The Texas Observer

The fastest-growing segment of the prison industry is for-profit detention centers housing immigrants. The Bush administration - with characteristic zeal - has given the job of holding this growing detention population — fed largely by the crackdown on illegal immigration — to prison peddlers who are dependent on taxpayer dollars. Texas has been ground zero for this growth industry.

“Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled masses… and we’ll lock ‘em up” seems to be the mantra of Corrections Corporation of America, Emerald, GEO Group, MTC, and other “corrections” companies. These outfits tend to operate with minimal oversight and little direction from government agencies. In truth, outside of a few attorneys, correctional officers, and the detainees themselves, few have first-hand knowledge of detention center operations.

However, documents recently obtained by the Observer paint a dismal picture of some Texas facilities. We wrote about the documents in a March issue of the magazine. Three of six Texas facilities inspected by the Office of Federal Detention Trustee flunked federal standards: the Brooks County Correctional Facility in Falfurrias, operated by LCS Corrections Services Inc. of Lafayette, Louisiana; the Willacy County Regional Detention Center in Raymondville, operated by Utah-based Management & Training Corp; and the East Hidalgo Detention Center in La Villa, also operated by LCS.

Brooks and Willacy both passed more limited inspections conducted by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

The facilities had numerous security, sanitation, management, record-keeping, and health care problems. In the case of East Hidalgo, the Federal Detention Trustee deemed the detention center “at risk” and ordered immediate federal intervention.

From the March issue of the Observer:

At East Hidalgo, the inspectors found dozens of violations of federal standards. Medical, dental, and mental health care is virtually nonexistent. Initial medical screenings are performed by unqualified nurses and do not include a physical examination, or an appraisal for chemical dependency, mental retardation, and suicide risk, according to the report. Moreover, the jail has no dentist or mental health professional on-site.

A hallway is used as an examination room. Staff are not trained to deal with suicidal detainees despite eight suicide attempts in the year prior to the report.Security is poor. At the time of the inspection, visitors didn’t even pass through a metal detector when entering the building. The jail has no “specific instructions” on when firearms may be used; no procedures for maintaining weapons or for controlling keys, kitchen tools, and medical equipment; no effective plan for a mass evacuation; and no training program on the use of force.

Sanitation is lacking. Employees are not tested for blood-borne pathogens, increasing the risk of disease to both guards and inmates. Detainees are issued “sporks,” but the utensils are not sanitized, nor are barbering tools.Two juveniles were discovered by the inspectors at the adult-only detention center and immediately removed.In addition, the report reveals that 19 inmate-on-inmate assaults had occurred in the previous year.

After six inmates escaped in 2006, the state jail commission cited the facility for employing too few guards, for the third time.

Richard Harbison, vice president of LCS, told the Observer last month that the company had corrected the problems and expected to pass an upcoming inspection. (We’ll update once we find out if the inspection has occurred and how the facility did.)

Because it’s so rare to get a glimpse of how bad some of these private lockups can be, we’ve taken the time to scan most of the pages from the East Hidalgo inspection report.

In addition to the deficiencies of the prisons, the documents also inadvertently reveal the pettiness of the secretive Bush administration. Whole pages of the inspection reports were redacted… sort of. The feds need to invest in some better Sharpies. Much of what they tried to hide could be read with the aid of a light table and a magnifying glass. While the redactions did obscure some sensitive security problems, other portions of the inspection reports hardly seemed worthy of a black marker.

For example, in the report on the East Hidalgo Detention Center, the Federal Detention Trustee redacted a section on spork protocol. “Sporks are not returned to food service for proper cleaning,” the redacted part reads. “All utensils should be properly washed.” A blacked-out section in the report on the LCS Brooks County Correctional Facility says, “Chicken was thawing in a sink for over two hours on Nov. [ ], 2007 and a turkey product was thawing at room temperature for over 7 1/2 hours on Nov. 7, 2007.”

The agency even redacted areas of the inspection where the prisons received passing marks.

As a legal basis for the secrecy, the agency cited a provision in the Freedom of Information Act that allows an agency to withhold information that “could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual.” But doesn’t the real danger to human safety come from the sorry state of the detention centers, not the disclosure thereof?

A five-hour hearing on the border wall conducted by members of Congress at UT Brownsville today illustrated why we have a logjam in Congress over any kind of meaningful immigration reform.

The 7-person congressional panel featured a number of chairmen including U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva a Democrat from Arizona, and U.S. Rep. Madeleine Bordallo, a Democrat from Guam. The majority of the members were Democrats with the exception of soon to be ex-U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter a Republican from California and the architect of the Secure Fence Act of 2006 legislation and soon to be ex-U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado. Both Tancredo and Hunter are former presidential candidates who ran on an anti-immigration platform but failed to make a dent against Sen. John McCain, who holds a more moderate position on the subject.

Democrats on the panel seemed to agree the United States needed comprehensive immigration reform and that segments of a border wall would not solve U.S. immigration woes. Tancredo and Hunter repeatedly tried to argue that a border wall would significantly help stop illegal immigration. Hunter, especially seemed fixated on the double layered border fence in San Diego. He offered statistics that border arrests are down in San Diego but didn’t cite sources for them. Hunter’s district borders Tijuana in Baja California. Hunter painted a picture of apocalyptic lawlessness: hundreds of rapes, murders and “massive tons of cocaine being injected into the veins of American children” before the wall had been built.

But, people in Brownsville didn’t want to hear about San Diego. They wanted the congressional leaders to understand the uniqueness of the border culture in Texas.

The lecture hall was packed with border landowners, university students and business leaders from the border region. No supporters of the wall appeared to be present. “I would say that our community is united in opposition against the wall,” said Brownsville County Commissioner John Wood as he scanned the audience.

That opposition was evident in numerous testimonies from business people, landowners and academics including Dr. Juliet Garcia, President of the University of Texas at Brownsville. Dr. Garcia’s testimony illustrated the heavy handedness of Homeland Security and the short sightedness in trying to construct a wall through her campus by December 31, 2008. Garcia said that DHS’ plan was to leave an opening in the 18-foot fence that would funnel illegal activity to that point. That point however, would be right next to the library and campus classrooms. It would also be the same entrance that students would use to enter the university’s golf course.

The audience laughed in disbelief at DHS’ plan. “I could not sign the (DHS) waiver because it is my responsibility to protect the safety of our students,” she said.

Some of the more interesting testimony came from Ned Norris, chair of the Tohono O’odham tribe in Arizona. Norris said that much damage had already been done to ancestral burial grounds and the tribe’s sovereignty by Homeland Security’s heavy handed tactics. So far, DHS has already constructed vehicle barriers throughout the Tohono O’odham ancestral lands which range from the Arizona border near Tucson south into Mexico. Norris said subcontractors hired by Boeing, who is in charge of building the wall had ignored federal archaeological laws and destroyed burial grounds. “Imagine heavy machinery driving over your family graveyard,” he said. Norris said Homeland Security had never consulted with them on border security issues. “Their attitude is that we are federal land and they are the federal government and they can do whatever the hell they want.” Norris said that Secretary Michael Chertoff had avoided several invitations made by the tribe to visit. He also dodged them during several visits to Washington D.C.

‘We are tired of being tour guides for Congress,” said a frustrated Norris. “Probably the only visit we’d like to have right now is Chertoff, but he won’t come. He goes to the border to the East and the West of us but he never comes to out land.”

Every witness who testified before the panel said that Homeland Security had never consulted with them before suing them for access to their land to build the wall.These witnesses included local leaders, landowners, the Catholic Diocese, the UT Brownsville campus, the Texas Produce Association which represents hundreds of farmers and the Tohono O’odham tribe. Hunter and Tancredo did not seem to see a problem in Homeland Security’s tactics, however.

At the and of the day, Hunter said it was a successful hearing. “Well you thought you didn’t get your day in court, now you’ve gotten to talk about your issues,” he said.

But those testifying weren’t there just to go through the motions. They want action and they feel their day in court has yet to come.

Media reports yesterday confirmed that Homeland Security took back its troubled virtual fence project in Arizona from Boeing. After paying $86 million to the company, Homeland Security discovered that the fence technology did not work. Oops.

Gregory Giddens, head of the Secure Border Initiative office, who is in charge of the SBInet project said the virtual fence will be finished some time in 2011 instead of 2008.

What happened? First of all, Boeing attempted to create a virtual fence with little input from Border Patrol agents who would be using the technology. Second, Homeland Security at the urging of Congress, wanted a sophisticated virtual surveillance system in less than two years. This 100-mile stretch of virtual fence included nine mobile towers, radar, cameras and vehicles with satellite phones and handheld devices. Third, according to a February 2007 U.S. Government Accounting office report, the SBInet office had 113 government officials and 157 private contractors staffing the office. The SBI office told the GAO that they were concerned that staffing shortfalls in federal employees would limit their government oversight efforts.

The GAO also warned in the same report that the SBInet contract which Boeing and a consortium of private contractors secured in 2006 needed a limit on spending. The contract has no limit on how much can be spent on securing our borders.

Let’s do the math: limitless contract + 6,000 miles of U.S. border = Boondoggle.

It’s important to point out that Boeing still has its contract. It will be providing steel for the border wall in Texas and possibly hiring more subcontractors to carry out tasks in technology and construction along the border.

The only thing that this contract is “securing” is the taxpayers’ money.

“Hutto: America’s Family Prison,” a short film by filmmakers Matthew Gossage and Lily Keber, details the prison-like conditions at the for-profit T. Don Hutto family detention center in Taylor, near Austin. Hundreds of immigrant men, women, and children - many of whom are fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries - are incarcerated at Hutto in conditions that, until recently, were abysmal. A grassroots movement to shut down Hutto and a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and attorneys with the UT Immigration Law Clinic has improved the lot of those warehoused at Hutto, but calls persist to shutter the detention center. Watch the film and then read the Observer’s interview with the filmmakers below.

Texas Observer: Some of the most harrowing accounts of being detained at Hutto came from young children. They evidently thought they had done something wrong to be in jail and would ask their moms or dads, “Why has God abandoned us?” Many kids said they were threatened by guards with separation from their families if they misbehaved, as your film shows. Moreover, a child psychologist for the defense in the ACLU-UT Law Clinic lawsuit against the feds gave a preliminary assessment based on interviews with several children and their mothers. The psychologist said he found evidence of regression (including a reversion to bedwetting and nursing among kids who had outgrown this), trauma, and PTSD among young children. Civilized nations consider children to have a kind of existential and legal innocence, and they enjoy special rights under long-established law. How did we, then, get to the point of locking minors behind bars for no reason other than they accompanied their immigrant parents - many of which are bona fide asylum-seekers - to the U.S.?

Matthew Gossage: I feel that several regressive and conservative policies all came together with the operation of Hutto. We have a conservative federal administration that wants to appear “tough on immigration” and a criminal justice system which is more and more driven by a profit motive. These two together encourage a system of dealing with immigration on a prison model, instead of addressing the social and economic causes of immigration.

TO: You call Hutto the largest family internment since WWII. “Internment” is a strong word, carrying much historical and political significance. Why did you choose that word and why do you believe Hutto constitutes internment?

Lily Keber: We chose the term ‘internment’ to place what’s happening at Hutto in a broader historical context. Of course one thinks of the Japanese-American internment during WWII. Families of Japanese, German, and Italian descent were all removed from general population because of the perceived threat they might pose. It took until the 80s, but finally politicians apologized for that and admitted it was unjust and motivated by racism rather than real military necessity. I think one day we, as a nation, will look back on what Homeland Security is doing right now and say the same thing.

MG: “Internment” is loaded in our culture and history. We hope that making this comparison will cause debate and conversation about other examples in our history where we have reacted with hysteria and fear towards people that aren’t part of the dominant power structure and have fewer civil rights.

TO: Homeland Security maintains that Hutto was opened to keep families together. But as your film shows there are less restrictive alternatives, such as keeping people under supervision or housing them in non-prison settings. Why do you think the authorities have written off these more humane and cheaper alternatives?

MG: I would love to hear Michael Chertoff (Director of Homeland Security) explain why he doesn’t use more humane options for immigration and border enforcement. But my opinion is that it is politically advantageous for the Bush administration to appear that they are taking a hard-line approach towards immigration to appease the Republicans’ more conservative and xenophobic base. There are also people that are getting very wealthy off these less-humane and more expensive detention facilities. These same people contribute financially to politicians of both parties to continue the growth of the prison industry. If more humane and cheaper alternatives exist, that by definition means that there will be less money for these prison corporations and contractors.

TO: What sort of access did Corrections Corp. of America (CCA) or the Dept. of Homeland Security grant you to film inside?

LK: None. They are extremely restrictive with media access. There was an official media tour about a year ago, but for that they cleaned out the jail, put teddy bears on the beds, literally shackled the pregnant women and bussed them out of the prison so no one could photograph them. When we tried to contact CCCA and DHS about getting access inside, it was the typical bureaucratic run around- ‘No, you have to call this other person’ or ‘No, that’s this other department’, that sort of thing. We tried very hard to get an interview with them and include their side of the story. But they declined. They made that choice, meaning they decided to continue hiding behind their veil of bureaucracy and secrecy.

TO: What was it like making this short film - did you set out to make an advocacy documentary or did you come into this project with an “open mind,” if that’s possible?

LK: I didn’t set out specifically to make an advocacy documentary. There was such a paucity of meaningful media available on Hutto in the beginning that we just were trying to get anything out there. A couple papers in Texas covered it, and there were some reports on Univision and “Democracy Now!”. But beyond that, there was very little information available. Very soon into the filming, though, I started to realize just how topical the issue is. The government built Hutto as a prototype, and had hopes of building family detention centers all across the country. It’s only because of the negative outpouring they’ve gotten about Hutto that’s made them re-evaluate their plans. We felt it was important to include that this outcry was just by ‘ordinary’ people, and how important it is for people to get involved.

MG: Yeah, I made no illusions to myself or others that this would be an objective film. Even before we started thorough research of Hutto, my perspective was clearly opposed to it. It is definitely advocating the reversal of these immigration policies.

TO: You end on a high note in the film: that the public activism and outcry surrounding Hutto succeeded. Talk a little bit about the movement to shut down Hutto. Obviously the facility is still open but conditions have evidently improved. Are people satisfied with that outcome? And what’s next for you, and for the movement against the growing immigrant detention complex in America?

LK: Conditions have improved. The barbed wire has come down, accountability is up. Are people happy with that as an end result? No. At its core, Hutto is still a for-profit prison channeling money into the pockets of the largest corrections corporation in the US at the expense of the taxpayer. It still is holding men and women and children who have no crime against them other than a civil violation. As long as our government sees fit to traumatize children, incarcerate adults with no criminal background, and inordinately and unjustly criminalize people of color who seek to enter the country, people will not be satisfied with the conditions at Hutto.

MG: Well, at the least we hope that our film puts detention on the radar of non-activists as to what our government’s actual policies are. I feel that when most people hear about “tougher immigration”, they imagine more Border Patrol agents in Jeeps hunting down drug dealers and terrorists. They don’t imagine incarcerating tens of thousands of people every day and paying corporations hand-over-fist to do it and build more prisons. And what’s next for us is to continue using media to educate and advocate for a more just immigration and prison system.

Just about everything these days is made in China — now Rep. Charlie Howard (R-Sugar Land), wants to import Chinese justice when it comes to protecting our U.S. borders.

The Texas Public Policy Foundation in the throes of its two-day policy conference hosted an immigration panel Thursday morning. One of the panel speakers, Michael Flynn, director of government affairs for the Reason Foundation — a libertarian thinktank — said the idea of a border wall gave him the creeps.

“The Chinese built a wall to keep the Mongols out and it didn’t work,” Flynn opined. “No nation builds a wall out of strength. They build it out of fear.”

Too much for Rep. Howard to handle, he took to the Mic to defend the Great Wall. “The Great Wall of China was never penetrated. The only way they came in was through bribery,” he huffed.

“Well, I spent a month in China,” he told the panel matter-of factly, “And now they’ve got an electronic wall. If you even step across their border they’ll have a helicopter over you within three minutes and you are either exterminated or returned to your country.”

Flynn, speechless for a moment, responded ‘Well they’ve got a lot of things in China we probably don’t want.”

Rep. Howard did not elaborate on whether the electronic wall was made out of E-waste or laser beams.

Apparently, (big surprise) good fences do not make good neighbors after all. In California, Border Patrol agents are regularly lobbing tear gas and firing high-powered rifles filled with pepper spray bullets over the border fence into Mexico. And they may do the same in Texas once the wall gets built here.

In San Diego, Border Patrol agents have fired the tear gas and pepper spray bullets into neighborhoods in Tijuana in an escalating battle with smugglers. Families, including elderly grandparents and children, are caught in the crossfire, according to a December 17th Associated Press story. Residents of Colonia Libertad have evacuated their homes several times because of tear gas and pepper spray explosions.

Border Patrol agents complain that smugglers are pelting them with rocks, sticks and other debris from the Mexican side of the fence.

Since October, Border Patrol agents in San Diego and Arizona have been using the FN303 Less Lethal System manufactured by FN Herstal, a Belgian arms manufacturer. The FN303 is a high-powered air rifle that can shoot a pepper spray bullet up to 328 feet.

Andrea Zortman, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency in Washington D.C., says the agency bought between 750 and 1,000 of the FN303’s which cost about $800 each from FN Herstal.

Zortman says they’ll expand the use of the FN303s at a later date in Texas. “We plan to roll them out to the Southwestern region,” says Zortman. “But we don’t have a set date yet.”

The tear gas is still lobbed (the old fashioned way) over the fence rather than shot with any type of projectile device, according to Zortman.

Is it our imagination, or is the U.S.-Mexico border increasingly starting to feel like the West Bank?

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
- Robert Frost, “Mending Wall”

Artists taking offense to the proposed 70-mile border wall in South Texas have come together in an exhibit appropriately titled “Art Against the Wall.” Rachel Brown, the exhibit organizer and arts instructor from South Texas College, says the project stemmed from an urge to speak out before it’s too late.

“I firmly believe artists are usually the first people to suffer when you have any kind of political regime that’s trying to oppress people,” she said, “because we are the ones trying to speak freely and free speech is usually one of the first things to go.”

Brown shared some of the pieces from the exhibit, currently at UT-Brownsville, with the Observer.

-”Mariposas” by Alma Casso (McAllen)

-”International Friendship” by Monica Ramirez (McAllen)

-”Build Bridges Not Walls” by Chris Van Dyck (McAllen)

-”Walls Kill Migrants” by Guadalupe Victoria (Monterrey, Mexico)

If built, the border wall itself - like the Berlin Wall and the Israeli security fence that Palestinians call an “apartheid wall” - will undoubtedly become a canvas for expression. Even the humorless Shia leader Moqtada al-Sadr has urged Iraqis to paint “magnificent tableaux” on concrete barriers the U.S. has erected in Baghdad to protest the occupation. Brown and the other artists hope that day will never come.