01-May-2007
Hutto
I’m not sure about family values, nor am I sure what the folks on the right mean when they use that term. Oddly, I’ve never heard anyone on the left side of things use the term, but I don’t think that’s because they’re against families, or that they don’t believe there are things about families to be valued.
Mostly, family values is a coded expression and has been for some time now. Nevertheless, sometimes it’s revealing to take people’s expressions at face value and try to figure out what they mean.
My understanding of family values as the term is currently used is that a family consists of a married man and woman where the man works and the woman is at home. They are financially self-sufficient and have health insurance and a retirement plan. They have some children, along with meals eaten together and Christian church attendance at least once a week.
A family sees full-fledged human life in a zygote, and doesn’t believe that the deep, committed, and enduring love between two people is of value if the two people are of the same sex. Too, a family without a father is not a real family, nor is it a family if two people have a child outside of wedlock. A family does things together because you don’t have two workers juggling conflicting work schedules. Families teach their children about sex at home. They also believe there should be laws against any kind of medium that works against family values: movies, TV shows, books, internet sites. Above all, families are a unit.
Sadly, whenever I run into someone throwing this expression around another, slightly hidden, value emerges: most real families are white.
So I’m kind of puzzled over the attack on the family by the family values folks, particularly the First Family over there in D.C. It’s an attack that’s taking place down in Taylor, Texas, and it has the full faith and support of the government at the highest of all possible levels.
Let’s just call it a family prison although the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) bureau calls it the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility. One thing no one can dispute is that the facility is surrounded by tall fencing and the fencing is topped by razor wire.
In that facility, according to official government documents, alien families from countries other than Mexico (e.g. Guyana, Lithuania, Palestine, Canada, Iran, Haiti, Somalia, Honduras, etc.) are able to maintain their family unity as they await the outcome of their immigration hearings or their deportation. They live in a non-secure setting with health care, meal service, classrooms, a chaplain, clothing, and a library. There are outdoor pavilions, playgrounds, and a gymnasium, along with English language classes and even arts and crafts facilities.
There’s another side to the story, however, and you can take your choice of which to believe.
The other side of the story is presented by the Austin (Texas) American Statesman, WFAA of Dallas/Fort Worth, Mother Jones, the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and the American Civil Liberties Union.
These groups have all documented the manner in which Hutto is a former prison operated in a prison-like manner by the for-profit Corrections Corporation of America where some families with young children have been detained for as long as two years. At night children as young as six are separated from their parents; complaints about the inedibility of the food are widespread, along with complaints that the families are allowed only twenty minutes to eat with all food being thrown away at the end of that time.
The threat of breaking up a family is often used as a disciplinary tool. Children at Hutto receive one hour of school a day; no OB-GYN is available for pregnant women; children have no toys and often complain about being hungry and cold. Residents are not allowed into their rooms during the day to lie down regardless of whether the reason is illness or sheer weariness.
Case studies naming names support all these contentions, and if you, as happened to me, are suddenly seeing images of Guantanamo the comparison is apt. You might also find it interesting to know that Hutto is seen by the government as a great improvement over the previous program for dealing with undocumented aliens.
That program was called catch-and-release.
G. K. Wuori © 2007
U.S. Government photos
