Posted on 10/08/2009 4:34:11 PM PDT by Alissa
BROWNSVILLE — In a move that could affect the revenues of private prison firms and county jails, the Obama administration said Tuesday it will review, renegotiate and possibly terminate some of its more than 300 contracts for detaining unauthorized immigrants.
The announcement by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is part of an overhaul aimed at ending the reliance on penal institutions for detainees with noncriminal immigration violations or valid asylum claims.
The overhaul, first announced in August, followed scathing reports and lawsuits by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups alleging inhumane conditions, denial of medical care, and isolation in remote areas with limited access to pro-bono legal aid.
Napolitano, in a news conference with Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Secretary John Morton, said she inherited a scattered “nonsystem” of government and privately run facilities that needed to be monitored.
“It's a huge range of detainees,” she said, “from those who have criminal records who need to be in a very prisonlike setting to those who have no record at all and indeed have come seeking asylum.”
The system has ballooned from 5,000 beds in 1994 to more than 32,000 beds in 2008, used by about 380,000 detainees that year.
Napolitano said the capacity to detain people would remain, but the standards of “health and safety, law, and indeed human decency” needed to be enforced.
Plans include centralizing operations, doubling the personnel involved in detention center oversight, building new facilities in urban locations near immigration service providers, and housing detainees in converted hotels, nursing homes, or other residential facilities.
Detainees would be classified by risk, with nonviolent, noncriminal populations such as recently arrived asylum seekers sent to less prisonlike environments. Detainees with criminal convictions would remain in jails.
There are also plans for an online system to locate detainees, something family members and even attorneys are not always able to do.
The practice of detaining families at the T. Don Hutto Family Residence Center in Taylor, which drew criticism because of its cells and barbed wire, has already ended. The facility is now being used to house female detainees.
It was unclear what effect the changes will have on private firms or communities that draw revenue from jailing detainees, but Willacy County Sheriff Larry Spence said the reduced population at the Willacy Detention Center in Raymondville — at 3,000 beds the nation's largest — has been apparent and may cause problems for a county that counts on jobs, taxes, and revenue from it.
“I know the numbers are down from what they used to be,” he said. “It means the county hasn't had the same amount of money coming in.”
The county subcontracts with Utah-based Management & Training Corp., a private prison management firm.
Kathleen Walker, past president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said she expected quite a few disappointed contractors.
“I would imagine that in the state of Texas, where we have so many different county facilities and independent facilities run by contractors, that they are not going to like seeing a potential dip in revenues to retirement centers or abandoned hotels,” she said. “But to put people in on civil violations with people that have felony exposure is really just not acceptable.”
McAllen-based immigration attorney Carlos Garcia said he has noticed the movement of women out of the Raymondville facility and thinks there are fewer asylum cases there. But he said remoteness so far remained a problem, with most of his clients coming from the Northeast.
“For men, they're still bringing them all the way down here,” he said.
Black teen unemployment, now over 50%. You would think blacks would figure out that the jobs illegals steal are the ones they would likely have. The racists are still running the plantation.
I believe it has already ended in Texas. There’s a couple stories that I have posted saying they cleaned out detention centers here in TX a couple of weeks ago before anyone knew what was going on.
how about saving more money... send those with criminal convictions back to their home country.
how dare you say something sensible instead of saying they are like parking infractions
Zero’s suurender of our homeland is gathering pace.
Did they just open the doors and let them walk out, or did they send them "home"?
If you're not going to deport them once caught, why have any border patrol in the first place?
But why worry about jobs if the Obama revenue transfer gravy train is coming their way?
awwwwww what’s a mere litter bug!
yeah those illegales will never take the jobs of the RICH that we are busy wringing out till they are dry as a bone!
like so they can run 48 hours straight or sumfin?
this is big fat sop to hispanic base. will raise the rats poll numbers there until one of these catches gets away and does murder and mayhem.
The story I saw on the local news said the moved them to hotels. As far as I know they are not supervised, or have very little supervision. They explained in the news story that there is nothing keeping them in place, other than they continue to get free food, lodging, and medical care. many are alread working while living in these facilities.
So, what we have is the US Federal government acting as an accomplice after the fact and aiding and abetting. While I suppose you can debate if it's a crime to enter the country illegally (I happen to believe it is a crime), working without the proper visa as a foreign-national is a crime, and that is NOT debatable.
Janet Nepalatino and Barack Obama are enabling a criminal enterprise - there's just no other way to describe it.
Story on Sheriff Joe in Arizona..
And, you can see from the following story that they detention facility in Texas was emptied in mid September, and was kept quiet for a long time:
I know some black folks, they live in my neighborhood, and they see the problem. The illegals are stealing the jobs their kids could be getting as entry workers.
When they threw the illegals out of our area, with the sheriff doing the work, the jobs were back filled with nearly 90% young black people. These people came from local neighborhoods, like they could do in places like Chicago.
After hiring thousands of people, the best welfare program ever is a good paying job that the person doing it feels they are contributing. It’s a shame that racists like Obama want illegals to take these jobs and push blacks out ... Because the employers pay the illegals ‘off the books’ at lower wages, there is no way for American citizens to compete.
My first job was bag boy at the local grocery store ... Shameful what Obama is doing.
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