that ordering the release of the children and their families would essentially require ICE to bring back “catch and release” for immigrant families accused of being in the U.S. illegally. The judge wrote that he was “reluctant” to make such a decision based on a preliminary hearing.
Lisa Graybill, the legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, said in a statement that attorneys for the detainees are “gratified that after reviewing evidence of the conditions at Hutto, Judge Sparks finds it likely that the government has been violating its obligations.”
ICE officials argued they have taken steps to make the center more family friendly, including improving the quality of the food, increasing classroom time for children and loosening visitation rules.
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mexfiles.net 