Obama Administration To Build A New Family Immigrant Detention Center In Texas Despite Lawsuits Slapped On Other Facilities

The Obama administration is planning to build a new family immigrant detention center in Texas for Central American mothers and their children who go the United States to seek asylum. This is despite the lawsuits currently faced by two similar detention centers in the state.

The Department of Homeland Security and private contractor Serco, Inc. are working with local authorities for the project, which will be erected in Jim Wells County in southern Texas, the Huffington Post reported. The new detention center will be at the location of a former nursing home called La Hacienda Nursing Home, which stopped operations in 2014, according to the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.

Ill-Equipped Family Detention Centers

The Obama administration closed family detention centers since 2009, but that has changed when a slew of unaccompanied minors and families traveled to the U.S. from Central America two years ago via the Texas-Mexico border. That surge of more than 70,000 unaccompanied minors had swamped the Office of Refugee Resettlement, or ORR, which was equipped to manage only 8,000 unaccompanied minors.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, two of the four Jim Wells County commissioners said they were oblivious about the family detention centers being contested in federal and state lawsuits. The commissioners said that they were unaware of the proposal for a new facility before Monday, adding that they are still unsure whether they would allow another family detention center to operate in Texas.

Immigrant Advocates And Detainees Slam Family Detention Centers

Coastal Bend is the location of the two other family detention centers: the Karnes County Residential Center and the South Texas Family Residential Center. Immigrant advocates and detainees claimed that family detention centers are "prisons with dormitories and soccer fields," NPR reported.

Immigrant mothers said Texas' family detention centers have a negative impact on children's mental health and are endangering their lives, Business Insider reported (via the Associated Press). Three Central American women living at one of the facilities said the water tasted bad and made children vomit and endure stomach aches.

One mother also claimed that her daughter was depressed and couldn't get a wink of sleep at the facility. Another parent said her young daughter was terrified when a female roommate touched her private parts.

The DHS, meanwhile, argued that the facilities are family-friendly and they are necessary to control the surge of immigrants. The detention centers are operated by for-profit prison companies, which are contracted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.