Posted on 04/09/2007 7:30:00 AM PDT by P-40
A mundane, state-of-the-art building outside of Austin has stirred the hearts of two radio-television-film students, numerous immigrant rights groups on campus, the UT Immigration Law Clinic and the American Civil Liberties Union.
The facility under scrutiny is the privately owned T. Don Hutto Residential Center, a for-profit immigrant detention facility in Taylor, Texas.
Inside, approximately 200 immigrant children and their families live in what some people are calling inhumane conditions while awaiting their court hearings.
Nine-year-old Canadian Kevin Yourdkhani wrote a message to his prime minister pleading for rescue.
"I don't like to stay in this jail. I'm only nine years old. I want to go to my school in Canada. I'm sleeping beside the wall. Please Prime Minister Harper give visa for my family," he said in his letter.
Fifteen-year-old Lithuanian Egle "Anna" Baubonyte expressed how she felt about the center in her plaintiff statement for a recently filed law suit.
"In my opinion, even if they are trying to make this place nicer and look like an actual residential center, it is still a prison to me. There's no pediatrician. Nurses don't care if babies are sick or not. They treat us like we're nothing," she said.
On March 6, the national ACLU joined with ACLU of Texas and the UT Immigration Law Clinic to file 10 lawsuits in federal court disputing the federal government's detainment of immigrant children in the residential center. Lead counsel Vanita Gupta said her first visit to Hutto left her with a serious sense of urgency to do something.
"My first trip to Hutto was in early February. I have visited many Texas prisons before, and I was shocked to find that Hutto was no different than those and that such young children were being confined in a prison," Gupta said. "I spent several days in the facility, speaking to detainees and their children and investigating the conditions."
UT student groups respond
Passersby in the rainy West Mall over the last week-and-a-half may have stumbled upon giant message boards showcasing documentation of Yourdkhani, Baubonyte and other children's pleas to be freed from the detention center. The display was organized by numerous student groups, including Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlán the Campus Anti-War Movement to End the Occupation and the Public Affairs Alliance for Communities of Color. The political organization aims to "promote the theory and practice of equality and social justice," among other goals, according to the Office of the Dean of Students. The children's hand-written pleas and formal plaintiff statements were taken off of the ACLU Web site.
Continued...
If he is a Canadian citizen, as he claims, he should have an easy time getting home.
A Yankee’s a Yankee, y’all.
Why does he need a visa? I don't get it.
I’ve got a bridge in NY I’ll sell to anyone who actually believes a 9 year old wrote that letter.
You need a visa to travel between the U.S. and Canada, and Mexico, now. At least since January, if I remember correctly. For whatever reason, if their story is true, they left Canada without visas and now can’t return without one. Since Canada has embassies here, the story sounds a bit fishy.
The very last sentence, where he worries that he’ll be auctioned off to foster parents who will kill him, is LOL stuff.
LOL!
Giveashitometers are those newfangled digital thingamajobs. Never trusted 'em myself.
Give me an old fashioned Vacuum Tube Give-A-Damn any day of the week.
You punks and your fancy shmancy new fangled technology....
L
The usual BS.
Most colleges are the same: there are the serious students and teachers, and then there are the unserious.
Serious students are in class, and don’t have time to worry about “problems” like this. Serious teachers are teaching and researching REAL things that matter.
The unserious students are the ones who “protest” and hold “vigils”, and “boycotts” and all the rest.
It’s amazing how this is always the same, in every college.
I was in academics for years.
Here’s a hint: when there is another “protest” or “walk-out” or “boycott”, you will find the serious students in class, paying no attention. The unserious will be anywhere but class.
Another hint: the science, computer, and engineering classes will be full of serious students.
The Ethnic Studies, Women’s Studies, and Postmodern Literature classes will be empty.
The comments at the end of the article have been interesting. :)
What no Mexicans?
Of course not, silly bigoted me
The catch and release applies to hispanic illegal aliens
So do the “sanctuary city” laws against arresting them for being here etc.
The author sure is great at not giving any voice to those opposed to the ACLU, who we all know always looks to side with America, and the students/faculty/appeasers at UT.
Easy there old-timer...
BTW, I knew you were being sarcastic, for the record.
Excuse me kids, you children are not “in prison”
Your worthless parents broke the law and THEY are in prison.
Because your worthless parents happened to drag their innocent kids with them in their criminal activity, you children have to be somewhere How about foster homes?
Why is there no appreciation for the fact that the family is not “separated” Hello?
You kids can go back to Canada any time Other family members could come and claim you .......
Why not complain to Grandma or an Uncle?............
I agree these children should not be held prisoner in this place. Instead, they should be dumped on the other side of the nearest convenient national border.
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