A 'double standard' for child detainees.(Bokenkamp Children's Center and T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center)

Byline: Lisa Falkenberg

Mar. 19--CORPUS CHRISTI -- Blue-jeaned boys chase a soccer ball in the sun. Girls hang out in their dorm, one crocheting an American flag wall-hanging, others grooving to music and gabbing about an upcoming spring break dance in the gym.

"Please, let us have boys there," one sassy teen pleads with administrator Hector Acevedo, who has just jokingly suggested it be an all-girl affair.

He smiles as the girls turn up a thumping Reggaeton beat on the radio and start shaking their stuff.

"Real American girls," Acevedo says, laughing.

"Claro!" one girl responds. Of course.

But these aren't American kids, no matter how much they desperately want to be. They're some of about 60 "unaccompanied minors," undocumented immigrant children largely from Central America being housed at the Bokenkamp Children's Center after making the journey from their homelands alone.

Federal law requires these children to be sent to foster care or homelike shelters like Bokenkamp while the government tries to locate family and courts weigh their immigration cases.

Life at Bokenkamp, with its bingo nights, dodge ball tournaments, trips to the beach and rigorous school days, is a stark contrast to conditions at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center, a converted medium security prison in Central Texas being used to house about 400 immigrant parents and their children, from infants to teens.

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