Texas Prison Bid'ness

Last week, Willacy County Commissioners approved an additional $50.1 million in revenue bonds to expand the notorious MTC Tent City detention center. According to the Valley Morning News, the detention center, a series of tent-like structures made of windowless Kevlar pods that already has capacity to hold 2,000 ICE detainees, will expand by 1,000 beds.

The added debt will now mean that Willacy County must pay back $54.8 million to Raymondville Tent Citybond holders by September 2010 and another $56.6 million by 2028. The money brought in to the prison through the federal contract to hold the immigrant detainees is supposed to raise the capital to pay back the debt, while the private prison company (in this case MTC) takes a cut of the income as it goes.

As Forrest Wilder at the Texas Observer blog writes, that is a staggering $8,700 debt per resident of Willacy County, a county with a population of 20,082 and a prison capacity of 4,600.

The new bond deal led Commissioner Aurelio Guerra this week to question a “fixed annual fee” of $27.4 million that will be paid to MTC if the average monthly inmate count falls below 2,500 inmates.

Under the current contract, MTC is being paid a $27.75 per diem per prisoner held in the prison, according to the company. That rate would increase to $30.13 with the fixed fee. $30 a day per prisoner to pay for food (albeit possibly maggot-infested food), staff, clothes, services, AND a profit for MTC seems like a seriously low amount.

But that’s what is apparently happening because nearly 3/5 of the amount the government is paying for the facility is being spent to pay back Willacy County’s enormous debt.

If a problem occurs at Tent City (say maggots in the food – can we mention that too much?) and ICE decides to pull some of its prisoners,that can cause big financial problems for the county. According to the article, the county must maintain a minimum 1,700 detainees consistently to pay back its 20-year bond, so a serious drop in prisoner numbers could affect bond payments and lead to a decline in the county’s bond rating, a scenario that could hinder the county’s ability to issue future bonds for things like schools or parks.

According to Willacy County Commissioner Eddie Chapa, “We would love to have 2,500 (illegal immigrants) but we know that’s not going to be — we have to have the room available in case there’s an influx. If we get 2,200 to 2,300, we’d be very happy.” Maybe it’s just me, but there seems to be something twisted about betting your county’s financial future on the hope that you’ll have a large and growing number of incarcerated immigrants.

As we’ve reported, Willacy County is no stranger to private prison scandals. Its history includes public officials convicted of accepting bribes from prison developers and a $47.5 million settlement in a lawsuit against the Wackenhut Corporation by the family of a prisoner who was beaten to death in 2001.

Crib in a Hutto cellICE has not yet posted their statement about the Hutto settlement to the press room of their website (9 AM PT August 29th), which is surprising, given that to hear them tell it, the settlement is even better for them than it is for the children who have now been released from Hutto. From the Houston Chronicle:

ICE spokeswoman Nina Pruneda would not answer questions about the settlement on Monday, but she released a statement that defended conditions at Hutto and welcomed the outside monitoring.

The judge's participation "will help improve communication about the facility and end any misconceptions and allegations falsely made about the Hutto facility," the ICE statement said.

That's a fascinating argument for monitoring: that the presence of a monitor at a prison could end any false accusations of mistreatment, rather than end any actual mistreatment or address any issues of confinement that concern the children held there. Okay... so maybe ICE could've ended some of those false accusations by letting a leading UN expert on the human rights of migrants, Jorge Bustamante, take a look at Hutto back in May, instead of inviting him and then abruptly cancelling his visit.

More from the article:

Pruneda also said Monday afternoon that ICE could not provide the number of detainees currently in Hutto.

Could not? Is it possible that they don't know? Highly unlikely. Like most correctional facilities, Hutto staff count heads a few times a day. (This KVUE article from the AP wire reports that counts there happen four times a day. This article also suggests that there are around 400 people currently detained in Hutto, but it's not an exact number.)

ICE probably could answer that question. But, then, the next logical question is, "how many of the detainees at Hutto are children?" and that's the question that they really don't want to answer. After all, hundreds of children sitting in a prison is a pretty unnerving image, and Hutto is unpopular enough already.

Speaking of which: the next vigil at Hutto is scheduled for September 29th.

The Associated Press is reporting that the government has settled the lawsuit brought by the ACLU and others over the detention of immigrant children at the T. Don Hutto detention center in Taylor, Texas.

The Hutto detention center, a converted medium-security prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), has come under fierce criticism from human rights activists and immigration lawyers. The trial against ICE by several Hutto families was set to open today (Monday) but Judge Sam Sparks had already told Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) earlier this spring that the families were likely to prevail.

The settlement does not close the prison or release all the children incarcerated there, but does better conditions at the jail. According to the ACLU's statement released today:

Additional improvements ICE will be required to make as a result of the settlement include allowing children over the age of 12 to move freely about the facility; providing a full-time, on-site pediatrician; eliminating the count system so that families are not forced to stay in their cells 12 hours a day; installing privacy curtains around toilets; offering field trip opportunities to children; supplying more toys and age-and language-appropriate books; and improving the nutritional value of food. ICE must also allow regular legal orientation presentations by local immigrants' rights organizations; allow family and friends to visit Hutto detainees seven days a week; and allow children to keep paper and pens in their rooms. ICE's compliance with each of these reforms, as well as other conditions reforms, will be subject to external oversight to ensure their permanence.

Since the lawsuit was filed, all of the 26 children named in it have been released from Hutto. The last few were just released prior to the settlement, moving out of the lockup to live with family members while they await hearings to determine their asylum cases. One child formerly locked up in Hutto, 12-year-old Andrea Restrepo, is quoted by the ACLU:

"I feel much better, I feel tranquil, I can do things now I couldn't do there," said Restrepo. "I am trying to forget everything about Hutto. I feel free. It was a nightmare."

Despite the settlement, the ACLU continues its opposition to Hutto and "remains adamant that detaining immigrant children at Hutto is inappropriate, and calls on Congress to compel the Department of Homeland Security to find humane alternatives for managing families whose immigration status is in limbo."

That's the word from a state health services doctor in charge of figuring out why two prisoners from GEO Group's Val Verde prison have died and two more are ill, according to the San Antonio Express News. I think the statement is supposed to be reassuring (unless you consider the experience of LeTisha Tapia at Val Verde).

According to the article, at least 50 people and several labs have participated in the investigation, although it still seems like there are big gaps in our knowledge about what's going on. One reason for this information gap is that one of the prisoners who died was not autopsied. But this article includes a surprising (or maybe not so surprising) detail about that:

The investigation produced little information on the fourth inmate. He was one of the two who died, and he did so shortly after becoming ill. He apparently was a Honduran whose body was embalmed and shipped to his country after the Bexar County medical examiner's office declined a request to perform an autopsy. (emphasis added)

Has anyone asked why the medical examiner's office declined to perform an autopsy?

Reassurances continue that there's probably nothing to worry about, even as it has emerged that the story does include TB, a theory that has been advanced by Scott over at Grits. But the four people's illnesses are not identical, and so the plan for now is to wait for test results but mostly continue with business as usual. As Forrest Wilder points out at the Texas Observer, GEO Group's profit margin is dependent on keeping their costs low, and the "steady drumbeat of scandal has done little to harm the company's bottom line."

So yes, we may already be back to business as usual at Val Verde... and people will be just as safe there as they have ever been.