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Article

3 Mar 2008

Author:
Margaret Talbot, New Yorker

The Lost Children [USA]

...[The] T. Don Hutto Residential Center...is...[the only] immigrant detention facilit[y] in America that house[s] families...owned and run by a private prison company...Corrections Corporation of America, or C.C.A... When Hutto opened as an immigration-detention center, children attended school there only one hour a day... Steven Owen, a spokesman for the corporation, wrote that “C.C.A. always strives to provide humane, safe and secure housing to the populations entrusted to our care in accordance with applicable laws and the expectations of our customers... [A] psychiatric report commissioned by the government...criticized an atmosphere “capable of contributing to the development of unnecessary anxiety and stress for these children.” The report...concluded that it was “essential” to make changes at Hutto, in order to protect the mental health of the children... In the months before the lawsuit [by the ACLU involving Hutto] was settled, Hutto had already started making changes: it...expanded the length of educational instruction... Last March, federal immigration officials found many “deficiencies” at Hutto, including inadequate sanitation and the lack of an immunization program for children...