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December 5, 2016

500 Immigrant Women & Children Released from Family Detention in Texas
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Over the weekend, federal authorities in Texas reportedly released
nearly 500 women and children from the nation's two largest family
detention centers. Legal advocates say most families were released
without travel plans, and volunteers worked with a local church to open
shelter space early Saturday morning. The move followed a ruling Friday
by a Texas judge that bars the state's Department of Family and
Protective Services from issuing child care licenses to family detention
centers. Advocates say conditions at the facilities are equivalent to
prisons. The judgment effectively invalidates the licenses now used to
operate the facilities, which are owned by GEO and Core Civic, formerly
known as Corrections Corporation of America. Human rights groups have
called on the Obama administration to end the practice of detaining
families before the end of his administration.


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