ICE awards contract for San Antonio immigration detention center<\/a><\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
At least eight facilities in Georgia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, and three in Texas \u2014 including the building on the East Side of San Antonio \u2014 have been acquired.<\/p>\n
The \u201cmega centers\u201d would each be capable of detaining 7,000 to 10,000 people, with the estimated cost of ICE\u2019s \u201cnew detention center model\u201d being $38.3 billion.<\/p>\n
In its legal filing seeking relief from the courts, the city of San Antonio writes, \u201cIn their rush to convert warehouses into Amazon-life store-and-ship facilities for immigrants, Defendants have trampled over federal law designed to protect the city and other stakeholders\u2019 interests.\u201d<\/p>\n
ICE detention centers have been cited for unsanitary conditions, lack of basic care, and instances of violence and death, as well as denial of pastoral visits and access to legal counsel. In just the past few months, two ICE facilities in Montana and Texas were the sites of\u00a0measles outbreaks. Incidents such as these endanger public health and would require a response by city health officials.<\/p>\n
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American prelates have expressed alarm over reports of pregnant mothers not getting needed medical care while in immigration detention, tragically resulting in miscarriages in some cases, as well as reports of nursing mothers being separated from their babies when detained by ICE.<\/p>\n
The church reaffirms the centrality of the understanding of human dignity, as the Incarnation itself \u201ctells us who God is and where He chooses to dwell.\u201d Christ unmistakably identifies Himself with the displaced in Matthew 25:35: \u201cI was a stranger and you welcomed me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, I and other bishops of border states echoed comments from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that plans to convert warehouses into mass detention centers are \u201cdeeply troubling.\u201d In our view, the use of detention should be minimized, not expanded, and alternatives to detention be pursued.<\/p>\n
As the bishops and many across the country have advocated for decades, Congress should repair the U.S. immigration system by placing hardworking immigrants and their families on a path to citizenship and by improving access to the legal immigration system.<\/p>\n
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As always, we stand ready to work to create an immigration system that ensures public safety, protects human rights, encourages economic growth and justice, and upholds our heritage as a nation of immigrants.<\/p>\n
I applaud and support the city\u2019s initiative to ensure that proper procedures are being followed for the protection of all involved, especially our migrant brothers and sisters in Christ.<\/p>\n
Gustavo Garc\u00eda-Siller is archbishop of San Antonio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement bought Oakmont 410, an industrial building on the East Side, with plans to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[11532,128086,1829,142704,1932,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-476298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-city-of-san-antonio","tag-gustavo-garcia-siller","tag-ice","tag-immigrant-detention-center","tag-lawsuit","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=476298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}