GOT DOCS? America’s Family Prison

In May 2006, the Department of Homeland Security opened the first immigration detention facility designed specifically to hold families – immigrant men, women, children, and infants, none of whom have a criminal past.

The T Don Hutto facility in central Texas is administered by the Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private corrections corporation in the U.S. CCA is paid $7,000 per month per prisoner or $28,000 a month for a family of four, all paid with your tax dollars.

Since its opening, Hutto has come under scrutiny for the alleged rape of a detainee by a security guard, unsanitary conditions, and the traumatizing effect it has on the youngest detained population in the country. In April 2006, the United Nations Commission of the Human Rights of Migrants tried to investigate these allegations but was denied entry.

Filmmakers Matthew Gossage and Lily Keber have been able to steer some attention to Hutto with this video, and they’re keeping on the story at their blog.

In 2007, the ACLU won a lawsuit improving conditions for the detainees inside Hutto, but activists are still fighting to end family detention, at Hutto and at a second facility in Pennsylvania. Sadly, the update in Immigration and Customs Enforcement is accepting bids for three new detention centers – on both coasts and on the southwestern border – to hold families fighting deportation cases.
Get involved at TDonHutto.bogspot.com

If you’re a documentary filmmaker with a work in progress, send us a link. We feature a new film every Thursday (although for the next two weeks we’ll be live from the political conventions, so no more Docs in this spot until September.) Contact us at grit tv at grit tv dot org