text: Conditions at immigrant detention center decried - Houston Chronicle
  https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Conditions-at-immigrant-detention-center-decried-1828920.php
  AUSTIN — Conditions at a former Texas prison being used to detain immigrant families are "anti-family and un-American," and violate national detention standards and congressional guidelines, according to a report being released today by two national advocacy organizations.
  The report by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service recommends the T. Don Hutto Residential Center, 30 miles northeast of Austin, be shut down.
  The findings, being announced later today at a Washington press conference, are sure to further inflame human rights advocates who have complained for months that a 512-bed former prison is no place for women and children, many of whom are seeking asylum.
  A congressional delegation, including U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, is set to tour Hutto on Friday.
  Researchers write that "the penal model of family detention leads to babies in uniforms with name tags, cribs inside prison cells, parents losing the ability to discipline their children and families unable to live as a normal family unit."
  "As a country that supports family values, we should not be treating immigrant families who have not committed a crime like criminals, particularly children," said Ralston H. Deffenbaugh, president of the Lutheran aid group.
  Officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security, continued to defend their policy of detaining immigrant families, saying it's a humane alternative to separating families from countries other than Mexico while they seek asylum or fight deportation.
  The old "catch and release" policy ended after Sept. 11, largely because immigrants weren't showing up for court hearings .
  "ICE's detention facilities maintain safe, secure and humane conditions and invest heavily in the welfare of the detained alien population," said acting press secretary Marc Raimondi.
  Raimondi said that the two facilities that house immigrant families — Hutto in Taylor and Berks County Shelter Care Facility in Leesport, Pa. — are "good examples of this high standard of detainee care."
  He said standards exceed those set by the American Correction Association and that ICE's practice of conducting annual reviews and weekly site visits to detention facilities exceeds industry standards.
  The report's authors argue that American Correction Association standards are intended to regulate criminal inmates, not immigrant parents and children. The report says ICE uses "ad hoc hybrid" policies derived from a Homeland Security detention manual and standards for unaccompanied minors, so there is little accountability.
  A major point of the report is that ICE has failed to adopt detention standards or safeguards tailored for families.
  As a result, prison administrators and guards with little or no training in child welfare are left to arbitrarily set rules for discipline, meals, education, recreation and other issues.
  In response, ICE said Wednesday that it has offered to work with the Women's Commission and other advocacy organizations to develop standards for families.
  The report also chides ICE for seemingly disregarding Congress' instruction to detain children only after trying alternatives, and then only in nonpenal, homelike settings.
  Although alternatives such as the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program have been successful with adult immigrants, the report states, "ICE has unfortunately made no effort to expand these programs to include families."
  Raimondi said ICE considers such alternatives on a case-by-case basis.
  The 65-page report, based on authors' interviews with detainees and tours of both facilities, outlines differences between Hutto, which opened in May, and Berks, which began holding migrant families in March 2001.
  Hutto, operated by for-profit Corrections Corporation of America, is reportedly much more jail-like than Berks, with uniforms, razor wire, inside doors locked, more than 100 surveillance cameras panning and zooming, laser beams that sense open cell doors at night, lunches of 20 minutes or less, compared with 45 minutes at Berks, and visits with family through a plexiglass wall and telephone.
  Berks, an 84-bed facility, allows contact visits after family members pass through a metal detector.
  Detainees at Berks were allowed to wear regular clothes and take field trips to places such as Wal-Mart. There are no field trips at Hutto, the report said.
  Both facilities drew criticism for staffers who threatened to separate children for misbehaving and penalized children for what parents considered normal behavior, such as running or climbing couches.
  In one instance at Hutto, the report said a girl was forced to wait 15 minutes as she cried to use the restroom because thrice-daily head count was coming up. In other cases, air conditioning would be turned extremely cold, apparently in an attempt to calm children.
  Michelle Brané, with the Women's Commission, said that during her tour of Hutto, a child slipped her colleague a note that read, "Help us and ask us questions."
  "Every woman we talked to in these facilities cried," she said. "Many of the children were clearly sad and depressed."
  Recommendations in the report include transferring responsibility for custody of families in immigration proceedings to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which cares for unaccompanied immigrant minors. If detention is necessary, it should be in a homelike setting with staff trained to deal with children, for a period not longer than three weeks.
  Children should be entitled to field trips, quality education and ample recreation time, the report added. Bonds for parents should be affordable, the report says, and officials should stop setting bonds for children.