ICE official stands by comparing detention centers to ‘summer camp,’ won’t say if he’d send his kids to one
By Tal Kopan, CNN
A senior Trump administration official on Tuesday stood by his controversial comments comparing the detention centers for immigrant families to “summer camp,” but declined to answer whether he’d send his own children there.
The remarks came at a congressional hearing where immigration and border security officials struggled to answer foundational questions from senators about the administration’s push to expand the detention of immigrant families and children.
Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California asked Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s chief of arrests and deportations, Matthew Albence, if he stood by his comments earlier this summer that family detention centers are like “summer camp.”
“Absolutely I do,” he said.
But he demurred when asked whether he’d send his own children, or those of people he is close to, to the centers.
“Would you send your children to one of these detention centers?” she asked.
“That question’s not applicable,” he said.
Albence did say the standards for family centers are “very safe” and “humane,” and that at one he had visited, families had access to TVs, food and video games and other activities.
“The point is, the parent made the illegal entry,” Albence said when pressed further. “The parent put themselves in this position.”
The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing topic was ostensibly a court settlement that governs how immigrant children can be treated by the US, including limiting the length of time a family can be involuntarily detained to 20 days. The administration is seeking to nullify that settlement and allow itself to detain far more immigrant families for far longer.
Harris’ line of questioning was one of a series from Democrats, who pressed the officials on why they’d want to expand family detention and child detention despite widely held beliefs among medical professionals that even short periods of detention can inflict permanent and devastating trauma on children. Though the hearing did not include the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the government’s program for immigrant children who are in the US on their own, senators also asked about the ongoing fallout over family separations and unaccompanied child detention.
Members of both parties pressed as to why the agencies were not pursuing other measures with bipartisan support that could streamline the immigration court system over an expensive effort to vastly expand family detention.
More from the hearing: http://www.cnn.com/2018/09/18/politics/ice-albence-family-detention-summer-camp/index.html
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Ever doubt that we currently have idiots in charge of our Government’s immigration policies? Matthew puts those to rest.
PWS
09-19-18