ImmigrationTexas to re-classify immigrant detention centers as child-care facilities

Published 12 February 2016

In 2015 a judge ordered Texas to shut down two immigration detention centers – but in order to escape implementing the judge’s order, Texas is considering re-classifying the two detention centers as “child-care facilities.” The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had to address a July 2015 decision from federal Judge Dolly Gee. Gee ruled that the country’s three family detention centers (a third facility is in the process of being shut down) were holding children in “deplorable conditions” that “failed to meet even the minimal standard” for a safe and clean environment for children.

In 2015 a judge ordered Texas to shut down two immigration detention centers – but in order to escape implementing the judge’s order, Texas is considering re-classifying the two detention centers as “child-care facilities.”

The Texas Observer reports that a new rule, submitted for approval to the state’s Health and Human Services Commission, would create a new category of licenses for operators of child-care facilities, which would allow immigrant family detention centers in Karnes City and Dilley to remain open. The facilities now house migrant women and their children who were caught crossing the Mexican border.

The New York Times reports that the new rule has been in the works since September, as the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services had to address a July 2015 decision from federal Judge Dolly Gee. Gee ruled that the country’s three family detention centers (a third facility is in the process of being shut down) were holding children in “deplorable conditions” that “failed to meet even the minimal standard” for a safe and clean environment for children.

Judge Gee wrote that the unacceptable conditions violated 1997’s Flores v. Meese settlement agreement, a class action suit that set standards for how unaccompanied migrant children stopped at the border should be treated. The decision stipulated that children must be held in licensed facilities. Gee’s decision applied that standard to children apprehended with their parents, too. At the time, there were about 1,400 children and parents in the country’s three family detention centers.

If the Texas HHC approves the rule change, the detention centers would be licensed as child-care facilities even if they do not comply with all the regulations with which other child-care centers must comply, such as keeping children from different families segregated by gender in their living and sleeping spaces.

Slate notes that last May 136 members of Congress signed a letter asking DHS to release children from the three facilities, citing stories of sexual assault, physical violence, kidnapping, and sex trafficking. At a December hearing at the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services’ (DFPS) headquarters, advocates testified against the practice, demanding that officials reconsider the human-rights implications of holding children in shabby, prison-like environments.

A DFPS spokesman said the federal government asked Texas to consider adding the new child-care licensing category instead of shutting the centers down, and Texas complied.