Jails for illegals become 'Club Fed' paradise

The Obama administration is looking to change the way illegal aliens are housed in America by giving them a kinder, gentler, "Club Fed" resort-style life of luxury complete with art classes, movie nights, bingo, e-mail, unmonitored phone lines, continental breakfast, hanging plants and fresh carrot sticks.

An internal Immigration and Customs Enforcement e-mail dated May 27 revealed many "low-risk" illegal-alien detainees will also enjoy "free movement," "relaxed security measures," elimination of "lockdowns" and expanded visiting hours, the Houston Chronicle reported.

Nine taxpayer-funded locations – in Texas, New Jersey, Arizona, Georgia and California – will each receive makeovers "softening the look of the facility." The centers are owned and operated by the private prison company Corrections Corporation of America.

According to the report, ICE officials said the makeover is part of a larger effort to make immigration detention less penal and more humane.

However, ICE union leaders warn the overhaul will put agents, guards and detainees at risk and increase the costs for taxpayers. Tre Rebstock, president of Houston ICE union Local 3332 told the paper the plan would be like creating "an all-inclusive resort" for illegal-alien detainees.

"Our biggest concern is that someone is going to get hurt," he said, warning that relaxing restrictions on movement of "low-risk" detainees and elimination of pat-down searches would threaten the safety of officials and detainees and allow contraband and weapons into facilities.

Rebstock explained that detainees can be designated low-risk because they don't have a serious criminal record yet, but he warned that they may be gang members that "haven't been caught doing anything wrong yet."

The transformation is scheduled to begin within 30 days, according to ICE.

Other modifications include:

allowing visitors to stay as long as they like in a 12-hour period

providing a manager so the illegal-alien detainees can report problems

letting "low-risk" detainees wear their own civilian clothing

more variety in dining menus and self-serve beverage and fresh vegetable bars

four hours or more of recreation "in a natural setting, allowing for robust aerobic exercise"

improving look of facilities by requiring plants, fresh paint and new bedding in "low-risk" units.

ICE's 2010 detention guidelines mandate that detainees have access to outdoor recreation or large recreation rooms with access to equipment and sunlight. Detainees may request facility transfers. Dayrooms must offer board games, television and other sedentary activities.

Illegal aliens are served two hot meals a day and given the opportunity to participate in a voluntary work program for pay.

Beth Gibson, ICE senior counselor to Assistant Secretary John Morton and a leader of the detention-center overhaul, told the Chronicle ICE is seeking to detain illegals in the least restrictive manner possible while making certain that they leave the country if ordered to do so.

"When people come to our custody, we're detaining them to effect their removal," she said. "It's about deportation. It's not about punishing people for a crime they committed."

Advocates of illegal immigration and some lawmakers in Congress have pressured ICE to improve accommodations for the 400,000 illegal aliens housed annually. The overhaul pleases many illegal-immigration supporters, including Lory Rosenberg, policy and advocacy director for Refugee and Migrants' Rights for Amnesty International.

"A lot of these measures are what we've been advocating for," she told the Chronicle. "Many of these points are very important to changing the system from a penal system, which is inappropriate in an immigration context, to a civil-detention system."

Rebstock told the paper the makeover goes too far.

"My grandparents would have loved to have bingo night and a dance class at the retirement home they were in when they passed away, but that was something we would have had to pay for," he said. "And yet these guys are getting it on the taxpayers' dime."

However, Gibson told the Chronicle the prisons are making the improvements at no additional cost to taxpayers, and the changes will benefit the detainees.

She said, "Taken together they will go some way to making this system less penal."

Meanwhile, President Obama has denounced Arizona's law as discriminatory, saying his administration is combing through it and preparing for a possible legal challenge. Obama's recently released a plan to deploy up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the border with Mexico. However, the troops are strictly forbidden from activities linked to the enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.

As WND recently reported, thousands of illegal aliens apprehended along the 2,000-mile border stretching through California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas aren't even from Mexico. Many are citizens of countries that are known sponsors of terrorism, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Syria and Iran.

Former Rep. Tom Tancredo told WND he believes the administration's actions show its true intentions.

"I don't think anybody thinks this matters," he said. "Obama certainly doesn't."

He added, "The desire is not to fix the problem. The desire is to have amnesty. All of this is in anticipation of amnesty."

A new Rasmussen poll conducted June 7-8 found that 56 percent of U.S. voters say their views on illegal immigration are closer to those of Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer than to Obama's views.