A newly renovated detention center in Karnes City, Texas, will house 532 immigrants at a time in “suites” with flat-screen TVs, landline telephones, and play tables for children, reported KRG-TV, the ABC affiliate in Rio Grande Valley. Amenities include a soccer field, basketball courts, ping pong tables, and a weight room, with a planned playground to be added. The daily housing and related costs will be about $74,000, federal officials said, or an average $140 a day per person.
The detention center, about three hours north of the border area, previously housed adult male immigrants, and has been renovated to accommodate women and children among the estimated 57,000 illegals from Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras who have arrived at the Texas border since last October. Officials did not say how much the renovation cost.
The occupants will receive medical screenings, and children will be given physicals within 24 hours of arrival, said KRG-TV. There will also be a dentist on site. The facility includes a clothing room, where each person will be able to choose six sets of new clothes, the station reported. A charter school in nearby San Antonio will provide schooling and access to a library for the children.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, generally refers to people in its custody as “detainees,” but “I will refer to everyone in this facility as a resident,” said ICE San Antonio Field Office Director Enrique Lucero, who oversaw the renovation of the center.
The “residents” are expected to stay an average of 23 days at the center, but it is unclear where they will go after that. While federal law requires hearings for unauthorized immigrants from anywhere other than Mexico or Canada, the cases at immigration courts are backed up to 2017, according to media reports.
Some of the immigrants have been released to the care of family members or foster homes in Texas and in other states, raising concerns among state and local officials about the impact on schools and other services and how they are going to pay for them.
Many of the detainees simply disappear and never show up for their hearings. Others may lay claim to legal status during the months or even years before their hearings, said Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies.
“Someone whose asylum hearing isn’t until 2017 has plenty of time to get a job, graduate from high school and lay roots in the community,” Krikorian said in a recent interview for a Boston Herald article on the impact immigrants sent to Massachusetts will have on municipalities and school districts there. “That gives lawyers an argument to keep the kids here for good.”
