Join immigrant rights advocates, residents of Williamson County, and members of many faith communities in a vigil for families detained at the Hutto prison. There will be a bus and caravan leaving the Islamic Center of Irving for Taylor. Texas. The main program will begin at 4:00 p.m. at the T. Don Hutto facility (1001 Welch, in Taylor) with the candlelight vigil starting as the sun sets at 5:00 pm (A walk to the facility from downtown Taylor's Heritage Park starting at 2:00 p.m. will precede the vigil.)
The Hutto detention center is a for-profit prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America, through an Inter-Governmental Service Agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Williamson County. Since May 2006, immigrant families, about half of them children, have been jailed in the facility while they await asylum or immigration hearings. The prison has been criticized by human rights organizations worldwide as an inappropriate facility for children. An incident involving an "inappropriate sexual relationship" between a CCA staff member and a detainee, and one where an eight-year-old girl was left without her mother for four days have increased scrutiny of Hutto in recent months.
