By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Some 1,700 people, most of them immigrants arrested on criminal trespass charges, have thus far been processed through the “tent” outside the sheriff’s office, facility administrators said Wednesday.
Members of the media, including KENS5’s Vanessa Croix, and reporters from the 830 Times and Texas Tribune, were invited by the Texas Department of Public Safety’s public information division to take an inside look at the processing tent and its operations Wednesday morning.
Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) Capt. Joel Betancourt and DPS Lt. Christopher Olivarez facilitated the visit, and Ronny Taylor of the Texas Department of Emergency Management (TDEM) and Pat Marion of Recana, a private company that has been contracted to run the facility, were on hand to answer questions.
Taylor has been the administrator at the facility since July 15, shortly before the first immigrants were arrested and brought in.
“I retired from the Harris County Sheriff’s Office after almost 36 years of service. Most of my career was spent in corrections, so during that time I was able to develop a lot of relationships with different stakeholders in the community, the (state) jail commission and different sheriffs, so when they decided they needed somebody to come down here and help stand up a jail, somebody said, ‘Taylor’s retired; let’s call him,’ so I came over here and started helping them,” Taylor said.
“When I first showed up here, we had a tent, and the computer devices, so we started working and putting in all the work-flow processes, developing the forms, doing pretty much everything that goes with running a jail,” he added.
Taylor said personnel from both Galveston County and Montgomery County “were great assets” in the facility’s initial start-up phase.
The tent is cavernous and smells clean. People have to speak a little more loudly than usual to be heard over the constant drone of fans circulating the air above.
As the interviews continue, a line of new arrestees enters the tent, carefully escorted by facility personnel. The arrestees, all men, are dressed in sleeveless white jumpsuits and are directed single file into one of the communal holding cells that line both the long sides of the tent, metal-barred cages somehow reminiscent of horse stalls.
“We process detainees every day and we get them through here and to Briscoe and from there, they get their court hearings and are released,” Taylor said.
Recana is the private company that will run the processing center in the same way the GEO Group operates the Val Verde County Detention Center, though Taylor pointed out the Texas Commission on Jail Standards still oversees the operations of the processing center.
Taylor said most of the challenges in getting the processing center up and running dealt with getting the paperwork right.
“The system plans, the policies, the procedures. So we were able to reach out to them (the jail standards commission) and say, ‘Okay, how does this look?’ Because this is a processing center, so it doesn’t have a lot of the elements that a jail has, as far as, for instance, a disciplinary area. We don’t write inmates up for violating the inmate handbook. It was stuff like that, procedural things that. It’s new concept. It’s a tent. So they’ve always been very good about being a great resource when we need them,” Taylor said.
Recana’s Pat Marion will serve as the facility administrator once TDEM withdraws its personnel.
“We’re running it right now along with TDEM,” Marion said.
Marion said the number of employees varies depending on the number of detainees and is set by the state jail standards commission.
He said the processing center is able to house a total 100 detainees at any given time.
Marion said Recana is based in Dallas, with additional offices in Houston and Longview.
“We’re a company that’s worked 20-plus years in governmental contracting and staffing, and we fit the needs of government agencies when they need to reach out to the private sector, and that’s what we’re doing here,” Marion said.
“It’s a cooperative agreement. We work for TDEM; we’re contracted by TDEM to provide this service,” he added.
Taylor explained the process for detainees brought into the facility.
“These folks are generally arrested for trespassing. We do also have American citizens arrested for smuggling under Operation Lone Star, so we deal with anybody that’s arrested under Operation Lone Star; they’re brought here. Once they come in, they have their temperature taken, we take them over to screening, where we do a body scan to make sure they haven’t brought in any contraband . . . We’ll do a medical screening to make sure they don’t have any medical problems. We also do a mental health screening and evaluation. We have the fire department and EMS outside and have them come take a look in case we need to give additional treatment,” Taylor said.
He said detainees entering the facility are tested for COVID-19.
“If they need to go to the hospital, we’ll get them transported over there and bring them back,” he said.
The detainees are fed three times a day and given water.
The food is prepared at the TDEM base camp at the Val Verde County Fairgrounds.
Taylor said he was surprised when he first came to the processing center.
“I thought it was going to be predominantly Mexican nationals that we would be dealing with here, but that’s not what I saw. When I got here, of course there were some Mexican nationals, but – and I’m still kind of awestruck by this – some of the first ones we had were from Senegal, and we had to go find a translator that spoke Wolof, and we had the resources in place to get that translator. But it’s Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela, Honduras, Mexico, and we have the occasional Americans coming through here on smuggling charges,” Taylor said.
Asked how long the processing center would be open, neither Taylor nor Marion could provide a definitive answer
Marion said his company’s contract with TDEM is for a year.
He added there were no immediate plans to expand the facility, noting it has not yet reached its maximum capacity.
“I don’t anticipate (expansion) unless there’s an additional surge or need,” Marion said.
Croix asked Taylor what he’d like people who don’t live on the border to know “about what’s going on here.”
“Del Rio is the friendliest city I’ve ever been in. Everybody here is absolutely great. Our mission here is one of dignity and respect, to get people where they need to be. There’s no hollering, no screaming. You see news stories about some of the things that are going on in different facilities; that’s not going to happen here. We bring them in, we process them, and we get them where they need to be,” Taylor said.
“The people we get in here are tired. Some of them have been walking for days. They get in here, and they lay down and go to sleep. We feed them, give them water, and they don’t give us any problems at all. Most of them are very compliant,” Taylor added.
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