Closing of detention center is a victory

A victory in the fight to end immigrant family detention was won when the Obama administration announced on Aug. 6 that the T. Don Hutto immigrant detention center, located 35 miles north of Austin, Texas, would stop incarcerating families.

After the election of President Barack Obama, plans were made to organize 100 events to end family detention during the first 100 days of Obama’s presidency. Over 100 actions did in fact take place, and over 60,000 people signed a petition demanding an end to locking up families awaiting immigration hearings.

Hundreds attend June 20 statewide demonstration at Hutto detention center, Taylor, Texas. WW photo: Gloria Rubac

“Today’s announcement is not just a victory for our Campaign to End Immigrant Family Detention, but for an entire movement for justice that has come together to close Hutto and to end immigrant family detention,” said Bob Libal and Luissana Santibañez, Grassroots Leadership activists in Austin. (www.grassrootsleadership.org) “While our work to end immigrant detention altogether is certainly far from over, please join us in celebrating this incredible moment.”

The Hutto facility opened in 2006. The past three years have seen thousands of people participate in dozens of Hutto vigils; the release of two popular documentary films on family detention; major media scrutiny; a landmark lawsuit settlement; and the organizing of students, immigrant rights advocates, and progressive working people around the country to fight for an end to family detention.

Hutto was originally a medium security prison when Corrections Corporation of America contracted to house immigrants there. Families are kept in cells with bunk beds and a toilet just like regular prisoners. In fact, the families there are awaiting hearings for asylum.

Early in 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit against Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement on behalf of 10 immigrant children confined at TDH. In the course of the lawsuit, the ACLU documented several cases. A film just released on the ACLU Web site shows a woman stating that confinement at Hutto was a “psychological trauma” from which she and her daughter will never recover.

CCA does a booming business–with a net income of over $67 million during the first six months of 2009–imprisoning immigrant families, including children. (www.correctionscorp.com)

After ICE’s announcement that the families at Hutto would be immediately transferred to a facility in Pennsylvania, CCA spoke with its investors to assure them the company still expects plenty of business from the federal government. “In some respects there may not have been much of a change,” said CCA President and Chief Operating Officer Damon Hininger during an Aug. 6 conference call with investors. (www.businessofdetention.com, Aug. 7)

Hininger said CCA had “just learned yesterday that ICE wants us to renegotiate” the Hutto contract and that a timetable for the negotiations had not been set for transitioning Hutto to hold female immigrants. But he pointed to the Obama administration’s expansion of the Bush administration’s Secure Communities program as proof that demand for immigrant detention beds would continue.

Ironically, the facility in Pennsylvania is full; its administrators were not informed that families from TDH would be transferred there.

Business of Detention states: “The nation’s largest private prison company has partnered with the federal government to detain close to 1 million undocumented people in the past five years until they are deported. In the process, Corrections Corporation of America has made record profits. Critics suggest the CCA cuts corners on its detention contracts in order to increase its revenue at expense of humane conditions. Thanks to political connections and lobby spending, it dominates the industry of immigrant detention. CCA now has close to 10,000 new beds under development in anticipation of continued demand.” (www.businessofdetention.com, June 2)

Longtime Houston immigrant rights activist Maria Jimenez remarked in an email sent to the In Defense of Our Community listserv on the announcement to move families out of TDH: “I agree it is a victory and congratulations are in order. But we cannot forget that the government is simply looking at the redistribution of the detained to other facilities. In that sense, their announcement is a smokescreen.

“We have to remember that children are still being detained, especially if they are unaccompanied minors. There are at least four facilities here in Houston. These facilities may be more like group homes rather than traditional prisons, but, as Los Tigres del Norte sing, ‘The cage may be made of gold, but it is still a prison.’

“Ultimately, our struggle is to defend the human right of mobility for anyone who chooses to exercise it. No one should be detained for asserting their right to a dignified life.”

More information can be found at www.businessofdetention.com and tdonhutto.blogspot.com.