Family detention was largely ended in 2009 after the T. Don Hutto facility was sued and protested over horrendous conditions. Now the Obama administration wants to resurrect family detention in response to the humanitarian crisis on the border.
Immigrant advocates protest the detention of families as the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas. Family detention was largely ended in 2009 after the T. Don Hutto facility was closed.
Barbara Hines, co-direct of the University of Texas Immigration Law Clinic, represented families in the Hutto detention center. “Families fleeing violence in their home countries, many of whom are asylum seekers, should be released whenever possible, and as a last resort, housed in home-like facilities, that are not run by ICE nor private for-profit prisons.”
“It is shameful that the administration would choose World Refugee Day to announce the locking up of refugee families,” said Martha Sanchez of La Union del Pueblo Entero (LUPE) in the Rio Grande Valley. “Those fleeing violence should be treated with dignity and respect.”
