Tents Put Up at Prison as INS Prepares to Deport or Jail Aliens

The Immigration and Naturalization Service on Tuesday erected tents inside a fence topped with barbed wire at a minimum-security prison under a plan to speed up processing of aliens and to jail those who are denied political asylum but refuse to accept immediate deportation.

State Department officials began making recommendations on asylum applications under a plan announced Monday to deal with an influx of Central American immigrants and accelerate the weeding out of “frivolous” asylum claims.

Applicants for asylum will get an answer as early as the same day and will be subject to detention if their plea is denied, officials said.

Before Tuesday, applications could take weeks to process, and aliens were released on their own recognizance while they awaited appeals or deportation.

The INS began erecting tents at its rural Port Isabel Service Processing Center in Bayview just north of Brownsville in case the number of detainees at the facility exceeds its 1,000-bed capacity. As many as 5,000 people can be detained in the large circus-like tents within the 315 acres, officials said.

A fence topped with barbed wire surrounds the compound.

The Texas Catholic Conference, an Austin organization of Roman Catholic bishops in Texas, said the new policy “ignores the facts of life in Central America that are causing the massive influx of refugees to our country.”

“The INS . . . speaks of ‘frivolous’ applications. Apparently any applications by people who have suffered dreadfully from civil war are frivolous,” it said. “Obviously we are about to witness the creation of the largest concentration camp on U.S. soil since the incarceration of Japanese-Americans during World War II--a shameful page in our history.”

The Catholic Church has been assisting aliens through several organizations and operates a shelter for newly arrived Central Americans. “Apparently the INS is unaware of President Bush’s plea for a kinder, gentler America,” the statement said.

Sen. Lloyd Bentsen (D-Tex.) called the new policy a “real step forward.”

“The old policy simply dumped the Central American immigration problem into the laps of citizens and local governments in South Texas, and now the INS has stepped forward to take some responsibility for the immigrants,” Bentsen said.

Delia Combs, assistant INS commissioner for refugees, asylum and parole, said two State Department officers were reviewing the applications Tuesday and making recommendations for accepting or denying pleas for refugee status.

Only immigrants who can show persecution are entitled to asylum; those who come to better themselves economically can be deported. The INS maintains that most Central Americans arriving in South Texas do not qualify for refugee status.