Two Texas detention prison-like facilities are holding immigrant families, including children, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
The Karnes City center holds 500 beds for immigrants apprehended in the US. Last year a judge ruled that it would have to refrain from keeping children there, as it did not meet licensing requirements, reports Ben Thompson for the Monitor.
Now, the facility has received a temporary residential child-care license from state authorities. Even with the authorization there is concern about the conditions, including medical care, at the facility run by GEO Group, Inc., a correctional services company based in Florida. They run it for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to Thompson.
About 90 miles away, a similar 2,400-bed facility, South Texas Family Residential Center, in Dilley, Texas, is run by a private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America, said Thompson.
“Anyone who has been to either of these facilities understands that they are prison facilities,” Bob Libal, the executive director of the anti-incarceration organization Grassroots Leadership, told The Associated Press.
“By all reasonable measures, family detention camps are prisons. They are not childcare facilities,” said Libal.
Libal’s group reported that it, along with two immigrant mothers who were detained with their children, had sued to halt the licensing process for both facilities.
Grassroots Leadership successfully stopped the state’s Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) from using an emergency rulemaking procedure to issue the licenses. The agency responded by adopting a permanent rule resulting in the licensing grant, according to the AP.
“The real question is, does an agency have the right to license a prison as a child-care facility? We think that the answer is ‘no’,” Libal told the AP.
Inspections of the Karnes City and Dilley facilities revealed several deficiencies, although DFPS spokesman Patrick Crimmins said they had been corrected. Issues included leaving children in their rooms alone and finding an employee not qualified to work there, according to Thompson.
In Dilley, safety problems included hazards such as the presence of medical supplies including used syringes on facility countertops and exposed seams on the center’s playground. Dilley facility will not be issued its temporary license until those issues are resolved, said the report.
“Changing an interpretation of Texas law to help federal immigration officials enforce harsh detention policies is disingenuous and detrimental to the health of children in Texas,” added Libal.
