Los Angeles Times
By Molly Hennessey-Fiske
June 15, 2015
Homeland
Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is scheduled on Monday to visit one of
the nation’s three immigration detention centers for families, which
have drawn criticism
from advocates and members of Congress in recent weeks.
The
facility, Karnes County Residential Center, is run by a federal
contractor, the Geo Group, about 50 miles south of San Antonio. It is
not open to the public. Johnson’s
visit is closed to the media, as was an unpublicized April visit to the
same facility by the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The
Obama administration expanded immigrant family detention after an
influx of more than 68,000 families into the U.S. last fiscal year. Many
of the families were fleeing
north from Central America and crossing the southern border illegally
into Texas' Rio Grande Valley, which has seen fewer migrants this
summer, though it remains the epicenter of crossings.
Both
Texas family detention centers opened last year in Eagle Ford shale oil
country south of San Antonio. Karnes, which previously had been used as
an ICE detention center
for men, opened to families in July. Dilley, a larger, rural outpost of
fenced-in portable trailers with a playground, opened in December.
Dilley
was housing about 800 immigrants last month, but by year’s end, it will
be able to take in up to 2,500. By contrast, the nation's third family
detention center
in Berks, Penn., has room for about 100; Karnes about 600.
Last
month, several hundred protesters gathered outside the Dilley center,
demanding an end to family detention and toting hand-printed signs that
said “Don’t put kids
in prison.”
ICE
officials say family detention centers are not prisons. They say the
facilities are well-equipped to house women and children, providing
schooling, medical care and
security as families await the outcomes of pending immigration court
cases.
Critics
disagree, including 136 House Democrats who signed a letter last month
calling on the administration to end family detention. They say that the
facilities are
prisons where families suffer and that they should be released until
their cases conclude — if necessary, with reasonable bonds and
electronic ankle monitors.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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