U.N. rights expert to probe U.S. treatment of illegal immigrants

Carolyn Hileman* | April 28, 2007

GENEVA — A United Nations human rights expert will head to the United States later this month to investigate a highly criticized Texas center for detained immigrant families, a U.N. official said Friday.Jorge Bustamante, the Human Rights Council’s independent expert on migrant rights, also will examine two border areas where U.S. officials have announced they would crack down on Mexicans illegally crossing the border, said Yvon Edoumou, a spokesman for the U.N. human rights office in Geneva.

Bustamante will “witness first hand the situation of migrants at the borders and in immigration detention facilities,” he said.

The U.S. government is facilitating the visit, which will take place from April 30 to May 18, Edoumou said.

Bustamante, a Mexican, will discuss migrant issues with American government officials, campaign groups and immigrants during the mission that includes stops in Tucson, Ariz.; Austin, Texas; Fort Myers, Fla.; New York; and Washington, D.C.

He also will visit the T. Don Hutto facility, a former prison in Taylor, Texas, that typically houses about 400 non-criminal immigrants awaiting deportation or other outcomes to their immigration cases.

Earlier this month, a U.S. district judge said living conditions seemed “questionable” at the facility. Civil liberties and immigration advocates contend families at Hutto are subjected to psychologically abusive guards, inadequate medical care and inhumane conditions and that the facility is run like a prison. They sued federal officials in March on behalf of several children detained at the center.

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