Few Americans know of the existence of Raymondville a federal dentention facility located just north of the Mexican border near Brownsville, Texas. Administered by another Bush administration private contractor, Management Training Corporation, the facility operates under a contract with the Department of Homeland Security. It’s mandate is to detain persons suspected of violating immigration law and more than 2000 prisoners currently are interned there awaiting processing and probable deportation. Poor and far from their homes, most inmates have no support from family, friends or support of any kind. But the real dirty, dark secret is that most of these prisoners are only "accused" of various immigration violations and are not required under the law to stay in detentions while they are being processed.
Jodi Goodwin, an attorney who works with some of the detainees said,
Processing can take from weeks to many months. The only inmates to receive legal advice are those with money to hire a private attorney, or lucky enough to find one pro bono.
Many have come to call Raymondville RITMO, because they see its operation as similar to that of the GITMO facility in Guantanamo, where prisoners are held with no due process and often mistreated. Others call it a concentration camp as surrounding the facility are two 14-foot chain-link fences, with double coils of razor wire on top and in between.
Built in three months, Raymondville is comprised of ten huge tents made from a Kevlar-like material, each tent holding 200 people. Each have open toilets in the middle, with no privacy and the conditions and despite claims of DHS to the contrary, many of those being held there say they have insufficient food, clothing, medical care and access to the outside world.
Jodi Goodwin says that although the access to health care is generally good, there have been many reports of detainees putting in requests to see a doctor with no response for days and that she’s heard time and time again from her clients that food service is inconsistent at best. She had a client write to her begging for medical attention and decent food because he had been served rancid milk for days in a row and he and other detainees in his pod were throwing up and had stomach problems because they had been served spoiled food.
A KGBT TV investigation revealed that in one instance, over 30 detainees reported that the quantity and quality of food are deplorable, an allegation confirmed by at least two security guards. One of the understandably anonymous guards reported said this.
The reason it gets contaminated it's because of the storage facility; they don't have the storage facility. They were trying to blame the companies that supposedly the food is coming in spoiled which is not true.
Detainees say they don't have toiletries to keep their most basic sanitary needs, that they have problems communicating with the outside world, nevertheless finding an attorney or any kind of legal assistance. Security guards have also recorded that 50 detainees complained because they found maggots in their food, and refused to eat. The situation was so bad for an immigrant that he attempted to commit suicide.
Miss Goodwin after visiting the detention center last year commented,
I walked into one of the pods, and I just opened the door and said, Buenos dias. Como estan todos? And they responded to me, muriendo de hambre, we’re dying of hunger." And, you know, this is just their immediate reaction to someone coming in and asking, how are you?
This is a part of America that most of us don’t know about, a distant, isolated, primitive prison operated by a private contractor for profit. A place where human beings are held in arguably horrendous conditions with little access to decent food and medical care, often innocent and illegally detained and far from impartial justice. This country needs comprehensive immigration reform now, so that human beings are treated with respect and care and blights on America like Raymondville can be razed to the ground forever.