Settlement Announced in Federal Lawsuit Challenging Conditions at Immigrant Detention Center in Texas

The American Civil Liberties Union today announced a settlement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on the conditions for immigrant children and their families inside the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas. Dozens of children were released from the facility with their families as a result of the litigation. The settlement will be reviewed for approval by Judge Sam Sparks of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. The settlement is the result of extensive litigation and mediation in consolidated lawsuits filed earlier this year against Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and six officials from ICE on behalf of 26 immigrant children. The children are between the ages of 1 and 17, and were detained at Hutto with their parents who, in almost all cases, were awaiting determinations on their asylum claims. The ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, the University of Texas School of Law Immigration Clinic, and the international law firm of LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae LLP brought the lawsuits. Since the original lawsuits were filed in March 2007, all of the 26 children represented by the ACLU and co-counsel have been released. The final six children were released days before the settlement was finalized, and are now living with family members who are U.S. citizens and/or legal permanent residents while pursuing their asylum claims.   Conditions at Hutto reportedly have improved as a result of the groundbreaking litigation. Children are no longer required to wear prison uniforms and are allowed much more time outdoors. Educational programming has expanded and guards have been instructed not to discipline children by threatening to separate them from their parents. which provided pro bono representation to the children. Soon after the litigation commenced, ICE instituted a policy of detaining at Hutto only families placed in expedited removal proceedings and began to issue bonds for asylum seekers who passed their credible fear interviews. Additional improvements ICE will be required to make as a result of the settlement include allowing children over the age of 12 to move freely about the facility; providing a full-time, on-site pediatrician; eliminating the count system so that families are not forced to stay in their cells 12 hours a day; installing privacy curtains around toilets; offering field trip opportunities to children; supplying more toys and age-and language-appropriate books; and improving the nutritional value of food. ICE must also allow regular legal orientation presentations by local immigrants’ rights organizations; allow family and friends to visit Hutto detainees seven days a week; and allow children to keep paper and pens in their rooms. ICE’s compliance with each of these reforms, as well as other conditions reforms, will be subject to external oversight to ensure their permanence. Despite the tremendous improvements at Hutto, the facility remains a former medium security prison managed by the Corrections Corporation of America, a for-profit adult corrections company. In recent years, Congress has repeatedly directed DHS to keep immigrant families together, either by releasing them or using alternatives to detention. Where detention is necessary, Congress has said immigrant families should be housed in non-penal, homelike environments. The ACLU remains adamant that detaining immigrant children at Hutto is inappropriate, and calls on Congress to compel DHS to find humane alternatives for managing families whose immigration status is in limbo.

More information about Hutto and the ACLU’s litigation is available online at: www.aclu.org/hutto

POSTSCRIPT  Here is a copy of the proposed settlment c/o Dan Kowalski and Bender’s Immigration Bulletin.

KJ