U.S. family immigrant centers like prisons: report

By Adriana Garcia

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Family detention centers for illegal immigrants and asylum seekers in the United States are like prisons, where residents face harsh discipline and lack adequate health care, two advocacy groups said on Thursday.

The Women's Commission for Refugee Women & Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service surveyed facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania that can hold up to 600. Most of those held there are mothers and children.

"(The) Homeland Security (Department) has to look for alternative models," said Michelle Brane, director of the Women's Commission. "Families should not be split or put in something that looks like a prison."

One of the facilities, the Don Hutto Residential Center in Texas, can house 512 people. Before it opened last year, most of the families were either released from detention or separated and detained individually, the report said.

It is operated by Corrections Corporation of America under contract with Williamson County, Texas.

The center was opened in response to demands by the U.S. Congress for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to stop separating families and to seek alternative programs.

ICE said that detention facilities maintain safe, secure and humane conditions.

"Our standards of detention exceed those set by the American Correctional Association," ICE spokesman Marc Raimondi said.