If An Immigration Prison Looks Pretty, Is It Still A Prison?

A recent article from AP highlights how "unprisonlike" the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center is. Hutto opened in May 2006 by the Department of Homeland Security and it is the first prison for immigrant families. ICE gave the press a tour of the changes the facility is undergoing as a way to counter the negative press it has been receiving after it was ordered to change inhumane practices.

Pastel-colored walls adorned with cartoon characters, ceramic instead of steel toilets in cells and other upgrades have softened the inside of a former prison where dozens of immigrant children and their families are detained.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials conducted a media tour Tuesday at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center in Taylor say the facility has become more family friendly thanks to more than 100 modifications. The changes were required under a settlement reached in a lawsuit alleging children were held in prison-like conditions.

But the fact remains that this is a detention center aka a jail and a model that Homeland Security wants to replicate.

Immigration officials have described the nearly 500-bed Hutto as a residential environment that keeps families together while they seek asylum, await deportation or seek other outcomes to their immigration cases.
Officials say Hutto — operated by Corrections Corporation of America under a contract with Williamson County — is meant to end the "catch and release" practice that in the past permitted families in the U.S. illegally to remain free while awaiting a court hearing. Many never showed up in court; some borrowed other people's children and posed as families to avoid detention, ICE officials have said.
ICE is considering opening more facilities to detain families around the country, making Hutto a sort of prototype, Mead said. Currently, the Berks Family Residential Center in Leesport, Pa., a former nursing home about 50 miles northwest of Philadelphia, is the only other facility in the country that holds related adults and children.

Sources : The Houston Chronicle, VivirLatino, T. Don Hutto