Guantanamo for Kids?

^{Full Coverage: Human Rights Violations at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility}

On Tuesday, the ACLU filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security over conditions at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas, a detention center for asylum-seekers and other immigrant families awaiting word on their legal status. Among the reported conditions at the "facility" (a converted medium-security prison):

• Guards reportedly deal with unruly children by adjusting the thermostat to make room conditions uncomfortable, and by threatening to separate them from their parents.
• Children at the facility receive little exercise. According to reports, some went the entire month of December without being allowed to go outside.
• Children at the facility receive little education. Multiple grade levels are lumped together into classrooms for one hour per day, five days a week. Parents have complained that all the elementary kids ever do is sing and color.
• There is no real privacy in the facility. As in any other medium-security prison, inmates are reportedly forced to use the toilet in public.
• There have been reports of contagious rashes going untreated, dramatic weight loss in children, and a medical staff that responds to any reported symptom (be it rashes or vomiting) by suggesting that the patient drink more water.

These children aren't criminals. Many of their parents aren't even criminals. They're housed in this facility because the U.S. government doesn't know what else to do with them yet and, because the facility is (incorrectly) perceived as a prison camp for undocumented immigrants, there has been little mainstream attention paid to conditions that these young inmates face.

The ACLU case will almost certainly make it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it shouldn't have to. Bush administration officials can justify the treatment of Guantanamo detainees by claiming that the inmates are dangerous terrorists (even though most haven't even been accused of terrorism-related offenses), but how can anyone justify imposing these conditions on young children under any circumstances? What kind of example is the United States setting for the rest of the world?

Latest News:

• ACLU Sues Department of Homeland Security, Citing Conditions at Hutto Center