The Pink Flamingo :: ICE Family Values - Separating Families, Deporting Victims of Abuse

It isn't officially a prison, more a "detention" center for those nasty little people who have come into this country illegally. The problem is, thanks to all the anti-immigration rhetoric of the Right, instead of criminal illegals being detained and deported, the most innocent of them all are being detained and held in conditions that are sub-standard, even for American prisons. I've reported on the goings on at T. Don Hutto for months now, but even this story is beyond the pale.

A new blog dedicated to the termination of the T. Don Hutto center reports that an 8 year old girl was separated from her mother and held for several days as her mother was 'disciplined' for refusing to co-operate with ICE agents who wanted to deport her back to an abusive husband who has tried to kill her on more than one occasion and had allowed his gang members to brutally rape her. Now I don't know about you, but once upon a time these people would receive special consideration. But thanks to people like Michelle Malkin and her demand for Conservative Family Values, the woman and her innocent child are being sent back for more rape and torture. Way to go Conservative Family Values!

From T. Don Hutto Blog

"...U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say they had to transfer the Honduran woman because she twice resisted attempts to deport her and was potentially disruptive. ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said guards and ICE staff watched over the child after her mother was removed from the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility, a former Central Texas prison where non-criminal immigrant families are held while their cases are processed. But others are critical of the agency's handling of the case, saying it put the girl at risk and is yet another example of why the controversial facility should be closed.

"Here, it's the government itself that has the custody of this child and then leaves her without proper supervision," said Denise Gilman, who oversees the Immigration Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law, which provides legal services to Hutto detainees. "We certainly don't want to see it happen again."
The 28-year-old mother and child lost a bid for asylum and are back in Honduras. But Immigration Clinic attorneys plan to file a complaint with the federal government. "There is something to complain about, because we're talking about a child's welfare," said Michelle Brane, director of the detention and asylum program at the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children. "This is a perfect example of why family detention just doesn't work."

But Irma Banegas of Fort Worth said that's not what happened in the case of her sister and niece. She asked that they not be identified by name due to concerns for their safety in Central America. Banegas said the mother and daughter told her they cried inconsolably after they were awakened and separated. "They've never been apart," Banegas said of her sister and her niece. Banegas said the pair fled Honduras earlier this year to escape an abusive relationship and growing gang violence in that country, including attacks that scarred her sister. The agency attempted to deport the woman twice in October, but she wouldn't comply. ICE officials didn't reveal specifics about her efforts to resist deportation.But as a result, Rusnok said, she was considered a high risk for disruptive behavior and moved to a South Texas detention center in Pearsall on Oct. 18..."