Familial bonds: Is government's policy to detain immigrant families fair?
"The controversy raises two questions: Is it inhumane to confine children and families for running afoul of immigration laws? And are there better alternatives than locking people up?
Critics answer yes to both. Lawsuits filed on behalf of 10 children confined in Taylor accuse federal officials of illegally and inhumanely housing children, failing to meet the standards of a 1997 court settlement for the care of minors in immigration custody, and ignoring Congress' orders to exhaust other options before detaining families — in homelike environments.
At a hearing on the lawsuits last week, even U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks expressed exasperation at the restrictions under which families are living at the Hutto facility.
"This is detention. This isn't the penitentiary," Sparks said. Detainees "have less rights than the people I send to the penitentiary."
JUAN CASTILLO in the Austin American-Statesman.