Photos: Inside a family detention center

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Photos: Inside a family detention center

Federal immigration officials do not allow cameras into the South Texas Family Residential Center, saying they are seeking to protect detainees’ privacy. But they made many of their photos available for publication.

The Obama administration opened the South Texas Family Residential Center in December in response to the surge of Central American women and children who were fleeing poverty and gang violence in their native countries.

Women and children detained in the South Texas Family Residential Center live in “neighborhoods” named after a brown bear, a blue butterfly, a red bird and a green turtle.

The government first started holding the women and children nearby in temporary housing for local oil workers. They were moved to the South Texas Family Residential Center’s current site in April.

The South Texas Family Residential Center was holding 1,857 women and children this month.

Children held in the South Texas Family Residential Center attend classes four hours a day.

Most of the women and children held in the South Texas Family Residential Center are from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. But there were others from Belize, Brazil, Mexico and Peru.

The South Texas Family Residential Center is the largest of its kind in the U.S. with capacity to hold 2,400 people.

Women and children held in the South Texas Family Residential Center have access to a library, gym, a medical clinic and dining hall.

The South Texas Family Residential Center is located in a remote part of Texas about 70 miles southwest of San Antonio.

At total capacity in the South Texas Family Residential Center, it costs taxpayers $313 to house each detainee per day on average.

Detainees live 12 to a “suite” in the South Texas Family Residential Center.

Some Georgians are depending on the privately-run South Texas Family Residential Center for work. Since last year, some workers have transferred there from the Stewart Detention Center in South Georgia.

The South Texas Family Residential Center also contains courtrooms, where detainees appear before Miami-based federal immigration judges through videoconferences.

Some families at the South Texas Family Residential Center have been separated from relatives, who are being detained elsewhere.

Attorneys, paralegals and other volunteers have streamed into the South Texas Family Residential Center since February. Traveling here from Georgia and other states at their own expense and working free of charge, they are representing women and children who are seeking asylum in the U.S.

The volunteers who have come to Dilley, Texas, to represent the detainees must keep track of several time zones.

The pro bono attorneys and other volunteers gathered this month for dinner and a planning meeting at a rented ranch house a short drive from the South Texas Family Residential Center.

Erika Cisneros of Moultrie, Ga., is among more than 100 attorneys, paralegals and other volunteers who have traveled to the South Texas Family Residential Center since February.

Families who are freed from the detention centers in South Texas are routinely dropped off at a downtown San Antonio bus station at night. Santiago Garcia-Leco, a volunteer with the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, lets them use his cell phone to call loved ones and gives them bags of snacks and clothes.

Blanca Linarez and her son, Jose, had spent 11 months in the Karnes County Residential Center about 50 miles southeast of San Antonio. A judge had just put her deportation proceedings on hold and granted her son asylum. The Interfaith Welcome Coalition was putting them up for the night in a shelter in San Antonio.

The Interfaith Welcome Coalition, a group of churches and nonprofit organizations, is helping immigrant families in Texas. The coalition -- which includes the RAICES immigrant legal aid group -- visits the families in detention, feeds and clothes them after they are released and puts them up in temporary shelters around San Antonio.

Nine families released from the South Texas Family Residential Center were dropped off at a downtown San Antonio bus station just past midnight one evening this month. Freed on bond, they were on their way to stay with friends and family in other states while they continue to fight to remain in the U.S.

The Interfaith Welcome Coalition keeps a storage room full of donated goods for women and children released from immigration detention centers in South Texas.

Women and children recently released from immigration detention centers in South Texas are invited to stay at one of several shelters in San Antonio that are operated by volunteers.

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Federal immigration officials do not allow cameras into the South Texas Family Residential Center, saying they are seeking to protect detainees’ privacy. But they made many of their photos available for publication.

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