Groups seek to close immigrant (detention) center

[deadparrot]

WASHINGTON - Advocacy groups for immigrant families and the Department of Homeland Security are at odds over detention facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania that critics argue are inhumanely housing adults and young children in jail-like conditions.

In a report released Thursday, groups speaking for immigrants demanded the immediate closure of the T. Don Hutto Residential Center north of Austin, the Texas capital, a facility that once was a jail.

The advocacy groups — the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services — said they based their complaints on visits to these sites by their members and interviews with detainees.

At the Hutto site, their report said, a child secretly passed a visitor a note that read: "Help us and ask us questions," it said. The groups reported that many of the detainees cried during interviews.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070223/ap_on_go_ot/immigration_detention

[silverlib]

1. Thank you!

This is the best news to come out to date! This place in Hutto needs to be shut down ASAP. They cleaned it up for tours, as cited in the NY Times. I wish these groups much success and am extremely proud of the Lutherans for practicing what they preach.