The federal government is accepting bids for up to three new family detention centers that would house as many as 600 men, women and children fighting deportation cases.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a call for proposals last month and set June 16 as the deadline. New facilities are being considered on both coasts and on the Southwestern border. The agency calls for minimum-security residential facilities that would provide a "least restrictive, nonsecure setting" and provide schooling for children, recreational activities and access to religious services.
Family detention has been condemned by human rights groups and immigrant rights organizations as punitive and unnecessary. But immigration authorities said it ensures that immigrants show up for their court hearings and leave the country when ordered deported.
"Family detention has had the desired impact," ICE spokeswoman Kelly Nantel said. "We don't see as many families coming across the border. That automatic pass is no longer there."
There are currently two family facilities -- a former nursing home in Pennsylvania and a former prison in Texas. The T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas, opened in 2006 and faced protests and lawsuits within the year charging that the children were living in substandard conditions. A settlement resulted in changes in how the children are treated.
New facilities would allow the government more flexibility and enable the agency to keep families together, Nantel said. In Los Angeles this week, three illegal immigrant mothers and their toddlers, including one American child, were among about 60 people discovered at a drop house used by smugglers. Because there is no family facility nearby, the women and children are being housed in a private shelter.
The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the proposed plan to open new family detention centers.
"After the horrible conditions that were revealed at the Hutto facility, it is very disappointing that the government appears to want to produce more immigration prisons for families and children," said Ahilan Arulanantham, a staff attorney at the Southern California office.
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