2,400-bed family detention centre to open in Texas for undocumented migrants

Federal officials are due to open a huge family detention centre in southern Texas that will house immigrant adults with children while they await deportation. The Texas Observer reports that federal officials are preparing to open the nation’s largest family detention centre, a 2,400-bed facility that will nearly double the current capacity to house immigrant families awaiting deportation. The centre will be developed on a sprawling 50-acre property near the town of Dilley, 70 miles south-west of San Antonio, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials told the monthly magazine. The Observer says the centre will be run by the nation’s largest for-profit corrections company, the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The company, which operates more than 60 detention centres and prisons across the country, has been mired by controversies that include inmate abuse, falsifying official records and aggressive lobbying tactics. The announcement enraged advocates, who argue that detention is no place for children...more