AUSTIN, Texas _ State officials have opened an investigation into the death of a toddler who died after leaving a South Texas immigration detention center.
Reports surfaced of the death connected to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley last week, but lawyers had not released the child's name, cause of death or the time when the death happened. Lawyers contacted the state Thursday and released the child's name after Hank Whitman, the commissioner of the Department of Family Protective Services, pleaded in a public hearing on Thursday that they do so.
"I hope he's listening to this: Please give us the name of the child," Whitman told state lawmakers during a joint hearing of the House Human Services and Public Health committees. "We have no way of knowing otherwise ... I need to know the name of that child so we can investigate thoroughly."
The department did not publicly release the child's name or other details, which an agency spokesman said are confidential. Investigators will look into whether abuse or neglect at the center was connected to the child's death.
A spokeswoman for CoreCivic, the company which runs the detention center in Dilley, said it did not provide medical or mental health care services or staffing at the facility. That responsibility belonged "solely" to Immigration and Customs Enforcement Health Services Corps.
"CoreCivic staff at (South Texas Family Residential Center) do not make medical or mental health treatment determinations and are trained to refer all detainee health or medical concerns, whether routine or acute, to facility medical staff for evaluation, triage and treatment," said Amanda Gilchrist, the company's director of public affairs.
She added: "There have been no deaths in custody at the South Texas Family Residential Center. Once the individuals in our care have left our facilities, we receive no further information about them."
A spokeswoman for ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The agency was adamant last week that a child did not die at the facility, but said that without further information it could not investigate allegations further.
Arnold & Porter, a Washington-based law firm, said last week it had been hired by the mother of the child who died but had no further comment. The firm did not respond to a request for comment Thursday.
"One of the things that concerns me is that when somebody throws something like that out there but then they don't give the name. It's just irresponsible in my opinion," said Rep. Richard Raymond, a Democrat from Laredo who heads the House Human Services committee.
Raymond added the discussion on detention centers to the joint meeting after a request from fellow Democrat Carol Alvarado. Alvarado said on Friday she was concerned about reports of a toddler who died after leaving the Dilley center and allegations of sexual abuse at similar centers in Arizona, operated by Southwest Key, a nonprofit that also has centers in Texas and has a pending application for another in Houston.
She asked the state to halt all licenses for such facilities until an investigation into the reported death could be completed.
Officials with the Health and Human Services Commission, which is in charge of licensing the facilities, told lawmakers that the state did not have the authority to deny an application until an investigation was conducted. Four applications for these licenses are currently pending.
"I want to be real clear," said Victoria Ford, chief policy officer of the Health and Human Services Commission. "If they turn in all the required paperwork and meet all the requirements, the state requires us _ the statute says _ 'We shall issue the license.'"
State officials said that violations in other states would not stop the commission from issuing a license as long as the companies complied with Texas laws.
But the state can investigate facilities where abuse is alleged and had done so 51 times this year. Nine investigations were still pending, but the rest had been ruled unfounded, Whitman said.
"I don't care where a child is from," Raymond said. "If they're sitting in a facility in the state of Texas that we license where they are supposed to be taken care of, I don't care where they're from. I certainly would not put up with them being abused, neglected in any way. ... If there's any kind of abuse going on, I would expect those facilities to be shut down."
Alvarado said she thought the committee had spurred the lawyers into releasing the child's name. She added that she was taken aback when state regulators said they could not delay an application for a license even if allegations of abuse arose from another state.
"I think there needs to be some flexibility when you have situations like this come up," Alvarado told The Dallas Morning News after the hearing. "I just don't know how you can let the same company have another license. We shouldn't be hiding behind the fact that was in Arizona. It's still the same company, it's still the same leadership."
Alvarado, who is running for the state Senate seat vacated by Sylvia Garcia, said she plans to propose legislation to address that next session. She said doctors who lose their licenses in another state are not allowed to practice in Texas by the state's medical board and that same approach should be taken for companies who apply for licenses to run detention centers for children. She also pointed to the "pass the trash" law passed in the 2017 legislative session, which aimed to prevent teachers who had inappropriate relationships with students from teaching in other districts.
"I think that's something I'll take a look at," she said.
