By Andrea Ball | Austin American-Statesman/TNS
AUSTIN, Texas—The speakers trekked to the podium one after another, simultaneously lambasting and pleading with a panel of child-protection officials weighing the fate of thousands of immigrant mothers and children in detention centers.
Why on Earth, they demanded to know, would state officials even think about licensing these places as child-care facilities?
“They are prisons, plain and simple,” said Antonio Diaz, an anti-detention center advocate with the Texas Indigenous Council. “They are prisons for profit.”
And so it went for four hours at the December public hearing on whether the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services should license and regulate two Texas facilities that house undocumented mothers and children. But that debate is coming to an end. The agency is expected to announce its decision in the coming weeks.
At stake is whether the Texas detention centers, built after the 2014 influx of Central American families and children into the state, will remain open for business.
Until recently, state officials have insisted they have to license the detention centers for the sake of the children because they are “in imminent peril.”
But in late January, state officials publicly said for the first time that the licensing move—which would reverse a decade-old stance—is about immigration control. They say they feel compelled to act because of a July decision by a federal court judge that banned federal authorities from housing children in facilities not licensed by state child-welfare agencies.
“The [judge’s] decision left Texas and the federal government with an option to regulate the facility, or have these illegal immigrants released into Texas communities without regard for the federal
government’s immigration disposition process,” Department of Family and Protective Services Spokesman Patrick Crimmins told the Austin American-Statesman. “The federal government, therefore,
requested licensure to prevent this and Texas agreed.”
Immigration advocates say the statement confirms what they’ve been saying all along.
“This is not about the welfare of children,” said Bob Libal with Grassroots Leadership, a nonprofit that opposes the private-prison industry. “This is a desperate attempt for the state to bail out the federal government’s immigrant detention regime.”
Twist
IT’S not surprising that Latino mothers and children in Texas have taken center stage in the national brawl over immigration. For nearly two years, the federal government has been struggling to stem the tide of tens of thousands of Central and South America immigrants crossing the US border. What is unexpected, however, is the way the battle lines have been drawn.
Texas officials have spent years suing the administration of President Barack Obama over immigration. Now they’ve sided with the administration. In a November letter to immigration advocates, the governor’s constituent communication
division deputy director said Gov. Greg Abbott supports licensing.
“While we appreciate you sharing your perspective, Governor Abbott’s commitment to protecting the health and safety of these children will not be deterred,” Dede Keith wrote.
Immigrant rights advocates, whose child protection bent might suggest they’d want more oversight, oppose state licensing. They say regulating “baby jails” would help keep them open and are pushing for the families to be released into Texas communities.
Immigration opponents agree that the centers should be closed, but so the detainees can be deported, not released.
“This is really a crazy twist to this whole phenomenon of the surge of illegal arrivals from Central America and what is, in my opinion, a huge mismanagement of the problem by the Obama administration,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for stricter immigration controls.
Abbott declined to comment. US Rep. Michael McCaul, Republican-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Prison
FAMILY detention centers are locked facilities that can house as many as 3,300 immigrant women and children who have been deemed nonviolent and noncriminal.
Image credits: Marlon Sorto/Austin American-Statesman/TNS