"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt. To see my complete professional bio, just click on the link below.
Over the course of four days in June, Keylin says, U.S. Border Patrol guards would kick her body to keep her awake throughout the night. The 16-year-old, whose last name was redacted from court documents, told a lawyer that she would lie in fear on the cement floor of the Border Patrol station in Texas, surrounded by chain-link fence. She was separated from her mother, who had been held at gunpoint three times in Honduras, after they crossed the U.S. border.
According to a court filing, Keylin says the female guards also made girls “strip naked” in front of them before taking a shower, so they could leer at their bodies (her mother, Daise, corroborated her daughter’s account in a statement she gave to a lawyer). She adds that guards called the group of migrants “filthy” and “made fun of us.”
Keylin barely ate because she says the food was frozen, and she wasn’t given a toothbrush or toothpaste. Though she says the cells were so cold that she shivered and developed pain in her leg, the teen kept quiet. The guards said that anyone with an injury would be detained longer, and she couldn’t take that chance.
“I was very frightened and depressed the entire time,” Keylin told a lawyer on June 29, after she had been transferred to a family detention center and reunited with her mother. “I am still depressed. I also have nightmares and a lot of anxiety because of the separation.” At the time of their June 29 declaration, there was no plan for Keylin and her mother’s release.
HuffPost learned that the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law filed a report in a federal court in Los Angeles on Monday with more than 200 accounts from migrant children and their parents, detailing the horrific conditions they face in Border Patrol stations, Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities and detention centers. The allegations, which HuffPost reviewed, include physical and verbal assault, untenable sleeping conditions and unsanitary drinking water.
JOHN MOORE VIA GETTY IMAGES
A girl from Central America rests on thermal blankets at a detention facility run by the U.S. Border Patrol on Sept. 8, 2014, in McAllen, Texas.
Peter Schey, the executive director of the law center’s foundation, wrote in the case filing that roughly 90 percent of the testimony he and a team of about 100 lawyers collected is “shocking and atrocious” and that the children they’ve spoken to were “crying, trembling, hungry, thirsty, sleepless, sick, and terrified.”
“The treatment of these children amounts to torture,” Schey told HuffPost, adding that the situation has become worse under the Trump administration. “We see a policy of enforced hunger, enforced dehydration and enforced sleeplessness coupled with routine insults and physical assaults.”
ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CPB) did not return HuffPost’s requests for comment.
Over the past two months, Schey and other lawyers have conducted interviews with migrant parents and children, some of whom were separated from one another under Trump’s zero tolerance policy, which stepped up the use of criminal prosecutions. The court filing does not include the current status of each child, and most said they were not told of their legal rights, including the right to be speedily released to a legal guardian or relative.
On July 27, the attorney will argue in federal court that the stations and facilities housing children are failing to meet the basic standards for hygiene, food, sleeping conditions and medical care, which are outlined in a 1997 court case called the Flores settlement.
Once migrants cross the border, they are put in short-term Border Patrol stations for a few days before being transferred to detention centers or shelters. While some kids have reported good conditions in longer-term shelters ― friendly staff, movie nights and field trips ― advocates and immigration experts have long considered Border Patrol facilities to be inhumane.
In May, Dixiana, whose last name is edited out along with those of all the other migrants interviewed in the court filing, says she was separated from her mother and taken to a Border Patrol station known as a “hielera” ― Spanish for “ice box” in reference to the cold temperature. The 10-year-old from Honduras told a lawyer her cell was so crowded that she and other girls had to sleep on the floor or while sitting up under bright lights.
She cried at the thought of never seeing her mother again, as did others in her cell.
For breakfast, Dixiana says a guard gave her a frozen ham sandwich but failed to bring her and her cellmates water. “The ham was black,” she told a lawyer. “I took one bite, but did not eat the rest because of the taste.” (One mother from Honduras said, “You could feel the ice when you bit into the sandwich.”)
After 12 hours, Dixiana was transferred to what she calls the “perrera”―Spanish for “dog house,” a reference to the chain-link fencing ― where she could see her mom in another cell. At one point when she was half asleep, Dixiana says a male officer kicked her awake while looking for a girl with a similar name to hers. Over the course of the next few days, she sat in a windowless cell with no idea if it was day or night, crying because she missed her mother.
Subscribe to the Politics email.
How will Trump’s administration impact you?
The statements collected by lawyers clearly show that Border Patrol stations are no place for children. One mother, Floridalma, described how she and her 3-year-old were put in a 10-by-10-foot room with three other mothers and their children. Since they had only two mattresses, the group slept with their heads on the padding and their bodies on the cement floor.
U.S. CUSTOMS AND BORDER PROTECTION VIA REUTERS
Children at Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley Centralized Processing Center in Rio Grande City, Texas, on June 17.
Ruth, the mother of a 7-year-old boy, says the Border Patrol station was so cold that children were crying and getting sick. While she was separated from her son, she watched other women’s children get fevers, vomit and cough, while the guards refused to provide medicine.
The Border Patrol stations also fail to meet basic hygiene standards, according to the court filing. Many of the children describe the guards giving them water that tasted like chlorine. “I only drank it twice because I didn’t trust it,” said Justin, a 13-year-old from El Salvador. “It made me feel funny in my stomach the times I drank it.“ One mother, named Yojana, said, “We had to drink water from the toilet to keep hydrated.”
Children described going more than five days without bathing and having limited access to soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Fatima says that her 8-year-old daughter had to wear soiled underwear for two days because the guards wouldn’t allow her to use the shower.
Children also spoke to lawyers about issues in family detention centers and Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters, where they are detained for longer periods of time. Since June 8, 15-year-old Elmer has been staying in Casa Padre, America’s largest migrant children’s shelter, which MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff described as resembling a “prison or jail.”
Elmer says that he is always hungry because there’s not enough food and that he wasn’t allowed to see a doctor when he felt sick. The 16-year-old says he told a lawyer that, although the boys, ages 10 to 17, are allowed outside for two hours a day, it is “unbearable” because there is nothing to protect them from the scorching sun. Elmer says that the guards don’t allow him to go to church and that he is rarely given any alone time in his room to process his feelings of loneliness and anxiety.
In addition to the horrible conditions within stations and shelters, children complained about the staff. The case filing contains multiple accounts of kids who say they were kicked by guards while sleeping, as well as instances of verbal abuse. Sixteen-year-old Erick says the guards in a California Border Patrol station call him and the other Guatemalan boys “burros,” the Spanish word for “donkey” or “stupid.” Another youth, whose name was completely blacked out in the court filing, said to a lawyer: “When I told the CPB officer that my mother was killed they made fun of me and said that I was ‘weak.’ I did not feel comfortable after that sharing my fear.”
While pediatricians and counselors have spoken about the long-term trauma that will result from family separation, children say in the court filing that their guards are less sympathetic.
Since Sergio was separated from his father and taken to Casa Padre in early June, he’s become so consumed with worry he can’t sleep. The 16-year-old has only been able to speak with his dad for 20 minutes in the last 45 days, and he told a lawyer that his father is getting deported. When a guard found him crying in the bathroom one night, Sergio said the man accused him of being a “crybaby,” an insult he followed with an English phrase that another boy translated as “swear words.” “The way I have been treated makes me feel like I don’t matter,” he said, “like I am trash.”
Schey, who conducted interviews with children in Casa Padre last week, said the separated kids he spoke with are “traumatized.” “They are not getting mental health services. They are experiencing depression and anxiety… and nightmares and sleeplessness.”
The law center’s court filing, which is more than 1,500 pages long, paints a dark picture of the cruel conditions many migrant children suffer through. On July 27, Schey will present their declarations in federal court and ask U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee to appoint an independent monitor who has the power to make sure facilities are meeting the standards outlined in the Flores settlement.
“This story is more than just separating children from their parents,” he told HuffPost. “The bigger picture is forced starvation and sleeplessness and terrorizing these children.”
*********************************************
What kind of country puts innocent kids in abusive prisons while letting their abusers hold public office?
EXCLUSIVE: ICE attorneys STILL trying to deport immigrant children WITHOUT their parents despite Trump’s promises to reunify families
ICE attorneys are still trying to deport immigrant children without their parents
This is despite Trump saying the government is doing all it can to reunify families
Immigration judges will decide if children are deported alone to home countries
ICE officials say attorneys must represent the agency’s position on a case-by-case basis and efforts to deport children don’t necessarily preclude reunification
PUBLISHED: 13:45 EDT, 18 July 2018 | UPDATED: 17:11 EDT, 18 July 2018
Attorneys for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are still attempting to deport immigrant children – alone – despite Trump administration claims that it is doing all it can to reunite them with their parents, DailyMail.com has learned.
ICE attorneys in immigration courts ‘have never, not for a second said, “We’re going to do something to reunite these kids,” in court,’ Anthony Enriquez, an attorney and director of the Unaccompanied Minors Program for Catholic Charities Community Services, told DailyMail.com. The group represents separated immigrant children inNew York City.
‘They have always taken the position that these kids need to be deported and that’s that: It doesn’t matter how old they are, get them out of here,’ Enriquez added.
A spokeswoman for ICE told DailyMail.com that it is the job of ICE attorneys to represent the agency’s position before immigration judges on a case-by-case basis, and that efforts to deport the children don’t necessarily preclude reunification after a removal order has been issued.
+5
Young migrant boys, whose faces can not be shown, are seen at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Facility in Tucson, Arizona on June 28, 2018
Between April and June, the Trump administration separated more than 2,300 children from their parents after the families came into the country – legally and illegally – across the southern U.S. border as part of a ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy. The move sparked massive public outrage, leading to Trump ending it through an executive order on June 20.
A court has ordered the government to reunite all children with their parents by July 26.
Anthony Enriquez is the director of the Unaccompanied Minor Program at Catholic Charities Community Services, Immigration and Refugee Services. The group represents immigrant children in New York City who have been separated from their parents
While the Trump administration now reports that all eligible children age 4 and younger have been reunited, many more young children are still working their way through the complex federal system as they wait to one day again see their mothers and fathers.
The children’s cases first land in immigration court during ‘master calendar’ hearings, which are open to the public. More than a dozen juvenile cases can come before the judges in a single day.
In New York City, many immigrant children who have been separated from their parents are represented by Catholic Charities Community Services attorneys, who typically seek a continuance to give the children time to locate parents and determine if they have a case to stay in the country through asylum or otherwise.
On a recent day during one of these so-called ‘juvie dockets,’ an ICE attorney in the courtroom of New York City immigration Judge Helen Sichel repeatedly sought to advance deportation proceedings against children as young as 7, and challenged efforts by Catholic Charities to learn the location and legal disposition of their parents.
The ICE attorney objected to requests for continuances and asked the judge why locating the parents was necessary and relevant, given that the government had enough to make a case that the children were aliens and deportable.
+5
President Donald Trump, accompanied by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen (L) and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (R), displays an executive order he signed in the White House on June 20 that will end the practice of separating family members apprehended at the southern U.S. border
The attorney for Catholic Charities argued that otherwise these children could wind up alone in their home country.
On this particular day and in this courtroom, the judge decided in favor of the children.
‘It has to be clear and unequivocal that there is someone in the home country who can take care of him when he arrives,’ Sichel said. ‘He’s only eight.’
However, children in other parts of the country may not fare so well: Immigration judges in New York State are the most likely to grant asylum, with a 34 percent denial rate, according to federal data obtained by the Daily Mail. By comparison, immigration judges in North Carolina and Georgia have a 96 percent asylum denial rate.
Imelda Maynard is a staff attorney for Catholic Charities in southern New Mexico, which has a 91 percent denial rate in asylum cases. In that region the organization primarily represents parents who have been separated from their children.
‘I, personally, have not been able to get a clear answer out of ICE on how we can assist them in the reunification efforts,’ Maynard told DailyMail.com. ‘The kids we have found have been all over the country. We’ve found kids in New York, Florida, Chicago, and their parents are here in New Mexico.’
The younger children may not always be aware of what is going on as their fate is being decided, said a New York-based interpreter who asked to remain anonymous to avoid losing the job.
‘They kind of sit there and smile at you and they know that they’re in court, but they’re not really understanding the whole process,’ the interpreter told DailyMail.com. ‘It’s kind of useless to interpret for them because they’re not really getting a grasp of what’s happening, what my role is, what the attorneys’ roles are and who is really helping them stay … it’s heart breaking.’
+5
The likelihood of whether an immigrant’s application will be successful varies dramatically depending on the state in which their case is heard. New York was the most likely to welcome asylum seekers, with only 34 percent denied in 2018, while immigration judges in North Carolina and Georgia had a 96 percent denial rate
Santiago, 7, recently attended a court session in New York City wearing a Batman shirt and a big grin. His feet dangled a foot above the ground and he cast smiles toward the other kids waiting their turn before the judge.
Later on, Rosa, 8, looked more scared as she sat before the judge. She wore a yellow tutu and red sneakers and whispered her name when asked. She had already been detained for 55 days.
Ana Christina, 15, was one of the lucky ones. She was to be reunited with her father in a week after 123 days of detention – though it remained unclear if they would be allowed to stay in the country.
Each of their proceedings took just a few minutes. Children can wait up to 60 days in detention before receiving a notice to appear, Enriquez said.
‘If you are a minor and you have no legal claim to be in the country, then yeah, we have to put you through the procedure and initiate removal proceedings,’ Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the anti-immigration Federation for American Immigration Reform, told DailyMail.com.
‘It would be much, much better if their parents were with them, but under the current conditions we do not have the option of detaining the children and parents together for more than 20 days,’ Mehlman added.
If the children are sent to their home countries, many would face horrific violence and poverty – particularly in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, said Lucy Luna, executive director of the Salvadorian Association for Rural Health in El Salvador. The organization works with poor children in rural communities.
‘The police are killing the gangsters, the gangs are killing the police,’ Luna told DailyMail.com. ‘Between those situations there are people who have to survive every day.’
In one case, Luna’s organization has been working with a 5-year-old girl who attempted suicide by jumping out of a window onto a nearby electric fence. That is the level of desperation driving these families into the United States, she said.
+5
A view of inside U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention facility shows children at Rio Grande Valley Centralized Processing Center in Rio Grande City, Texas, June 17, 2018
+5
A young demonstrator participates in the Families Belong Together – Freedom For Immigrants March at Los Angeles City Hall on June 30
‘The situation in the country is you’re going to live or die,’ she said. ‘When people make the decision to go to the U.S. border they know what is going to happen, but there is no community here, so the only choice they have is to go.’
Details on the separation of children from parents at the southern U.S. border emerged in April when the New York Times reported that the process had begun no later than October 2017.
The Trump administration initially denied such a policy existed, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testifying before Congress in April that separation was not being used as a deterrent, but done in the best interest of the child.
Her testimony came shortly after Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the ‘zero tolerance’ policy, which directed the government to prosecute all adult immigrants entering the country illegally, resulting in the separation of families.
‘If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law,’ Sessions said in May. ‘If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.’
Outrage reached a crescendo in June when ProPublica released audio of 10 Central American children sobbing and screaming for ‘Mami’ and ‘Papa’ at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol facility.
By June 20, the public anger pressured Trump into signing an executive order directing that families be reunited. On June 30 protests were held in more than 700 U.S. cities in opposition of Trump’s handling of the issue.
Timeline: Separation at the Border
March 7, 2017: John Kelly, former secretary of Homeland Security confirms that the Trump administration is considering separating families at the border as a deterrent.
April 6, 2018: Attorney General Jeff Sessions announces a ‘zero tolerance policy’ ordering the government to prosecute all adult migrants entering the country illegally, which leads to the separation of children from their parents.
April 11, 2018: Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testifies in Congress that there is no policy to deter immigration through separation of families.
April 20, 2018: The New York Times reports that more than 700 children have been separated from their parents since October 2017.
June 15, 2018: The Department of Homeland Security reveals nearly 2,000 children have been separated from their parents since the zero tolerance policy was introduced in April.
June 18, 2018: President Donald Trump repeats previous claims that family separation is the fault of Democrats in Congress and that he is unable to do anything about the situation, saying: ‘We could have an immigration bill, we could have child separation. We’re stuck with these horrible laws. They’re horrible laws. What’s happening is so sad. It’s so sad.’
June 20, 2018: Facing a national backlash, Trump signs an executive order to end the separation of parents from children. More than 2,300 had been separated from their children during the zero tolerance policy, according to Homeland Security.
June 27, 2018: In response to an ACLU lawsuit, a federal judge ordered the reunification of the thousands of parents and children forcibly separated by the Trump administration. In its ruling, the court said all children must be reunited within 30 days; children under five within 14 days; and all parents must be able to speak with their children within 10 days.
*************************************
I keep coming back to Eugene Robinson’s question: Why aren’t these scofflaw officials and their attorneys in jail for contempt of court? Seems like we’re filling our jails with the wrong folks!
Documents reveal DHS knew ending protections could cause more, not less, illegal immigration
By Tal Kopan, CNN
The Trump administration was warned by intelligence analysts that ending protections for hundreds of thousands of Central Americans living in the US would likely drive a spike in illegal immigration. They did it anyway.
That intelligence assessment was made public late Tuesday as part of an ongoing lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security over the termination of Temporary Protected Status for citizens of multiple countries, many of whom have lived in the US upwards of two decades.
Questions have swirled since the administration began systematically terminating the majority of TPS designations on the books, impacting more than 400,000 immigrants who have lived in the US for years. The administration justified the moves by citing the law, saying that the Department of Homeland Security was compelled to end the protections because conditions from the original disasters that precipitated the protected status had improved.
But the intelligence report and another email from the acting secretary last year to White House chief of staff John Kelly add to other uncovered documents that raise serious questions about whether the Trump administration ignored its own experts’ analysis and recommendations to fulfill a pre-ordained objective.
The email explains that the administration was intending to “send a clear signal that TPS in general is coming to a close.”
The analysts’ report and email were revealed as part of a dispute in the lawsuit over the production of the internal documents that were used to come to the decision. Attorneys representing the immigrants suing in the case argue the government has been too slow to produce the documents.
Much like Sessions’s uncalled for action in overruling Matter of A-R-C-G- on domestic violence, the Administration took a part of the immigration system that was working well, benefitting both the U.S. and migrants, and causing no harm, and made it a problem. Guided by White Nationalism, rather than the law, sound advice, or pragmatism, this Administration’s immigration policies aim to “ramp up” undocumented immigration to build the unneeded “Wall.” Then, when that also predictably fails to stem the tide, they will claim that there is a fake “immigration emergency” and seek to impose extraordinary measures to deal with mess that they created.
It’s like the “Reichstag Fire” over and over again. Don’t let them get away with it!
No immigration crisis here; this is a humanitarian crisis created solely by the cruel and perverted actions of this Administration;
Good Government solves problems; the Trump Administration creates problems that it has neither plans nor the ability to solve = Bad Government;
It’s always easier to create a mess than to clean it up;
Each individual lawsuit against the Trump Administration is an important step in upholding American democracy;
Only the Article III Courts have the ability to get some truth out of an inherently dishonest and disingenuous Administration;
The free press is playing a critical role in exposing the intentional cruelty, incompetence, and fundamental dishonesty of the Trump Administration;
Messing with kids is always stupid as well as inhumane;
Under the GOP, Congress has abdicated its role, basically leaving the Executive and the Judiciary to govern;
Right now, Trump has the upper hand with the GOP Congress stuffing the Courts with “go along to get along” appointees who won’t stand up for our country or to Trump & Sessions!
CONCLUSION: WE NEED REGIME CHANGE NOW! THE ONLY WAY TO GET IT WILL BE AT THE BALLOT BOX THIS FALL. GET OUT THE VOTE! JUST SAY NO TO TRUMP, SESSIONS, THEIR GOP ENABLERS & THEIR REGIME OF CRUELTY, INCOMPETENCE, & DISHONESTY!
Here’s Emily Kassie’s short documentary containing actual descriptions from victims and their abusers. Also starring refugee advocates Michele Brane of the Women Refugee Commisson, Barbara Hines, Esq., and others who “blow the whistle” on Sessions’s depraved policies and the unnecessary pain and suffering they are causing!
I Just Simply Did What He Wanted’: Sexual Abuse Inside Immigrant Detention Facilities – Video – NYTimes.com
So, get this! Gonzo, for no particular reason, reverses a well-established, working precedent — agreed upon by all parties, sponsored by DHS, and the product of 15 years of painstaking work by attorneys on both sides — that protected abused women under our refugee laws. This precedent, Matter of A-R-C-G-, actually saved lives and helped some of the most deserving and long-suffering refugees I dealt with in my decades long career enter and contribute to U.S. society. It was a perfect example of how asylum law could and should work to protect the most vulnerable! A “win – win” for the refugees and for our country!
Then, Sessions intentionally creates a system where these already abused refugees are detained and further abused and persecuted in the United States. Then, he returns them (without fair consideration of their claims for protection) to the countries in which they were persecuted to face further abuse, torture, or death.
The problems faced by women in detention were well-known in the Obama Administration. In fact, the Trump Administration immediately abolished the office within DHS that had been established to deal with allegations of sexual abuse. So, this isn’t “mere negligence.” It’s knowing and intentional misconduct! Usually, that results in criminal prosecution or civil liability!
How perverse is Sessions? I’ll go back to Eugene Robinson’s question from a recent blog posted on “courtside:” Why aren’t kidnappers, child abusers, and promoters of sexual abuse like Sessions and his White Nationalist cronies in jail rather than holding high office?https://wp.me/p8eeJm-2O8
WE ARE DIMINISHING OURSELVES AS A NATION, BUT, THAT WON’T STOP HUMAN MIGRATION!
President Donald Trump meets with President Vladimir Putin of Russia at the G-20 Summit, in Hamburg, Germany, in July 2017. CreditEvan Vucci/Associated Press
Put aside whatever suspicions you may have about whether Donald Trump will be directly implicated in the Russia investigation.
Trump is right now, before our eyes and those of the world, committing an unbelievable and unforgivable crime against this country. It is his failure to defend.
The intelligence community long ago concluded that Russia attacked our election in 2016 with the express intention of damaging Hillary Clinton and assisting Trump.
“In 2016, cyber actors affiliated with the Russian Government conducted an unprecedented, coordinated cyber campaign against state election infrastructure. Russian actors scanned databases for vulnerabilities, attempted intrusions, and in a small number of cases successfully penetrated a voter registration database. This activity was part of a larger campaign to prepare to undermine confidence in the voting process.”
And this is not simply a thing that happened once. This is a thing that is still happening and will continue to happen. As Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats told the committee in February, “Persistent and disruptive cyberoperations will continue against the United States and our European allies using elections as opportunities to undermine democracy.” As he put it, “Frankly, the United States is under attack.”
The Robert Mueller investigation is looking into this, trying to figure out what exactly happened in 2016, who all was involved, which laws were broken and who will be charged and tried.
“Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has either indicted or gotten guilty pleas from 32 people and three companies — that we know of. That group is composed of four former Trump advisers, 26 Russian nationals, three Russian companies, one California man, and one London-based lawyer. Five of these people (including three former Trump aides) have already pleaded guilty.”
Twelve of those indictments came last week with a disturbingly detailed account of what the Russians did. As The New York Times put it:
“From phishing attacks to gain access to Democratic operatives, to money laundering, to attempts to break into state elections boards, the indictment details a vigorous and complex effort by Russia’s top military intelligence service to sabotage the campaign of Mr. Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.”
Whether or not Trump himself or anyone in his orbit personally colluded or conspired with the Russians about their interference is something Mueller will no doubt disclose at some point, but there remains one incontrovertible truth: In 2016, Russia, a hostile foreign adversary, attacked the United States of America.
We know that they did it. We have proof. The F.B.I. is trying to hold people accountable for it.
And yet Trump, the president whom the Constitution establishes as the commander in chief, has repeatedly waffled on whether Russia conducted the attack and has refused to forcefully rebuke them for it, let alone punish them for it.
In March, the White House, under pressure from Congress, seemed to somewhat reluctantly impose some sanctions on Russia for its crimes. As CNN reported that month, Congress almost unanimously passed the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act last summer, “hoping to pressure Trump into punishing Russia for its election interference.” But as the network pointed out:
“Trump signed the bill reluctantly in August, claiming it impinged upon his executive powers and could dampen his attempts to improve ties with Moscow.”
Instead, Trump has repeatedly attacked the investigation as a witch hunt.
Just last week at a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May, Trump said:
“I think I would have a very good relationship with Putin if we spend time together. After watching the rigged witch-hunt yesterday, I think it really hurts our country and our relationship with Russia. I hope we can have a good relationship with Russia.”
Now Trump is set to pursue just such a relationship as he meets one-on-one with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on Monday in Finland. As Trump said earlier this month at a rally:
“Will he be prepared? Will he be prepared? And I might even end up having a good relationship, but they’re going, ‘Will President Trump be prepared? You know, President Putin is K.G.B. and this and that.’ You know what? Putin’s fine. He’s fine. We’re all fine. We’re people.”
Actually, none of this is fine. None of it! Trump should be directing all resources at his disposal to punish Russia for the attacks and prevent future ones. But he is not.
America’s commander wants to be chummy with the enemy who committed the crime. Trump is more concerned with protecting his presidency and validating his election than he is in protecting this country.
This is an incredible, unprecedented moment. America is being betrayed by its own president. America is under attack and its president absolutely refuses to defend it.
Simply put, Trump is a traitor and may well be treasonous.
Charles M. Blow has been an Op-Ed columnist since 2008. His column appears every Monday and Thursday. He joined The Times in 1994 and was previously the graphics director. He also wrote the book “Fire Shut Up in My Bones.” @CharlesMBlow•Facebook
*************************************
Yup! Bogusly claiming that desperate refugees are a threat to our national security, failing to protect us, and in fact enabling and furthering the actual existential threats to our security from Putin. That’s Trump and his “fellow traveler” supporters!
Remember all oft he nonsense about the “Kobach Commission” and their bogus search for almost nonexistent “undocumented voters?” Compare all the pontificating about the “integrity of our election process” with the Administration’s “shrug off” of hard evidence that a foreign power actually did attempt to interfere in our elections with the purpose of sowing discord and electing Trump?
Trump makes enemies out of our friends, creates non-existent enemies, and treats our country’s enemies as if they were our friends!
‘Each day is more painful than the last’: Parents separated from kids beg US public for help
A section of the letter to the US people from parents at the Port Isabel Service Detention Center.
(CNN)In an act of sheer desperation, dozens of migrant parents separated from their children wrote an open letter to the US public, hoping someone — anyone — can help get them out of this “nightmare.”
The joint letter, from 54 detainees at the Port Isabel Service Detention Center in Los Fresnos, Texas, said the parents came to save the lives of their children. That their children don’t recognize their voices anymore. That they never expected the trauma they’re enduring.
Here’s the text of the parents’ letter, translated from Spanish:
July 15, 2018
To the United States public:
Please help us. We are desperate parents.
We are not criminals, but we need your help.
We came to this country to save our lives and the lives of our children. We were not prepared for the nightmare that we faced here. The United States government, kidnapped our children with tricks and didn’t give us the opportunity to say goodbye.
It’s been more than a month and we haven’t been told much about our children. They are living in places with strangers. We’ve been told that some children are living with new families. Each day is more painful that the last.
Many of us have only spoken with our children once when we have the opportunity to speak with them (which is very difficult because the social worker never answers.) The children cry, they don’t recognize our voices and they feel abandoned and unloved. This makes us feel dead in life. Even with all this trauma, nightmares, anguish and pain that this government is imposing on us and our children, we still have to fight for our asylum cases. But the government doesn’t give us the opportunity to fight our cases and the judges don’t give us the opportunity to speak up.
The asylum official is denying nearly all cases and so are the judges. They don’t give us an opportunity to explain why we came here. We also feel pressured to sign for our deportation as a quick means to reunite with our children.
We feel like there is no way out of this nightmare because the asylum officials and the judges are against us.
Please help us and bring justice to Texas!
Letter translated by CNN’s Rosa Flores.
*********************************
Each day, Jeff Sessions mocks our legal system, degrades America as a country, and each of us as human beings! As those he persecutes appear more human, we are dehumanized by allowing Sessions to continue his program of child abuse!
In June, once school let out in rural Dutchess County, New York, I packed up my 7-year-old son and drove 2,054 miles to the Texas-Mexico border. I needed to see with my own eyes what is happening to migrant children separated from their parents as a result of the Trump administration’s escalated “zero tolerance” immigration policy.
I told my son we were going, in person, to demand the reunion of children and parents. Gabe was up for the trip, no questions asked, as he always is when I tell him there is activism to be done. After two nights of sleeping in our car, three days of driving, and 1,764 inquiries of “are we there yet,” we arrived in Texas.
We visited six shelters in the border towns of Raymondville, Combes and Brownsville, and asked for tours. We were denied. Next, we asked to speak with representatives from BCFS or Southwest Key Programs, the organizations that operate these shelters. We were denied again. We were given business cards with the names of public relations officials to call, and repeatedly directed back to the Department of Health & Human Services’ Administration for Children & Families.
None of these contacts promptly returned my calls. So we pitched a tent outside Casa El Presidente, the “tender age” shelter operated by Southwest Key Programs in Brownsville, where children from the ages of 0 to 12 are being held, and we hunkered down for the night. Two weeks later, we are still here.
Our message is this: Reunite these small children with their detained parents now.
Every morning between 9 and 9:45 we can hear the sounds of children playing not far from our encampment. To get close enough to the opaque playground fence outside the shelter, we have to trespass in front of an abandoned building on the adjacent lot. From there, we can see the shapes of children running around — their little feet under the fence, the balls they are playing with flying up in the air. But we must make our glimpses stealthy and quick: Within 15 minutes, without fail, a police car arrives and circles the abandoned lot. Someone inside Southwest Key Programs has called the authorities because we have come too close to seeing the detained children.
COURTESY OF ASHLEY CASALE
A photo Gabe took of kids playing in the back of Casa El Presidente. In the bottom left corner are freelancers for The New York Times.
We have become buddies with news crews who are covering what is happening at Casa El Presidente, exchanging Gatorade and bags of ice and tidbits of news as they wait patiently, sometimes all day, for an official rumored to be visiting the shelter to finally appear. On the Thursday of our first week here, DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen supposedly visited, but this was not confirmed until long after her convoy of vehicles left. The members of the media here know as little about what’s going on as we do.
Last Saturday, we met a mother, Lesvia, who came to the U.S. from Guatemala with her son, Yudem, almost two months ago. She was taken into custody 56 days ago and finally released from the T. Don Hutto immigration detention center in Taylor, Texas, on Thursday. She was driven to Brownsville by representatives of the Austin-based organization Grassroots Leadership, who had advocated for her release, to have a one-hour visit with 10-year-old Yudem, who is being held at Casa El Presidente. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him in over a month. She sobbed as she was led away from our tent while CNN’s news cameras surrounded her.
She deserved to leave with him, but the Office of Refugee Resettlement under the Trump administration has created so much red tape for parents trying to get their children back that she left alone. Lesvia was told that although she showed documents proving her relationship to Yudem, she needed to be fingerprinted and submit to a background check, and may not see her son’s release for another 20 days. I hugged her, kissed her forehead and told her “I’m so sorry” and “We love you.” The Grassroots Leadership representatives translated my words, but they were just words. Her tears wouldn’t stop. There is no comfort. There is no consolation.
I’m camping here because I’m a mom of a tender age child. If it were my child being held captive, it would not be OK, so as far as I am concerned, it is not OK for any other mother or any other child.
While the Trump administration is flagrantly ignoring court-imposed deadlines and heartlessly taking its time reuniting children with their parents, each day that passes is agonizing and traumatic for the tender age children at Casa El Presidente.
I’m camping here because I’m a mom of a tender age child. If it were my child being held captive, it would not be OK, so as far as I am concerned, it is not OK for any other mother or any other child.
Every morning, Gabe reminds me that it’s time to walk a few yards over to the guards and ask for a tour. I get tired of hearing “No ma’am, we cannot let you inside” and “No ma’am, we cannot release that information” when I ask an employee about what is happening in the shelter.
But every day we still ask for a tour, and every day we call the PR spokesperson for Southwest Key Programs asking for answers.
And, without fail, each day we do not get a tour and we do not get any answers.
So we wait.
Beside our tent we paint signs that read “Complicit,” “All we’re asking for is a tour,” “Try transparency,” “We will go home when the children are reunited” and “How many separated kids do you have?” My son made a sign, not in the neatest handwriting, that simply says “Free The Kids.”
Gabe doesn’t understand why one sign says “Give Yudem to Lesvia.” Don’t we want all kids reunited? he asks. I explain that sometimes telling the story of just one family can be more powerful. I tell him it can humanize what is happening more than a sign that reads “Reunite Every Child” might.
We spent the first few days here chasing after our signs, until we finally got smart about the Texas wind and bought some twining.
NORMA HERRERA
The author holds a sign reading “Give Yudem To Lesvia.” The photo was taken by Norma Herrera from Grassroots Leadership through her car window as she was driving Lesvia away from Casa El Presidente.
Southwest Key Programs, though nominally a nonprofit, is explicitly benefiting from the separation of children and parents through hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts. The employees, security guards and constables I have met in the last two weeks are not just “doing their job” ― they’re complicit in a national atrocity.
But it’s unclear to me if they know that. One security guard, referring to a sign we’ve made that originally read “14 days is running out” and now reads “14 days is up,” asked me, “Ma’am, what does 14 days mean?”
How could he be standing out here for a 12-hour shift and not know about the now come-and-gone court-imposed deadline that required children ages 5 and under to be reunited with their parents within 14 days?
The Trump administration claimed on Thursday that all children 5 and under would be reunited by that morning “if they are eligible.” But who decides eligibility? The administration has said, rather vaguely, that factors like a criminal record, having already been deported, or being “otherwise unfit” would make parents trying to reunite with their children 5 and under ineligible. It was then decided that only 57 children were eligible for reunification, and 46 were not. When, if ever, will those 46 children under 5 be reunited? And what about the thousands of children over the age of 5 who are currently in shelters? When will they see their families again?
Subscribe to Must Reads
The internet’s best stories, and interviews with their authors.
I want my son to see that when there is injustice and we aren’t given answers, we can literally refuse to leave until we get them — even if it means pitching a tent and preparing to stay as long as it takes.
The U.S. government has created a dehumanizing frenzy surrounding the notion of “illegal immigration,” and convinced the president’s supporters that we need more hostility, more arrests, more detention centers, more Border Patrol agents, more border wall. What we really need now is an army of moms and dads patrolling the border, demanding the reunion of these children with their parents.
Finding myself unexpectedly unemployed several months ago, I had the time, freedom and privilege to personally start this patrol. The idea of taking a 9-to-5 desk job and putting my son in day care all summer while children are in detention at the border and activists and lawyers are clamoring to get them released did not feel right, so I put my job search on hold. I needed to be on the ground, adding what I could to the work being done.
On the drive down, I briefed my son on what is happening at the border, and he talked about how he hoped to make friends with the kids in the shelters. We haven’t been able to get anywhere close to that. But at the very least, I hope he’s learning about the importance and power of direct action. This mother is fighting for other mothers. This mother is demanding answers. I want my son to see that when there is injustice and we aren’t given answers, we can literally refuse to leave until we get them ― even if it means pitching a tent and preparing to stay as long as it takes. When our tent is removed (this happened last week, while it was unattended for an hour), we get a new tent, move it even closer to the entrance and make our signs even bolder. We have it all set up before sunrise.
I also want my son to see that direct action works. When Lesvia arrived for her next one-hour visit with her son this past Thursday, one thing had changed: She had brought a tent with her. She planned to camp out with me and Gabe until Yudem was released, and she made this clear to Southwest Key Programs. Her story had gained press attention, and there were members of the media waiting outside while she visited with her son. Yudem was released to her shortly after 5 p.m. on Thursday, and she never had to pitch her tent.
Seeing Yudem come out of Casa El Presidente and tearfully walk over to our tent as Grassroots Leadership members translated our signs for him was magical. Seeing his face when he saw his name on a sign, as he realized complete strangers had been advocating for his release, was magical. And when Yudem cried as his mother kissed him, it was hard for anyone there ― including the reporters ― not to weep themselves. Still, as beautiful as this moment was, we cannot forget there remain dozens of tender age children just like Yudem inside Casa El Presidente waiting to be released.
COURTESY OF ASHLEY CASALE
Lesvia kisses her son Yudem just moments after he was released from the Casa El Presidente shelter.
I finally spoke with Cindy Casares, a spokeswoman for Southwest Key Programs, after countless calls and a barrage of tweets from my handle, @BorderPatrolMom (and perhaps also after reports from inside Casa El Presidente that two people were camping outside). She wouldn’t confirm that where we’re camping is a tender age facility, although press has already confirmed this. She wouldn’t confirm how many children are inside. She wouldn’t discuss reunification plans.
The evasiveness and secrecy is all supposedly in the name of protecting confidentiality, but I believe this is about covering up the lies of the Trump administration and the brutality of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents. I believe Southwest Key Programs fully realizes that the American people would be outraged to know the truth about the suffering of the children inside, so everything is being kept under wraps. Rather than agitating for swifter reunions, they choose to play innocent and present themselves as a benevolent nonprofit simply complying with government orders. They could do more. They could do better. But it’s a good time to be in the business of immigration detention.
So, with no answers and very little having changed, we prepare for another night outside Casa El Presidente. I wouldn’t want my environmentalist friends back home to know I’m using bug spray with DEET, but we need it to ward off the Texas mosquitoes ― “little hummingbirds,” as my son calls them. We brush our teeth crouched by the front tire of our Prius, spitting toothpaste on the ground. We wash our hair using jugs of water left to heat up in the tent and shampoo ourselves in the middle of the street. It’s not exactly a glamorous life.
But every day, I’m reminded of our privilege. Every day I’m reminded that for my son, this is like a camping trip, an exciting adventure. We’re sleeping in a tent, eating food out of a cooler, tossing around a baseball with our gloves while we wait. He’ll assemble complicated Lego structures while I’m journaling or making phone calls or typing on my laptop: This is not all that different from being home. Every day I’m reminded that though it may be 100 degrees here and I may resort to dumping melted ice from the cooler over my head to cool down a bit, I have my son sitting out here with me, cuddling with me in the tent when the sun sets and waking me up when it rises. These parents and these children deserve the same.
COURTESY OF ASHLEY CASALE
Gabe sitting on our cooler.
Still, there’s more to think about, beyond and after the reunions finally happen. While most discussions about what is taking place at the border have centered on the need to reunite separated children with their parents, we should also be discussing the trauma that has been inflicted upon these tender age children, which includes having a conversation about reparations. Who will pay for the therapy they will need to begin to heal from this terrifying experience? These children are victims of state-sanctioned violence — they are essentially experiencing child abuse — and the organizations claiming to serve children are wholly complicit in this abuse.
My son and I want Southwest Key Programs to reveal the number of children inside Casa El Presidente. We want to know the ages of the children being held here. We want to know how the people running this shelter, and all the other shelters like it, plan to reunite these tender age children with their families. We want to know the timeline for making this happen. In the meantime, you can find us at our campsite, demanding answers and refusing to leave until we get them.
************************************
As Ashley makes clear, the idea that anyone in the Trump Administration is acting for the welfare or in the best interests of these children is beyond preposterous!
Sessions plans to return all brown-skinned refugees to countries where they will be “sitting ducks” for gangs and domestic abusers and the governments will either join in or willfully ignore what’s happening. In other words, he intends to sentence them to lives of abuse or perhaps death without even fairly considering their claims for refuge. He just doesn’t care, because they aren’t white.
We all should be ashamed of what America has become under Trump & Sessions.
LOS FRESNOS, Texas (AP) — Patricia Aragon told the U.S. asylum officer at her recent case assessment that she was fleeing her native Honduras because she had been robbed and raped by a gang member who threatened to kill her and her 9-year-old daughter if she went to the police.
Until recently, the 41-year-old seamstress from San Pedro Sula would have had a good chance of clearing that first hurdle in the asylum process due to a “credible fear” for her safety, but she didn’t. The officer said the Honduran government wasn’t to blame for what happened to Aragon and recommended that she not get asylum, meaning she’ll likely be sent home.
“The U.S. has always been characterized as a humanitarian country,” Aragon said through tears at Port Isabel, a remote immigration detention center tucked among livestock and grapefruit groves near Los Fresnos, a town about 15 miles (25kilometers) from the Mexico border. “My experience has been very difficult.”
As part of the Trump administration’s broader crackdown on immigration, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently tightened the restrictions on the types of cases that can qualify someone for asylum, making it harder for Central Americans who say they’re fleeing the threat of gangs, drug smugglers or domestic violence to pass even the first hurdle for securing U.S. protection.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has overturned protections for asylum seekers in a decision that could affect thousands. Sessions ruled that a 2014 Board of Immigration Appeals decision that protected domestic violence victims from Central America was wrongly decided. Under the new ruling, “the applicant must show that the government condoned the private actions or demonstrated an inability to protect the victims,” in order to qualify for asylum protection. Asylum was never meant to alleviate all problems, even all serious problems, that people face every day all over the world. I will be issuing a decision that restores sound principles of asylum and long-standing principles of immigration law.
Immigration lawyers say that’s meant more asylum seekers failing interviews with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to establish credible fear of harm in their home countries. They also say that immigration judges, who work for the Justice Department, are overwhelmingly signing off on those recommendations during appeals, effectively ending what could have been a yearslong asylum process almost before it’s begun.
“This is a direct, manipulated attack on the asylum process,” said Sofia Casini of the Austin nonprofit Grassroots Leadership, which has been working with immigrant women held at the nearby T. Don Hutto detention center who were separated from their kids under a widely condemned policy that President Donald Trump ended on June 20.
Casini said that of the roughly 35 separated mothers her group worked with, more than a third failed their credible fear interviews, which she said is about twice the failure rate of before the new restrictions took effect. Nationally, more than 2,000 immigrant children and parents have yet to be reunited, including Aragon and her daughter, who is being held at a New York children’s shelter and whose future is as unclear as her mother’s.
In order to qualify for asylum, seekers must demonstrate that they have a well-founded fear they’ll be persecuted back home based on their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinions. The interviews with USCIS asylum officers, which typically last 30 to 60 minutes, are sometimes done by phone. Any evidence asylum seekers present to support their claims must be translated into English, and they often don’t have lawyers present.
. . . .
“The asylum officer conducting credible fear (interviews) has been instructed to apply A.B., so when the person says, ‘My boyfriend or my husband beat me’ it’s, ‘So what, you lose,'” said Paul W. Schmidt, a former immigration judge in Arlington, Virginia, who retired in 2016. “It then goes to the immigration judge, who has just been ordered to follow Sessions’ precedent — and most of them want to keep their jobs and they just rubber stamp it, and there’s no meaningful appeal.”
. . . .
**************************************
Read the full article at the link.
The now long forgotten “EOIR Vision” developed by our Executive Group in the late 1990s was “To be the world’s best administrative tribunals guaranteeing fairness and due process for all.”
Under Sessions, the U.S. Immigration Courts have been converted into kangaroo courts that are a parody of Due Process and fairness. Since the Immigration Courts are one of the foundations upon which the U.S. Justice System rests, that doesn’t bode well for justice or the future of our country as a Constitutional democratic republic.
(CNN)A federal judge on Monday ordered the US government to temporarily pause deportations of reunited families to allow attorneys time to debate whether he should more permanently extend that order.
San Diego-based US District Court Judge Dana Sabraw addressed the issue at the top of a status hearing in a continuing family separations case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Sabraw ordered the pause to allow for a full written argument on the ACLU’s request to pause deportations of parents for a week after reunification.
The ACLU argued that the week would be necessary for parents to have time to fully consider the decision whether to have their children deported along with them.
The ACLU’s filing was made earlier Monday morning, and Sabraw gave the Department of Justice a week to respond.
But in the meantime, he ordered a “stay” of deportations until that issue can be litigated.
Lawyers for the ACLU said their motion was due to “the persistent and increasing rumors — which Defendants have refused to deny — that mass deportations may be carried out imminently and immediately upon reunification.” They argue this issue is “directly related to effectuating the Court’s ruling that parents make an informed, non-coerced decision if they are going to leave their children behind.”
“A one-week stay is a reasonable and appropriate remedy to ensure that the unimaginable trauma these families have suffered does not turn even worse because parents made an uninformed decision about the fate of their child,” the ACLU’s lawyers added.
**************************************
Sounds like in the end, the “No-Due-Process Deportation Machine” will be allowed to resume. But, at least this gives the Judge a little time to pin the Government down on exactly what they are doing and to see for himself how Due Process is being compromised on a large-scale basis. In the end, permanently halting the “Deportation Railroad” might be beyond the scope of this particular suit. Stay tuned for the result. However it comes out, it’s always good to make a complete record of the Government’s misconduct and revolting disrespect for laws, human life, fundamental fairness, and human dignity for the history books and future generations.
And, many thanks to Tal & Laura for being “on top” of his breaking story.
Impact of Sessions’ asylum move already felt at border
By: Tal Kopan, CNN
Immigrants are already being turned away at the border under Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recent reinterpretation of asylum law. And advocates for them fear there may be no end to it anytime soon.
In fact, immigration attorneys fear tens of thousands of migrants could be sent home to life-threatening situations before the courts are able to catch up.
Signs have already popped up across the border that their fears are being realized.
Over just a few days in immigration court early this month near Harlingen, Texas, CNN witnessed multiple judges upholding denials of claims of credible fear of return home, explicitly saying that gang violence and such fears do not qualify.
Immigration Judge Robert Powell at Port Isabel Detention Center, for example, upheld two denials of credible fear for immigrants, one man and one woman, paving the way for their immediate deportation.
Tightly clutching a rosary, the woman, Marcella Martinez, begged the judge to reverse the decision. With tears in her eyes, Martinez asked to provide testimony to the court.
“I can’t go back to Honduras” she said. “I was threatened over the phone, and need to stay here for the opportunity.”
The judge found, nevertheless, that Martinez didn’t enter anything into evidence that would qualify as going beyond the burden of proof required for her initial fear assessment. He informed her that the decision of denial was affirmed.
She exited the courtroom sobbing.
In another courtroom, Immigration Judge Morris Onyewuchi heard the case of Sergio Gavidia Canas, who had an attorney. But the judge said that because of the scope of proceedings, the attorney could not advocate on Canas’ behalf.
Canas, an El Salvador native, said he feared for his life back home, as he had been threatened and beaten by three gang members in front of his currently detained minor daughter.
He said he was a proud owner of a bus company in his native country, and that a gang had come to him demanding the transport of weapons and drugs. When he refused, he was severely beaten in front of his child.
He added that his initial asylum interview took place when he was distraught and worried about his daughter, which is why he didn’t provide this additional information at the time.
The judge indicated that “gang threats don’t fall under the law for asylum” and upheld his denial.
These asylum applicants are being returned, without appeal, under Matter of A-B-which has never been “tested,” let alone upheld, by any real Article III Court;
These unrepresented individuals have no idea what Matter of A-B- says;
Outrageously, and in violation of both common sense and and common courtesy, Sergio Gavidia Canas actually had a lawyer, but Judge Morris Onyewuchi wouldn’t let the lawyer participate in the hearing (by contrast, I never, ever, prevented a lawyer from participating in a credible fear review — in fact, if the person were represented and the lawyer were not present, I continued the hearing so the lawyer could appear, as required by Due Process and fairness);
Even though Matter of A-B– left open the possibility of some valid individual claims involving domestic violence or gang violence, these Immigration Judges appear to be making no such inquiry (the, apparently intentional, misapplication of Matter of A-B- by Asylum Officers and EOIR was mentioned in a previous blog by Judge Jeffrey Chase (https://wp.me/p8eeJm-2Ob));
These Immigration Judges also do not appear to be exploring the possibility of asylum claims based on other grounds;
These Immigration Judges do not appear to be making an inquiry into whether these individuals might also have a reasonable fear of torture;
In other words, this is a system specifically designed and operated to reject, rather than protect under our laws!
Do not misbehave. Do not sit on the floor. Do not share your food. Do not use nicknames. Also, it is best not to cry. Doing so might hurt your case.
Lights out by 9 p.m. and lights on at dawn, after which make your bed according to the step-by-step instructions posted on the wall. Wash and mop the bathroom, scrubbing the sinks and toilets. Then it is time to form a line for the walk to breakfast.
“You had to get in line for everything,” recalled Leticia, a girl from Guatemala.
Small, slight and with long black hair, Leticia was separated from her mother after they illegally crossed the border in late May. She was sent to a shelter in South Texas — one of more than 100 government-contracted detention facilities for migrant children around the country that are a rough blend of boarding school, day care center and medium security lockup. They are reserved for the likes of Leticia, 12, and her brother, Walter, 10.
The facility’s list of no-no’s also included this: Do not touch another child, even if that child is your hermanito or hermanita — your little brother or sister.
Leticia had hoped to give her little brother a reassuring hug. But “they told me I couldn’t touch him,” she recalled.
In response to an international outcry, President Trump recently issued an executive order to end his administration’s practice, first widely put into effect in May, of forcibly removing children from migrant parents who had entered the country illegally. Under that “zero-tolerance” policy for border enforcement, thousands of children were sent to holding facilities, sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles from where their parents were being held for criminal prosecution.
But more than 2,800 children — some of them separated from their parents, some of them classified at the border as “unaccompanied minors” — remain in these facilities, where the environments range from impersonally austere to nearly bucolic, save for the fact that the children are formidably discouraged from leaving and their parents or guardians are nowhere in sight.
Depending on several variables, including happenstance, a child might be sent to a 33-acre youth shelter in Yonkers that features picnic tables, sports fields and even an outdoor pool. “Like summer camp,” said Representative Eliot L. Engel, a Democrat of New York who recently visited the campus.
Or that child could wind up at a converted motel along a tired Tucson strip of discount stores, gas stations and budget motels. Recreation takes place in a grassless compound, and the old motel’s damaged swimming pool is covered up.
Image
Migrant children in a recreation area at a shelter in Brownsville, Tex.CreditLoren Elliott/Reuters
Still, some elements of these detention centers seem universally shared, whether they are in northern Illinois or South Texas. The multiple rules. The wake-up calls and the lights-out calls. The several hours of schooling every day, which might include a civics class in American history and laws, though not necessarily the ones that led to their incarceration.
Most of all, these facilities are united by a collective sense of aching uncertainty — scores of children gathered under a roof who have no idea when they will see their parents again.
Leticia wrote letters from the shelter in South Texas to her mother, who was being held in Arizona, to tell her how much she missed her. She would quickly write these notes after she had finished her math worksheets, she said, so as not to violate yet another rule: No writing in your dorm room. No mail.
She kept the letters safe in a folder for the day when she and her mother would be reunited, though that still hasn’t happened. “I have a stack of them,” she said.
Another child asked her lawyer to post a letter to her detained mother, since she had not heard from her in the three weeks since they had been separated.
“Mommy, I love you and adore you and miss you so much,” the girl wrote in curvy block letters. And then she implored: “Please, Mom, communicate. Please, Mom. I hope that you’re OK and remember, you are the best thing in my life.”
The complicated matters of immigration reform and border enforcement have vexed American presidents for at least two generations. The Trump administration entered the White House in 2017 with a pledge to end the problems, and for several months, it chose one of the harshest deterrents ever employed by a modern president: the separation of migrant children from their parents.
This is what a few of those children will remember.
No Touching, No Running
Diego Magalhães, a Brazilian boy with a mop of curly brown hair, spent 43 days in a Chicago facility after being separated from his mother, Sirley Paixao, when they crossed the border in late May. He did not cry, just as he had promised her when they parted. He was proud of this. He is 10.
He spent the first night on the floor of a processing center with other children, then boarded an airplane the next day. “I thought they were taking me to see my mother,” he said. He was wrong.
Once in Chicago, he was handed new clothes that he likened to a uniform: shirts, two pairs of shorts, a sweatsuit, boxers and some items for hygiene. He was then assigned to a room with three other boys, including Diogo, 9, and Leonardo, 10, both from Brazil.
The three became fast friends, going to class together, playing lots of soccer and earning “big brother” status for being good role models for younger children. They were rewarded the privilege of playing video games.
There were rules. You couldn’t touch others. You couldn’t run. You had to wake up at 6:30 on weekdays, with the staff making banging noises until you got out of bed.
“You had to clean the bathroom,” Diego said. “I scrubbed the bathroom. We had to remove the trash bag full of dirty toilet paper. Everyone had to do it.”
Diego and the 15 other boys in their unit ate together. They had rice and beans, salami, some vegetables, the occasional pizza, and sometimes cake and ice cream. The burritos, he said, were bad.
Apart from worrying about when he would see his mother again, Diego said that he was not afraid, because he always behaved. He knew to watch for a staff member “who was not a good guy.” He had seen what happened to Adonias, a small boy from Guatemala who had fits and threw things around.
“They applied injections because he was very agitated,” Diego said. “He would destroy things.”
A person he described as “the doctor” injected Adonias in the middle of a class, Diego said. “He would fall asleep.”
Diego managed to stay calm, in part because he had promised his mother he would. Last week, a federal judge in Chicago ordered that Diego be reunited with his family. Before he left, he made time to say goodbye to Leonardo.
“We said ‘Ciao, good luck,” Diego recalled. “Have a good life.”
But because of the rules, the two boys did not hug.
. . . .
*****************************************
Read the full story at the link.
This is America in the age of Trump & Sessions. A few of these kids might get to stay in the U.S. Most will be returned (with little or no Due Process) to countries will they will be targeted, harassed, brutalized, extorted, impressed, and/or perhaps killed by gangs that operate more or less with impunity from weak and corrupt police and governments. Indeed, contrary to the false blathering of Sessions & co., gangs and cartels are the “de facto government” in some areas of the Norther Triangle. Those kids that survive to adulthood will have these memories of the United States and how we treated them at their time of most need.
One month after Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued his cruel, misguided decision in Matter of A-B-, we are seeing the first signs of how the decision is being implemented by the BIA, USCIS, and ICE.
There is no question that Sessions’ intent was to eliminate domestic violence and gang violence as bases for asylum. How can I be so certain of this? While Matter of A-B- was pending before him, Sessions told a Phoenix radio station in March: “We’ve had situations in which a person comes to the United States and says they are a victim of domestic violence, therefore they are entitled to enter the United States. Well, that’s obviously false but some judges have gone along with that.” (here’s the link: https://ktar.com/story/2054280/ag-jeff-sessions-says-closing-loopholes-can-fight-illegal-immigration/).
However, Sessions chose to attempt to achieve this goal by issuing a precedent decision. A decision is not a fiat. It must be analyzed in the same manner as any other legal decision and applied to the facts accordingly.
Asylum experts and advocacy groups analyzing the decision have reached the following conclusions. The main impact of Sessions’ decision is to vacate the Board’s 2014 precedent decision, Matter of A-R-C-G-, holding that a victim of domestic violence was eligible for asylum as a member of a particular social group. Therefore, asylum applicants can no longer rely on that decision.
However, Sessions’ decision otherwise cobbled together already existing case law (which was taken into consideration in deciding Matter of A-R-C-G-), and added non-binding dicta, i.e. his statement that “generally, claims by aliens pertaining to domestic violence or gang violence…will not qualify for asylum.” (Note the use of the pejorative “aliens” to describe individuals applying for asylum.)
Furthermore, most of the items covered by Sessions involved questions of fact (which are specifically dependent on the evidence in the individual case, and which the BIA and AG have very limited ability to reverse on appeal) as opposed to questions of law, which can be considered de novo on appeal and have more general applicability. The questions of fact raised by Sessions include whether the persecutor was aware of the existence of the group and was motivated to harm the victim on account of such membership; whether the society in question recognizes the social group with sufficient distinction; whether the authorities in the home country are unable or unwilling to protect the victim, and whether the victim could reasonably relocate to another part of the country to avoid the feared harm.
So in summary, Sessions felt that the Board’s decision in Matter of A-R-C-G- did not provide a sufficiently detailed legal analysis, therefore vacated it, and laid out all of the legal analysis that future decisions must address. Domestic violence and gang violence claims still remain very much grantable, provided that all of the requirements laid out by the Attorney General are satisfied. Hearings on these cases may now take much longer, as testimony will need to be more detailed, additional social groups will need to be proposed and ruled on, more experts must be called, and more documents considered. But nothing in A-B- prevents these cases from continuing to be granted.
Therefore, how discouraging that the first decision of the BIA to apply this criteria failed to do what is now required of them. A single Board Member’s unpublished decision issued shortly after A-B-’s publication did not engage in the detailed legal analysis that is now warranted in domestic violence cases. Instead, the decision noted that the case involved a social group “akin to the group defined in Matter of A-R-C-G-.” The Board then found that the AG’s decision in A-B- “has foreclosed the respondent’s arguments,” because “the Attorney General overruled Matter of A-R-C-G- and held that it was wrongly decided.”
What is particularly dispiriting is that the decision was authored by Board Member Linda Wendtland. A former OIL attorney whose views are more conservative than my own, I have always respected her scholarly approach and her intellectual honesty. At the BIA, staff attorneys draft the decisions which the Board Members then edit. Judge Wendtland always took the time to write her edits as academic lessons from which I always learned something. She recently authored the lone dissenting opinion in a case involving a determination of whether a women was barred from relief for having provided material support to terrorists; Judge Wendtland correctly determined that the cooking and cleaning that the woman was forced to perform after having been kidnapped by rebels did not constitute “material support.” It is therefore perplexing why she would sign the post-A-B- decision that so sorely lacked her usual degree of analysis.
In addition to the BIA, on July 11, both USCIS and ICE issued guidance on applying A-B- to asylum adjudications. Much like the BIA decision, the USCIS guidelines to its asylum officers, which serve as guidance not only in adjudicating asylum applications, but also for making credible fear determinations, seem to apply the personal opinion of Sessions rather than the actual legal holdings of his decision. USCIS decided to print in boldface Sessions’ nonbinding dicta that such cases will generally not establish eligibility for asylum, refugee status, or credible or reasonable fear of persecution.
Credible fear interviews are conducted right after an asylum seeker arrives in this country, while they are detained, scared, often unrepresented by counsel, before having a chance to understand the law or gather documents or witnesses. The interviewer is supposed to find credible fear if there is a significant possibility that the applicant will be able to establish eligibility for relief at a future hearing before an immigration judge. It is likely that, at such future hearing, the applicant will have an attorney who will make the proper legal arguments, call expert witnesses, formulate the particular social group according to the requirements of case law, submit other supporting evidence, etc. But now asylum officers are being instructed to ignore all of that and deny individuals the chance to even have the opportunity to apply for asylum before an immigration judge essentially because Jeff Sessions doesn’t believe these are worthy cases.
ICE (through its Office of the Public Legal Advisor) has issued guidance that, while probably reflecting internal conflict within the bureau, is nevertheless somewhat more reasonable than the interpretations of either USCIS or the Board. The ICE guidance does ask its attorneys to hold asylum applicants to some exacting legal standards, to look for flaws in supporting evidence, and to question asylum applicants in great detail. It also asks its attorneys not to opine on whether gender alone may constitute a PSG until further guidance is offered (again, probably reflecting internal conflict within the bureau on the issue). But the guidance does not simply conclude that all domestic violence and gang violence cases should be denied. It even encourages attorneys to employ a “collaborative approach” by pointing out flawed social groups offered by pro se applicants in the hope that the IJ might help the applicant remedy the situation early on.
However, let’s remember that ICE stipulated to grants of asylum for victims of domestic violence in both Matter of R-A- (during the Bush administration, and to the consternation of then Attorney General John Ashcroft), and in Matter of A-R-C-G-. ICE argued in its brief to Sessions in Matter of A-B- that Matter of A-R-C-G- was good law and should not be vacated. So then shouldn’t ICE be applying these same principles to its guidance to attorneys?
It should also be noted that ICE and USCIS could see a way to granting worthy cases in spite of Sessions’ decision. In the early 1990s, then INS General Counsel Grover Joseph Rees III took exception with the BIA’s precedent decision holding that forcible abortions and sterilization under China’s family planning policies did not constitute persecution on account of a protected ground. Rees instructed his attorneys to seek to remand cases involving such claim to the INS Asylum Office, where per his instructions, such claims were granted affirmatively by asylum officers. There is no reason that a similar practice could not be employed now, particularly as both ICE and USCIS are not part of the Department of Justice and therefore are not controlled by Sessions. The only thing lacking is the political will to take such a stand. In the early 1990s, Rees’s stance involving abortion played to the Bush Administration’s political base. Today, ICE and USCIS would have to take action contrary to the wishes of that same base because doing so is the just and humane thing to do. Unfortunately, based on the tone of their recent advisals, doing the right thing is not enough of a motive in the present political climate.
Copyright 2018 Jeffrey S. Chase. All rights reserved.
The Trump administration’s kidnapping — that’s the proper word — of the children of would-be migrants should be seen as an ongoing criminal conspiracy. Somebody ought to go to jail.
Under a federal court order, all 103 children under the age of 5 who were taken from their families at the border were supposed to be returned by Tuesday. The government missed that deadline, and I wish U.S. District Judge Dana M. Sabraw, who issued the order, had held somebody in contempt. One candidate would be Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who on Tuesday had the gall to describe the administration’s treatment of immigrant children as “one of the great acts of American generosity and charity.”
On Thursday, officials announced with fanfare that 57 of the kids — some still in diapers — had been returned to their parents. But 46 others were deemed “ineligible,” meaning they remain in government custody.
The reasons for failing to comply fully with Sabraw’s order sound reasonable, unless you take into account the bad faith with which the administration has conducted this whole sordid exercise. In 22 cases, officials had “safety concerns posed by the adults in question,” presumably the parents; in 12 cases, parents have already been deported; in 11 cases, parents are in federal or state custody; and in one case, an adult believed to be the child’s parent cannot be found.
In a joint statement, Azar, along with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, took credit for working “tirelessly” to reunite the children with their families — which is rich, given that the Trump administration deliberately and cynically created this crisis in the first place.
“Our message has been clear all along: Do not risk your own life or the life of your child by attempting to enter the United States illegally,” the statement said. Translation: Don’t come to the border seeking asylum because, when others did, we took away their kids.
Given that the intention from the beginning was clearly to frighten and intimidate would-be migrants from Central America, why should anyone believe that the administration is acting or speaking in good faith now? Why should we accept at face value that exactly 103 children under 5 were seized? How can we be sure there is only one case in which officials can’t find or identify the parents? Given that it has taken weeks to return just 57 children, what is the likelihood the government kept adequate records?
This is an administration, after all, that conducts immigration court proceedings, or travesties, in which children too young to know their ABCs are expected to represent themselves without the benefit of legal counsel. Imagine your 3-year-old child or grandchild in that situation. Now tell me how adopting child abuse as a policy is supposed to Make America Great Again.
And what about the children older than 5 who were taken from their families? Sabraw ordered that they be returned to their parents by July 26, but don’t hold your breath. We don’t even know how many there are, because the government doesn’t seem to know. Officials first gave the number as about 2,300, but the latest estimate is nearly 3,000. Why can’t they settle on a precise figure? What reason could there be for such vagueness, other than ignorance?
I don’t think they know how many kids they ripped away from their families, and I believe it is inevitable some children will never again see their parents. The fact that my government would commit such a crime weighs on my conscience as an American. President Trump and his accomplices, from all appearances, couldn’t be prouder.
“Judges run the system and illegals and traffickers know how it works. They are just using children!” Trump tweeted Wednesday. As usual, he was ascribing his own base motives to others: He is the one who is “just using children.”
Remember what this is really about. The main flow of undocumented migrants consists of Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans seeking to escape rampant, deadly gang violence that their home governments cannot or will not check. The Trump administration issued new instructions on Wednesday to officers who interview asylum seekers at the border, telling them that fear of gang violence, no matter how well-founded, is no longer grounds for asylum. The same new guidance applies to immigration judges, who take their orders from Sessions.
Kidnapping children. Failing even to account for them. Sending families home to be killed. Give us your huddled masses, this administration seems to say, and let us kick them in their little faces.
**************************
Yup. Sessions and his group of fellow racists know very well that their actions violate the Constitution and the laws of our country governing both conditions for detention and reasons for detention. Yet, they walk free and smugly give press conferences at which they continue to lie about their actions. Their victims, on the other hand, largely languish in substandard prisons or are being removed to the dangerous situations they fled in their home countries without any pretense of Due Process or fundamental fairness.
VICTORVILLE — Immigration detainees who were sent to a federal prison here last month were kept in their cells for prolonged periods with little access to the outside and were unable to change their clothing for weeks, according to workers at the facility and visitors who have spoken with detainees.
Staffers at the prison also say they have not been given the proper resources or direction to handle the influx of detainees, putting those in custody as well as workers in danger.
“We’re putting out fires, just like we were doing before,” said a worker who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation. “But it’s gone from bad to worse to worst. We cannot take care of these inmates.”
The Victorville Federal Correctional Complex is a sprawling federal prison in San Bernardino County that houses thousands of inmates who have been convicted of crimes in federal courts.
By contrast, the immigrants who have been sent there are considered “civil” rather than criminal detainees, meaning they are being held pending the outcome of their immigration cases. Some are asylum seekers; some are fathers who were separated from their children in recent months.
They were sent to the prison in June as part of the Trump administration’s policy of increasingly detaining asylum seekers and immigrants who are in the country illegally until their cases are decided. Federal officials have said using prisons to hold the detainees is a stopgap measure while officials find more holding space.
Officials with the Federal Bureau of Prisons say the facility had beds available because of a decline in the inmate population in recent years, and that it has managed the new population using existing staff, some of whom were reassigned from other facilities.
But workers and people who have been able to visit the detainees say the prison was seriously unprepared for its new role.
The prison, which workers have long complained was short-staffed, is now scrambling to care for hundreds of new detainees from around the world with language, medical and care needs that are very different from those of typical federal prisoners, workers say.
The situation has raised concern among Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
In late June, Rep. Paul Cook (R-Yucca Valley) wrote a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Prisons urging officials to increase staffing levels at Victorville to match the increase in population.
“Furthermore, I urge ICE to support and train [prison] staff so they are properly equipped to implement policies and procedures that may be unfamiliar to them when dealing with immigration detainees,” Cook wrote.
Rep. Mark Takano (D-Riverside), who visited the facility July 2, said he saw numerous signs that the prison was struggling to meet detainees’ needs.
“Every detainee group that we met said they had not had a change in clothes since they arrived on June 8. Their bedding had not been switched. They were wearing the same underwear,” Takano said.
Thirteen of the detainees who spoke with Takano and his staff were fathers who had been separated from their children. The men said they had been unable to speak with their children since arriving at the facility.
Detainees also complained of not getting enough food, of being “locked up for long periods of time in their cells” and having very limited access to the outdoors, Takano said.
Prison officials showed Takano a recreation area that he said was nicely equipped. But when he asked one group of detainees whether they were able to use that room, they told him they had been there only once, he said.
“That’s an indicator to me that the prison was not ramped up to be able to accommodate this incursion of detainees. They were understaffed before the detainees arrived, and the arrival of 1,000 detainees I think has fully stressed the staff’s ability to be able to safely oversee their health and safety,” Takano said.
Nearly 1,000 immigration detainees were initially transferred to the prison. As of this week, 656 remained, said ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley.
The complex includes a high-security prison, two medium-security prisons and a minimum-security camp. The detainees are being housed in one of the medium-security prisons. Visits to the facility are tightly controlled.
Workers say one of their biggest concerns is the lack of staff and resources to adequately handle detainees’ medical needs.
There have been three cases of chickenpox and about 40 scabies cases since the detainees arrived.
One worker who spoke to The Times on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation said medical workers are stretched so thin they can address only detainees’ most urgent needs.
“We’re not finding illness because we are so rushed,” the worker said. “As patients, they’re not getting the care they need.”
After Takano’s visit, the worker said, detainees were given a change of clothing — but for many of them it was paper gowns normally reserved for inmates with specific medical needs.
Eva Bitran, an attorney for the ACLU who has met with two detainees at the facility, said both men told her they had struggled to get medical care.
One man told her about a button that detainees could push for emergency medical care. When that button was pushed, they were asked: “Are you being raped or are you dying?” When the answer was no, no help would come, the man told her.
One detainee who has since left the facility told The Times that he and others in his unit were locked in their cells for most of the day for the two weeks he was at the prison, with food passed through a small opening in the door.
The man said he was not given a change of clothes during the 14 days he was at the facility and was not able to bathe for the first four days.
In late June, the ACLU sued the Department of Homeland Security and the Bureau of Prisons on behalf of detainees, saying they had been held “incommunicado,” asking the court to order the prison to allow lawyer visits and phone calls.
U.S. District Judge Otis D. Wright II sided with the ACLU and granted a temporary restraining order June 21 requiring the prison to allow detainees to communicate with immigration attorneys and attend “know your rights” workshops.
Haley, the ICE spokeswoman, referred questions about conditions at the prison to the Bureau of Prisons and said ICE was deferring to that agency’s standards on questions of things such as access to time outside of cells and outdoors time.
In an email response to questions from The Times, Bureau of Prisons officials said, “[D]etainees have regular inside and outside recreational opportunities.”
Officials also said that since the detainees’ arrival, 25 medical staff members had been temporarily assigned to help with intake screenings, physical exams and general care.
Regarding the chickenpox and scabies cases, officials said the facility was “taking the necessary precautionary measures to protect staff, inmates and detainees, and the community, from the possibility of being exposed.”
John Kostelnik, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3969, which represents workers at the prison, said that although some medical staffers were briefly assigned to help with the detainees, it was far from enough to meet the need.
He said many problems stem from a lack of direction from officials about how to reconcile standards that are common to federal prisons but aren’t necessarily appropriate for immigration detainees.
“We’re still day by day, making things up as we go,” he said.
As the facility has received increasing scrutiny from political leaders, legal groups and others following the transfer of detainees, Kostelnik said, some things appear to be improving — such as more uniforms.
But the staff is still overtaxed, said Kostelnik, who worries about what might happen if bigger changes don’t come fast enough.
“You have this group of detainees that are starting to get upset,” he said. “You get a large group of individuals that are upset, you have the potential for anything.”
(CNN)Authorities are investigating after an ICE detainee facing possible deportation apparently killed himself.
Efrain De La Rosa, 40, was found unresponsive in a cell at the Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, Georgia, on Tuesday night and was later pronounced dead at a hospital, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said.
The apparent cause of death was self-inflicted strangulation, the agency said Thursday, adding that the case is under investigation.
De La Rosa, a Mexican national, was in removal proceedings at the time of his death, ICE said.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation is investigating the death at the request of the local sheriff. There is no indication of foul play, GBI Special Agent in Charge Danny Jackson said.
A preliminary investigation revealed De La Rosa was alone in an isolation cell at the detention center when officials there found him, Jackson said.
It was not immediately clear why De La Rosa had been placed in isolation.
ICE spokesman Bryan Cox said he could not provide additional comment because an agency review of the death is ongoing.
Amanda Gilchrist, a spokeswoman for CoreCivic, which owns and operates the facility, said the company is fully cooperating with investigators but declined to comment further because of the active investigation.
De La Rosa is the eighth detainee to die in ICE custody in the 2018 fiscal year, the agency said.
De La Rosa’s death comes less than six months after the death of another ICE detainee who had been in custody at Stewart.
Yulio Castro Garrido, a 33-year-old Cuban national, was diagnosed with pneumonia at Stewart and was hospitalized as his condition worsened. He died in January at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida.
And in May 2017, Jean Jimenez-Joseph, a 27-year-old Panamanian national, killed himself in solitary confinement at Stewart.
Immigrant rights groups swiftly criticized the facility as word of De La Rosa’s death spread.
“The deaths and systematic abuse at Stewart are not only tragic, but infuriating,” said Azadeh Shahshahani, legal and advocacy director at Project South.
ICE said it is conducting an agency-wide review of De La Rosa’s death and “is firmly committed to the health and welfare of all those in its custody.”
Four Democratic senators are calling for an investigation into the treatment of pregnant women detained in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, following a BuzzFeed News report on several women who said they were mistreated while in immigration detention.
The letter to the Department of Homeland Security Acting Inspector General John Kelly, sent Friday, cites BuzzFeed News’ reporting on the conditions pregnant women in ICE and Customs and Border Patrol custody have faced under the Trump administration, particularly following a new policy issued in December allowing pregnant women to be detained. Under the Obama administration, ICE was ordered to release pregnant women past their first trimester from custody.
“Recent reports cite the inadequate care that pregnant women receive while in ICE custody, pregnant women’s lack of access to medical care, and their heightened vulnerability to sexual assault,” the letter reads. “Given the multiple findings of harmful and substandard conditions of detention for this particularly vulnerable population, we ask that you open an investigation into the treatment and care of pregnant women in ICE detention facilities.”
The letter was organized by Sen. Kamala Harris and signed by fellow Democratic Sens. Patty Murray, Maggie Hassan, and Tom Carper. A spokesperson for Harris’s office told BuzzFeed News that Harris was working “with a group of senators on legislative options to address this as well.”
In a story published Monday, BuzzFeed News related the stories of three women who had miscarriages while in the custody of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol and said they did not receive adequate medical care while pregnant or miscarrying. One woman told BuzzFeed News she was physically abused by CBP officials. All three said they bled for days without medical care and all said they were shackled while pregnant at some point during their detention. Shackling pregnant women is prohibited by ICE’s and CBP’s most recent standards-of-care policies, as well as by a congressional directive.
The report also included interviews with 11 legal, medical, and advocacy workers who work with pregnant detainees in or near detention centers, as well as two affidavits signed under “penalty of perjury” in which a fourth woman described being given clothes so small for her pregnant belly they gave her welts and “pain in [her] uterus.” A fifth woman said she underwent repeated X-rays, despite this being against the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendations and against CBP’s(but not ICE’s) policies for pregnant women.
“Pregnant women have repeatedly described the fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion they experience as a result of being detained,” the senators wrote in Friday’s letter. “Detained pregnant women have stated they experience routine mistreatment, including malnutrition, inadequate bedding, insufficient access to basic medical care, lack of privacy regarding their medical history, and even shackling during transportation for medical care.”
The senators’ letter said there was a 35% increase in the number of pregnant women detained by ICE in the fiscal year of 2017 compared to the year before, under the Obama administration. During that year, ICE detained nearly 68,000 women, 525 of whom were pregnant, the letter stated, and an additional 590 between December 2017, when the policy change was issued, and April 2018.
In June, Harris toured Otay Mesa Detention center, where the three women BuzzFeed News spoke with were held while miscarrying. There, Harris met with mothers who had been separated from their children as a result of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy, which has triggered national outrage, court cases, and an executive order from President Trump.
****************************************
These human beings aren’t “inmates”
They “civil detainees”
Their only “crime” is seeking asylum under U.S. and international law
Their only mistake: believing that the United States is a nation of laws and human decency, not just another “Banana Republic” as it has become under Trump & Sessions
The solution: regime change
Another thought: The problems in civil immigration detention were well-known and well-documented before Sessions and his cronies established the “New American Gulag” to punish, duress, and deter asylum seekers:
Shouldn’t that result in eventual successful suits against Sessions for ethical violations and for civil damages for intentionally violating the Due Process rights of asylum seekers?
