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

Background:

• Profile of Human Rights Violations at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility

On March 6, 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed suit against Michael Chertoff and the Department of Homeland Security over conditions at the 512-bed T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Taylor, Texas, used to house asylum-seekers and other prospective U.S. immigrants awaiting word on their legal status.

Approximately 200 of the prisoners ("residents") at the facility are children (some as young as 3), who are housed in conditions reminiscent of those at a medium-security adult prison, which is exactly what Hutto was prior to its recommissioning as an immigrant detention center in May 2006. Prisoners have been denied basic medical and dental care, education, exercise, and privacy. According to reports, guards at the privately-administered facility deal with unruly children by adjusting the thermostat to make rooms intolerably cold and by threatening to separate them from their parents.

The creation of the Hutto facility and others like it was mandated in Flores v. Meese (1997), which held that the U.S. government must provide family residential facilities for immigrant child detainees.

The ACLU suit was filed on behalf of ten child detainees, ranging in age from 3 to 16.