In Overhaul of U.S. Immigration Facilities, More Will Resemble Broward's Facility

The Obama administration has plans for kinder, gentler immigration holding centers to be located in nursing homes and hotels. This new generation of facilities will be less like a prisons, more like the immigration facility in Pompano Deerfield Beach:The New York Times interviewed John Morton, the assistant secretary of Immigration...

By Thomas Francis

October 7, 2009

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The Obama administration has plans for kinder, gentler immigration holding centers to be located in nursing homes and hotels. This new generation of facilities will be less like a prisons, more like the immigration facility in ~~Pompano~~ Deerfield Beach:

The New York Times interviewed John Morton, the assistant secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement:

Mr. Morton said that on Sept. 18 the agency began housing nonviolent detainees, including new asylum seekers, at the Broward Transitional Center in Pompano Beach, Fla. (sic), near free legal help. But Charu al-Sahli, the statewide director of the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, said the Broward center, run for profit by GEO, a large prison company formerly known as Wackenhut, had been housing asylum seekers since 2003.

A former work-release center now surrounded by barbed wire, it is being expanded to house 700, up from 530.

The Detention Watch Center gives the facility, which is technically in Deerfield Beach, a passing grade, with points for a program in which detainees are allowed to interact with rabbits and turtles.

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