Guantanamo in Texas?

May 21 (LPAC)--An arm of the police state apparatus of the Homeland Security Department has blocked a United Nations observer from visiting a private "detention facility" for undocumented immigrants in Texas, in defiance of the terms agreed to by the United States as a United Nations member country, which state that an independent expert appointed by the UN Human Rights Council should have "access to all prisons, detention centers, and places of interrogation."

The ACLU revealed the violation May 18, UPI reports. UN Special Rapporteur Jorge Bustamante is conducting a fact-finding mission to examine the status of immigrants' rights in the United States, but the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prohibited him from making a scheduled stop at a family detention center in Taylor, Texas.

The Hutto Family Residential Facility, formerly a medium security prison, is operated by the private prison firm Corrections Corporation of America under a contract with DHS. The American Civil Liberties Union is representing 12 children at the facility in suits against DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff and several immigration officials. The lawsuits condemn the conditions in the facilities.

Bustamante, who serves as special rapporteur for the human rights of immigrants, has scheduled meetings with human rights and immigrants groups during his three-week trip to assess the treatment of undocumented immigrants in the United States. The tour of Hutto "was considered a major part of the Special Rapporteur's U.S. visit," the ACLU stated.

Using what has become a standard regime stalling tactic, an ICE spokesman said that "non-governmental entities" were being barred "while we are under litigation."