Immigrant detention sites problem-filled, report says

By Chris Mondics
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Posted February 22 2007

WASHINGTON · The nation's two family detention centers for illegal immigrants -- one in Texas and the other in Berks County, Pa. -- are plagued by problems including inadequate medical care, lack of privacy, and abusive behavior by staff toward detainees, two advocacy groups alleged in a report being released today.

Of the two centers, the Berks Family Shelter Care Facility in Leesport has the more humane conditions, but even there detainees reported harassment by staff including the threat of separating parents from their children, the report said.

"Every woman we talked to in the facilities cried," said Michelle Brane, one of the authors of the report, prepared by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. "Many of the children were clearly sad and depressed. Some feared separation from their parents, a common threat used to ensure that children behaved according to facility rules."

Both facilities are inappropriate for children and families because they too closely resemble jails, the authors said. The detainees are largely Latinos, apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border or in the United States, but the facilities also house immigrants from China, Greece, Ethiopia and other nations.

Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the Homeland Security Department, said Wednesday that the facilities were run humanely with a high standard of care for the detainees. He said allegations that staff members had threatened to separate parents from their children were unsubstantiated.

The "detention facilities maintain safe, secure and humane conditions and invest heavily in the welfare of the detained alien population," Raimondi said.

The report recommends a series of changes including moving families to more homelike facilities, while seeking opportunities to parole others.

The Texas center was more harshly criticized in the report, which said children there typically get only one hour of schooling a day. Apart from sleep, an hour of recreation and 20 minutes per mealtime, families are confined to communal areas for the bulk of the day.

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