Migrant children banned from using crayons at US detention facility

Staff members at one of the US’s most controversial private
detention centres had complained that children were causing
damage to property

Oliver Laughland in New York
Thursday 17 November 2016 22.19 GMT

Young migrant children held in one of the most controversial privatised detention centres in the US have been banned from playing with crayons after staff members accused them of causing damage to property.

The move has been branded as unnecessarily punitive by lawyers working on behalf of 600 mothers and children detained at the Karnes detention centre in Texas.

The centre at Karnes is one of three federal facilities that holds migrant mothers and children. These family centres are one of the most controversial elements of the Obama administration’s border protection program, which looks set to rapidly expand under the incoming Trump presidency.

A spokeswoman for the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services (Raices), which provides pro bono legal support to detainees at Karnes, said detention centre staff enforced the ban after accusing children of damaging a table as they drew inside the prison’s visitation centre last week. The damage is said to have occurred as some mothers were taking legal advice.

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The GEO group, the $2bn global security company that operates the centre, has made over $57m from it since November last year, according to local media reports.

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