NYT: 2 Groups Compare Immigrant Detention Centers to Prisons

[deminks]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/22/washington/22detention.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1172112901-SbwCZclfvmvMxWfAbphG9g&oref=slogin

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

(snip)

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.