2 Groups Compare Immigrant Detention Centers to Prisons

posted by M Vieni
February 22, 2007

By RACHEL L. SWARNS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 — Two advocacy groups for refugees said on Wednesday that the Bush administration routinely detained immigrant families in prisonlike housing that separated young children from their parents and sometimes provided inadequate medical care, food and educational opportunities, despite calls from Congress to house such families in “nonpenal, homelike environments.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which allowed the advocacy groups to visit the two detention centers that house immigrant families, has already corrected several problems identified by the groups. The two groups, the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services, are expected to release their report on Thursday.

But department officials, who said they were still reviewing the report, vigorously defended the quality of services provided by the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Residential Center, which opened last year in Texas, and the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility, which houses about 80 families in Pennsylvania. The centers hold immigrants and asylum seekers awaiting the outcomes of their cases.

“They adhere to the highest standards,” said Marc Raimondi, a department spokesman.

The complaints come one month after a federal inspection of 5 of the nation’s 325 immigrant detention centers found that most did not provide timely and responsive health care and sometimes failed to comply with the government’s standards of disciplining, classifying and housing detainees. Officials of the Homeland Security Department say the study was too small to be representative.

The new report found that women at the Hutto center received inadequate prenatal care and that children received only one hour of schooling a day. At both centers, children as young as 6 were separated from their parents, and separation of families and the threats of separation were used as disciplinary tools.

The study praised the Berks center for providing adequate educational opportunities and allowing families to participate in field trips and outdoor recreation time. But it says both centers are modeled on prisons, even though they hold people who are fleeing persecution or stand accused of violating civil immigration laws, not criminal codes.

“The prisonlike conditions, this form of detention, is not necessary,” said Michelle Brané, who heads the detention and asylum program at the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children.

“We release criminals,” said Ms. Brané, pointing to parole and monitored supervision programs. “Yet for immigrants in civil proceedings, they have not explored those options. And these are families with children.”

Mr. Raimondi said the family detention system was expanded to help end the routine practice of releasing immigrant families caught sneaking across the border. Smugglers began taking advantage of the loophole and pairing children with unrelated adults in hopes of ensuring their release, officials say. Some children were abandoned or abused. Mr. Raimondi said the centers provided a safe place for families and “serve as a deterrent to alien smugglers who needlessly endanger children’s lives.”

Ms. Brané said officials of the Homeland Security Department had addressed some of her concerns.

The Hutto center contracted with a local clinic to provide medical care to pregnant women. It also expanded the educational program to four hours a day from one.