FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Anna Núñez, ACLU of Texas, 713-942-8146, Ext. 103; [email protected]
Houston – The Obama administration confirmed Tuesday that it will continue detaining vulnerable mothers and children in a new, for-profit facility in Dilley after the planned closure of the temporary detention facility in the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Artesia, New Mexico. The facility in Artesia has held more than 500 mothers and children, mainly asylum seekers fleeing violence in Central America, since spring of this year.
The following statement can be attributed to Terri Burke, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas:
“Warehousing vulnerable children and their mothers and fathers is just plain wrong. The government has continually failed to warehouse families in a humane manner and it should, instead, focus its attention on finding more effective and far less costly alternatives benefiting both the taxpayer and these poor families. Texas already has one of the highest incarceration rates in the nation and we don’t need to make our record even worse by needlessly locking up thousands of families seeking refuge during this humanitarian crisis.”
The following statement can be attributed to Astrid Dominguez, advocacy coordinator for the ACLU of Texas:
“Border residents already pay a heavy price of an extreme militarized zone, further exacerbated by the onerous burden of detention centers warehousing innocent families fleeing a rape, murder, trafficking, torture, and violence. During this unprecedented humanitarian crisis, as a coalition partner of the RGV Equal Voice Network, we urgently call upon President Obama to exercise his executive power on immigration reform. We’ve suffered long enough and the time to act is now.”
The ACLU of Texas is a member of the RGV Equal Voice Network and sent a letter on today to President Obama. View the letter here.
