LatinaLista — This morning, the Williamson County, Texas commissioners had an important decision to make — either renew the lease with Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the ones who run the T. Don Hutto Residential facility where nonMexican, undocumented immigrant families are being held while they await resolution of their noncriminal cases — or not renew.
T. Don Hutto Residential facility in Taylor, TX
The commissioners decided to renew.
I guess it’s a no-brainer since the county receives $1 per occupant detained in the facility. When the facility is full, that means the county would receive $15,360/month.
According to an Immigration and Customs Enfocement (ICE) spokeswoman, the exact number of immigrants held at the facility can’t be disclosed because of “security reasons” and the immigrants own “safety.”
Don’t quite understand the logic of that statement but then a good many people didn’t understand the logic of both ICE and the CCA neglecting the education of the children being held at the facility either.
In fact, there’s a good many of us, who still don’t understand the logic of the continual imprisonment of children for any length of time in the name of national security.
According to our friend Jay Johnson, who has kept the pressure and the media focused on this sad ordeal, the only good thing that resulted from today’s commissioner’s meeting was that the County commissioners are now requiring the CCA and ICE to follow state educational guidelines and provide the children with 7 hours of instruction.
Since this story first broke back in late November, the children’s instruction period has increased from 1 hour to 4 hours, and now with today’s ruling will be 7 hours.
(Source: Discovery School)
Two administrative officials from the Taylor school district were invited to tour the classes at the facility three weeks ago and came away impressed.
Taylor school district officials said Tuesday that they have no role in the education of children at the center. However, David Krueger, assistant superintendent of operations, said he and Taylor Superintendent Bruce Scott were invited to tour classes there about three weeks ago.
“It looked to me like they were doing a good job with the kids there,” Krueger said. “They all had workbooks and appeared to be very engaged with the teachers in doing their assignments.”
Krueger said he observed least 100 children.
“Not only did they seem busy and seemed to have all the materials they needed, we also saw what looked to me like a state-of-the-art science lab,” he said.
“I was impressed,” he added.
Considering that the CCA only recently increased instruction from 1 to 4 hours, and that 1 hour was devoted only to English instruction, it just shows how quickly detention/government officials can move when they have to — when in a month’s time frame they could set up a state-of-the-art science lab, get workbooks and set up school.
Not to mention, there’s something to be said for the act of speaking out for those who can’t for themselves.
Of course, the next step on everyone’s minds is to convince ICE, Homeland Security and the White House that it is not in the best interest for one of the Superpowers of the world to be imprisoning children along with their parents for any length of time – especially when the charges are noncriminal to begin with.
Yet, the next step must go much farther than this.
So that such a situation is not repeated in the history of this country or allowed to continue to exist, there should be a law on the books that expressly prohibits this type of detention of children longer than 3 days.
To quell all the bad press they’ve been receiving over the T. Don Hutto facility, ICE announced they were going to conduct a media tour.
As of yet, no final date for the tour has been announced, nor any additional news.
We can only hope ICE keeps their word, otherwise it will be hard to believe that ICE is safeguarding the best interests of any of their detainees, especially the most innocent.
