NBC NEWS REPORTS CONTINUING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES & SEXUAL ABUSE OF KIDS BY BORDER PATROL IN TRUMP’S “KIDDIE GULAG” — “The poor treatment of migrant children at the hands of U.S. border agents in recent months extends beyond Texas to include allegations of sexual assault and retaliation for protests, according to dozens of accounts by children held in Arizona collected by government case managers and obtained by NBC News.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/migrant-kids-overcrowded-arizona-border-station-allege-sex-assault-retaliation-n1027886

Julia Ainsley — Julia Edwards Ainsley
Investigative Reporter, NBC News

Jacob Soboroff & Julia Edwards Ainsley report for NBC News:

WASHINGTON — The poor treatment of migrant children at the hands of U.S. border agents in recent months extends beyond Texas to include allegations of sexual assault and retaliation for protests, according to dozens of accounts by children held in Arizona collected by government case managers and obtained by NBC News.

A 16-year-old Guatemalan boy held in Yuma, Arizona, said he and others in his cell complained about the taste of the water and food they were given. The Customs and Border Protection agents took the mats out of their cell in retaliation, forcing them to sleep on hard concrete.

A 15-year-old girl from Honduras described a large, bearded officer putting his hands inside her bra, pulling down her underwear and groping her as part of what was meant to be a routine pat down in front of other immigrants and officers.

The girl said “she felt embarrassed as the officer was speaking in English to other officers and laughing” during the entire process, according to a report of her account.

A 17-year-old boy from Honduras said officers would scold detained children when they would get close to a window, and would sometimes call them “puto,” an offensive term in Spanish, while they were giving orders.

Earlier reports from investigators for the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General from the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley sectors in Texas detailed horrific conditions for children and other migrants held in overcrowded border stations where they were not given showers, a clean change of clothes or space to sleep. The reports from the Yuma CBP sector describe similar unsanitary and crowded conditions but go further by alleging abuse and other misconduct by CBP officers.

President Trump has pushed back against reports of poor conditions for children, and Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of DHS, which oversees CBP, has said the reports are “unsubstantiated.”

In a statement about the Yuma allegations, a CBP spokesperson said, “U.S. Customs and Border Protection treats those in our custody with dignity and respect and provides multiple avenues to report any allegations of misconduct. … The allegations do not align with common practice at our facilities and will be fully investigated. It’s important to note that the allegation of sexual assault is already under investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General.”

DHS had been sounding the alarm on overcrowding in border facilities for months, resulting in a $4.5 billion emergency funding bill recently passed by Congress. In Yuma, a soft-sided tent facility was opened at the end of June to accommodate overcrowding at the border station.

But in nearly 30 accounts obtained from “significant incident reports” prepared between April 10 and June 12 by case managers for the Department of Health and Human Services, the department responsible for migrant children after they leave CBP custody, kids who spent time in the Yuma border station repeatedly described poor conditions that are not pure byproducts of overcrowding. They reported being denied a phone call, not being offered a shower, sleeping on concrete or outside with only a Mylar blanket, and feeling hungry before their 9 p.m. dinnertime.

One child reported “sometimes going to bed hungry because dinner was usually served sometime after 9 p.m. and by that time she was already asleep,” according to the documents.

All children who gave accounts to case managers had been held at the border station longer than the 72 hours permitted by law.

Laura Belous, advocacy attorney for a organization that provides legal services to migrant children, the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project, said her group was “horrified and sickened by the allegations of abuse … But unfortunately, we are not surprised.”

“The children that we represent have reported being held in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions for days,” said Belous.

“Our clients tell us that they have seen CBP agents kick other children awake, that children do not know whether it’s day or night because lights are left on all the time, and that they have had food thrown at them like they were wild animals.

“Our clients and all migrants deserve to be treated with dignity and respect.”

Nearly every child interviewed by the HHS case workers after leaving the Yuma border station reported poor sleeping conditions. A 17-year-old boy from Guatemala reported having to sleep outside even though his clothes were wet from having recently crossed a river, likely the Colorado River.

Once he was transferred inside, the conditions were not much better. “He shared that there was not always space on the floor as there were too many people in the room. He further shared that there would be room available when someone would stand up,” his report stated.

Many migrant children said they were either not given a mattress, pillow or blanket to sleep with, or were just given a Mylar blanket instead.

A temporary holding facility for migrant children in Yuma, Arizona.NBC News

Other children described being scared of the officers and said the officers would get angry if they asked for anything. One child wore soiled underwear for the 10 days he was in the border station because he was afraid to ask the officers for a clean pair, according to one of the reports. Another, a 15-year-old girl from Guatemala, described the food as “gross and cold most of the time.”

HHS referred NBC News to DHS for comment.

In a statement to NBC News, Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, said, “These allegations are very concerning and need to be fully investigated. The president has denied any problems with these detention centers — despite multiple confirmed reports to the contrary — but it is the Trump administration’s own policies that have contributed to this humanitarian crisis and this lack of accountability.”

Cummings has called on McAleenan to testify about the poor conditions for immigrants at the border.

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Pretty disgusting. Both Trump and McAleenan are proven liars when it comes to denying and covering up cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees. They particularly enjoy targeting women and children. As the reports from throughout the Gulag mount, their denials and obfuscations get more and more outlandish.

What we as a country are permitting the Trump Administration to do to asylum applicants, particularly families and children, is a stain that will continue to fester and diminish America long after Trump and his toxic toadies are gone from the scene.

PWS

07-09-19

[BUREAU] ‘CRATS CONTINUE TO FLEE SINKING DHS SHIP AS ABUSES, LIES, COVER-UPS MOUNT — John Sanders Latest To Exit — Trump Taps Mark Morgan, Eager Architect Of Administration’s Temporarily Aborted “Community Reign of Terror” (A/K/A/ “Operation Wetback ‘19”) Program As Next Acting CBP Chief — Expect More Mindless Cruelty, Lies, False Narratives, White Nationalist Racism, Violations Of Law & Human Rights!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/06/25/politics/customs-and-border-protection-john-sanders/index.html

Priscilla Alvarez and Geneva Sands report for CNN:

Washington (CNN)Acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner John Sanders is resigning, he said in a message sent to agency employees Tuesday, amid the dramatic increase in the number of undocumented migrants crossing the border, a fight over how to address it and controversy over how children are being treated.

“Although I will leave it to you to determine whether I was successful, I can unequivocally say that helping support the amazing men and women of CBP has been the most fulfilling and satisfying opportunity of my career,” Sanders writes. His resignation is effective July 5.

Acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Mark Morgan is expected to take over as Customs and Border Protection in an acting capacity, according to a Department of Homeland Security official. Sanders’s resignation as acting head of CBP comes amid a crush of migrants at the border that has overwhelmed facilities. Earlier Tuesday, CBP held a call with reporters on squalid conditions at a Border Patrol facility in Clint, Texas.

Officials conceded that children should not be held in CBP custody, noting that the agency’s facilities were designed decades ago to largely accommodate single adults for a short period of time.

The Washington Post first reported Morgan’s move.

Over the weekend, President Donald Trump called off planned raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, saying deportations would proceed unless Congress finds a solution on the US-Mexico border within two weeks. Before it was postponed, Mark Morgan had publicly confirmed an operation targeting migrant families and others with court-ordered removals was in the works.

Morgan, a vocal proponent of the President’s efforts, was another of Trump’s picks to lead ICE after abruptly pulling the nomination of Ron Vitiello.

Morgan briefly served as Border Patrol chief during the Obama administration before leaving the post in January 2017. He previously spent two decades at the FBI. He is expected to return to Customs and Border Protection, which encompasses Border Patrol.

Sanders assumed the post after Kevin McAleenan, the former commissioner, moved up to fill the role of acting homeland security secretary in the wake of Kirstjen Nielsen’s ouster this spring. In his role, Sanders has overseen the agency responsible for policing the US borders and facilitating legal trade and travel. It is also the frontline agency dealing with the surge of migrants at the southern border.

Robert Perez, the highest-ranking career official, is the current deputy commissioner. It is unclear if he will step into the acting commissioner position.

<img alt=”100 children moved back to controversial Clint, Texas, border facility” class=”media__image” src=”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180706121423-02-immigration-facility-0628-large-169.jpg”>

100 children moved back to controversial Clint, Texas, border facility

Before becoming acting commissioner, Sanders, served as the Chief Operating Officer at CBP, where he worked with McAleenan to address the operational needs of the agency and work on strategic direction.

As of June 1 this fiscal year, Border Patrol has arrested more than 377,000 family units, over 60,000 unaccompanied children, and over 226,000 single adults.

Sanders did not provide a reason for his departure.

Read Sanders’s letter here:

As some of you are aware, yesterday I offered my resignation to Secretary McAleenan, effective Friday, July 5. In that letter, I quoted a wise man who said to me, “each man will judge their success by their own metrics.” Although I will leave it to you to determine whether I was successful, I can unequivocally say that helping support the amazing men and women of CBP has been the most fulfilling and satisfying opportunity of my career.

<img alt=”100 children moved back to controversial Clint, Texas, border facility” class=”media__image” src=”//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/180706121423-02-immigration-facility-0628-large-169.jpg”>

100 children moved back to controversial Clint, Texas, border facility

I’ve spent a significant amount of time over the last several days reflecting on my time at CBP. When I began this journey, Commissioner McAleenan charged me with aligning the mission support organizations and accelerating his priorities. Easy enough, I thought. What I didn’t appreciate at the time was how the journey would transform me professionally and personally. This transformation was due in large part to the fact that people embraced and welcomed me in a way that was new to me — in a way that was truly special. To this day, I get choked up when speaking about it and I can’t adequately express my thanks. As a result, let me simply say I will never stop defending the people and the mission for which 427 people gave their lives in the line of duty in defending. Hold your heads high with the honor and distinction that you so richly deserve.

Throughout our journey together, your determination and can-do attitude made the real difference. It allowed CBP to accomplish what others thought wasn’t possible…what others weren’t able to do. And even though there is uncertainty during change, there is also opportunity. I therefore encourage everyone to reflect on all that you have accomplished as a team. My hope is you build upon your accomplishments and embrace new opportunities, remain flexible, and continue to make CBP extraordinary. This is your organization…own it! Don’t underestimate the power of momentum as you continue to tackle some of this country’s most difficult challenges.

I will forever be honored to have served beside you. As a citizen of this great country, I thank you for your public service.

Take care of each other,

John

******************************************

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the latest TRAC Report confirms that under Trump, the DHS, particularly ICE, has been ignoring real enforcement priorities to concentrate on often counterproductive, yet cruel, wasteful, and polarizing, improperly politicized enforcement aimed at non-criminals and those contributing to our country. In other words, terrorizing primarily Hispanic communities just because they can. And these racist attacks appeal to Trump’s base. Just part of the “ICE Fraud” that Morgan undoubtedly intends to bring over to CBP. https://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/564/.

Not surprisingly, some dedicated and professional ICE Agents are tiring of Trump and his sycophants’ “malicious incompetence” that is demoralizing the agency and (as I had predicted long ago) turning it into probably the most hated, least trusted, least useful, and least effective law enforcement organization in America. Michelle Mark at Business Insider covers the “bad things that happen” when you have a “no values” White Nationalist President and exceptionally poor leaders like Tom Homan and Mark Morgan who lacked both the will and the backbone to stand up to Trump’s White Nationalist nonsense. https://apple.news/AxFctS7mET3qBX419lPootw

It’s an out of control agency badly in need of professional leadership, practical priorities, and some restraint and professional discipline in both rhetoric and actions. In other words, it needs a real law enforcement mission with honest, unbiased, professional leadership. Not going to happen under Trump!

So, the next competent President will have her or his work cut out to reform and reorganize ICE into an agency that serves the national interests of the majority of Americans. Whether that can be done in ICE’s current configuration, given its overtly racist overtones and widespread lack of community trust under Trump, remains to be seen. It could be beyond repair.

PWS

06-26-19

INSIDE TRUMP’S DEADLY KIDDIE GULAG: He’s Superseded Sessions As America’s Most Notorious Child Abuser!

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/inside-a-texas-building-where-the-government-is-holding-immigrant-children

Isaac Chotiner reports for the New Yorker:

Inside a Texas Building Where the Government Is Holding Immigrant Children

By Isaac Chotiner

June 22, 2019

Some of the lawyers interviewing immigrant children held in Border Patrol detention facilities were so disturbed by what they saw that they have decided to talk to the media.

Photograph by Cedar Attanasio / AP

Hundreds of immigrant children who have been separated from their parents or family members are being held in dirty, neglectful, and dangerous conditions at Border Patrol facilities in Texas. This week, a team of lawyers interviewed more than fifty children at one of those facilities, in Clint, Texas, in order to monitor government compliance with the Flores settlement, which mandates that children must be held in safe and sanitary conditions and moved out of Border Patrol custody without unnecessary delays. The conditions the lawyers found were shocking: flu and lice outbreaks were going untreated, and children were filthy, sleeping on cold floors, and taking care of each other because of the lack of attention from guards. Some of them had been in the facility for weeks.

To discuss what the attorneys saw and heard, I spoke by phone with one of them, Warren Binford, a law professor at Willamette University and the director of its clinical-law program. She told me that, although Flores is an active court case, some of the lawyers were so disturbed by what they saw that they decided to talk to the media. We discussed the daily lives of the children in custody, the role that the guards are playing at the facility, and what should be done to unite many of these kids with their parents. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How many lawyers were in your party? And can you describe what happened when you arrived?

We had approximately ten lawyers, doctors, and interpreters in El Paso this past week. We did not plan to go to the Clint Facility, because it’s not a facility that historically receives children. It wasn’t even on our radar. It was at a facility that historically only had a maximum occupancy of a hundred and four, and it was an adult facility. So we were not expecting to go there, and then we saw the report, last week, that it appeared that children were being sent to Clint, so we decided to put four teams over there. The teams are one to two attorneys, or an attorney and an interpreter. The idea is that we would be interviewing one child at a time or one sibling group at a time.

How many interviews do you do in a day?

We do a screening interview first to see if the child’s most basic needs are being met. Is it warm enough? Do they have a place to sleep? How long have they been there? Are they being fed? And if it sounds like the basic needs are being met, then we don’t need to interview them longer. If, when we start to interview the child, they start to tell us things like they’re sleeping on the floor, they’re sick, nobody’s taking care of them, they’re hungry, then we do a more in-depth interview. And those interviews can take two hours or even longer. So it depends on what the children tell us. So I’d say, with a team of four attorneys, if you’re interviewing several groups, which we sometimes try to do, or if you interview older children who are trying to take care of younger children, then you are interviewing, let’s say, anywhere from ten to twenty children per day.

How many kids are at the facility right now, and do you have some sense of a breakdown of where they’re from?

When we arrived, on Monday, there were approximately three hundred and fifty children there. They were constantly receiving children, and they’re constantly picking up children and transferring them over to an O.R.R. [Office of Refugee Resettlement] site. So the number is fluid. We were so shocked by the number of children who were there, because it’s a facility that only has capacity for a hundred and four. And we were told that they had recently expanded the facility, but they did not give us a tour of it, and we legally don’t have the right to tour the facility.

We drove around afterward, and we discovered that there was a giant warehouse that they had put on the site. And it appears that that one warehouse has allegedly increased their capacity by an additional five hundred kids. When we talked to Border Patrol agents later that week, they confirmed that is the alleged expansion, and when we talked to children, one of the children described as many as three hundred children being in that room, in that warehouse, basically, at one point when he first arrived. There were no windows.

Get the best of The New Yorker every day, in your in-box.

***********************************************

As Trump launches his latest “human hostages for outrageous ransom” scheme, it’s important for Democrats to hang tough against any reduction in rights for asylum seekers. The whole “loopholes” bogus claim is just another piece of this toxic White Nationalist racist narrative.

The only “change” needed would be to require the Trump Administration to comply with its domestic, international, and Constitutional duties to administer asylum laws fairly and generously for the protection of asylum seekers. An end of child abuse should be a prerequisite for any discussions.

The reality to keep in mind is that while ICE’s ability to inflict pain and suffering on ethnic communities as part of the racially-motivated “New Operation Wetback” is real, their capacity to actually remove undocumented residents is quite limited.

Contrary to the bogus narrative, several million of the 10 million so-called undocumented residents are actually here with permission and are therefore not currently subject to removal. Those include individuals with DACA, TPS, PD, Deferred Action, and in the EOIR Court System, or whose cases are pending in the Courts of Appeals.

Additionally, many, perhaps the majority, of those with so-called final “in absentia” orders of removal never received proper legal notice of their hearings and will be entitled to file a “motion to reopen” with an automatic stay while those motions are pending. Those who are not yet in the EOIR system will go to the end of a backlog that stretches out for many years.

Given their notoriously poor record keeping, it’s likely that many of ICE’s “last known addresses” are no good. Plus, the resistance that ICE’s racist fear-mongering tactics have engendered in many communities will hamper operations.

Additionally, ICE keeps claiming that is detention capacity is already “saturated.” Thus, most of those picked up, who will not be “immediately removable,” will have to be released.

In short, while we can expect some human tragedies and human rights abuses, the result of the Trump/DHS/ICE “saber rattling” will likely be another resounding operational failure that fuels the “Abolish ICE Movement” while energizing the vote to remove Trump and his GOP White Nationalist Cabal from office in 2020. Kind of an “everyone loses” outcome – but, despite all of his lies, boasting, and shamelessly false self-promotion, that’s all Trump has ever been about.

PWS

06-23-19

Sign me up

DOJ NOW OFFICIALLY AN ETHICS FREE ZONE: DOJ Attorney Lies To 9th Circuit Panel – Says That Gov. That Can Afford Useless Walls, Ridiculous “Raids,” Inhumane Detention, “Grifter” Security At Trump’s Golf Courses, Can’t Provide Toothbrushes, Soap, & Blankets For Kids In DHS “Gulags!” — Judges Are Aghast, But Fail To Take Immediate Disciplinary Action Against Contemptuous Attorney For Making Audaciously Frivolous Arguments!

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/justice-department-detained-immigrant-children-soap-toothbrushes_n_5d0c1f37e4b07ae90d9a8b0d

Mary Papenfuss reports for HuffPost:

POLITICS

5 hours ago

Justice Department Argues Against Providing Soap, Toothbrushes, Beds To Detained Kids

“I find it inconceivable that the government would say” current conditions are “safe and sanitary,” as required, said a stunned Judge William Fletcher.

A Justice Department attorney this week argued in court that the federal government should not be required to provide soap, toothbrushes or even beds to detained children apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Government lawyer Sarah Fabian argued Tuesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that forcing children to sleep on cold concrete floors in cells is both “safe and sanitary.”

Attorneys for the detained children are arguing that the government is not following the requirements of a 1997 settlement agreement in the case of Jenny Flores that established a framework for the humane treatment and release of detained migrant minors. Children must be housed in “safe and sanitary conditions” under the settlement. A district judge added the specific requirements that children be provided with soap and toothbrushes.

Members of the three-judge appellate panel appeared stunned by Fabian’s arguments, Courthouse News Service reported.

“Are you arguing seriously that you do not read the agreement as requiring you to do something other than what I just described: cold all night long, lights on all night long, sleeping on concrete and you’ve got an aluminum foil blanket?” asked Judge William Fletcher. “I find it inconceivable that the government would say that that is safe and sanitary.”

Judge Marsha Berzon asked Fabian: “You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of ‘safe and sanitary’ conditions?… You can’t be sanitary or safe as a human being if you can’t sleep.” (See the video below at 24:30.)

Fabian was challenging an order by U.S. District Judge Gee in Los Angeles, who appointed an independent monitor to ensure that the federal government complies with the Flores settlement and specifically required such items as soap and toothbrushes. Fabian argued that such requirements are not detailed in the original settlement. (In the video at 26:40.)

“One has to assume … parties couldn’t reach agreement on how to enumerate that or it was left to the agencies to determine,” Fabian argued.

Fletcher responded: “Or it was relatively obvious — at least obvious enough so that if you’re putting people into a crowded room to sleep on a concrete floor with an aluminum foil blanket on top of them, that doesn’t comply with the agreement.”

He added: “It may be they don’t get super-thread-count Egyptian linen, I get that. … I understand at some outer boundary, there may be some definitional difficulty. But no one would argue that this [current situation] is safe and sanitary.”

As for soap, it “wasn’t perfumed soap, it was soap. That sounds like it’s part of ‘safe and sanitary,’” he added. “Are you disagreeing with that?”

Judge A. Wallace Tashima said that such items are “within everybody’s common understanding that if you don’t have a toothbrush, if you don’t have soap, if you don’t have a blanket, it’s not safe and sanitary. Wouldn’t everybody agree to that?” he asked. “Do you agree to that?”

Fabian, who appeared to stumble throughout much of her presentation, responded: “Well … maybe.”

The attorney for the children argued that, although soap and toothbrushes weren’t specifically mentioned in the 1997 settlement, they must be provided because they would be “reasonably interpreted” as part of the agreement under contract law.

The “first thing you do is honor the plain meaning” of words like “safe and sanitary,” said Peter Schey. “Today we have a situation where once a month a child is dying in custody. Certainly the Border Patrol facilities are secure, but they’re not safe and they’re not sanitary.”

It’s not clear when the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, will issue a decision in the case.

The federal government earlier this month stopped English language classes, recreational programs like soccer games and legal aid for locked-up children.

Fabian’s argument before the 9th Circuit can be seen [at the above link].

Do you have information you want to share with HuffPost? Here’s how.

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Honestly, how does Sarah Fabian sleep at night? If she has kids, what does she tell them about what she does to other people’s kids for a living?

And, what can you say about 9th Circuit judges who accept frivolous, totally disingenuous arguments from Government counsel. A private attorney who wasted the court’s time and disrespected its integrity and functions in this matter would almost certainly be disciplined or disbarred in short order.

At one time, DOJ attorneys were expected to adhere to higher standards of ethics because of their role in protecting the public interest and aiding the courts in pursuit of justice. Why in the age of Trump, Sessions, Barr, and Solicitor General Noel Francisco are ethical standards no longer enforced against DOJ Attorneys? And that goes right up to the top, as both Barr and Sessions have clearly interfered with and participated in quasi-judicial immigration decisions after showing clear bias against migrants and in favor of DHS Enforcement, in violation of ethical standards.

Folks like Trump and his cronies always depend on complicit subordinates, as well as complicit courts, to carry out their vile and illegal programs.

PWS

06-21-19

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION INTENDS TO PUNISH MIGRANT KIDS! No Education, Recreation, Legal Help For Those in Kiddie Gulag! — How’s That Likely To Work Out For America?

https://apple.news/AcqynTMA8TqGuaYtxnsPw6g

Angelina Chapin reports for HuffPost:

POLITICS

06/05/2019 09:24 PM EDT

Trump Administration To Deprive Migrant Kids In Shelters Of English Lessons, Legal Aid

Immigrant advocates say the government is using child welfare rights as a political lever to secure more funding.

Unaccompanied immigrant children in government detention centers across the U.S. will no longer have English classes, recreational programs or legal aid, according to Department of Health and Human Services emails first obtained by The Washington Post.

The shelters will “begin scaling back or discontinuing” the funding for “activities that are not directly necessary for the protection of life and safety, including education services, legal services, and recreation” due to an influx of unaccompanied children crossing the border and a lack of funding, Evelyn Stauffer, a spokesperson for HHS’ Administration for Children and Families, told HuffPost.

The move could be illegal ― immigrant kids in custody must be taught English five days a week and have at least one hour of recreation time per day, under the terms of the 1997 Flores court settlement. But immigrant rights advocates fear the Trump administration is using child welfare rights as a political bargaining chip to secure funds from Congress. The administration has urged Congress to approve billions more in funding for the U.S.-Mexico border, including emergency funds that would increase shelter capacity and pay for part of President Donald Trump’s wall.

“It’s beyond the pale to threaten to take away the most basic protections [for children],” said Neha Desai, director of immigration at the National Center for Youth Law. “Once again this administration is using children as pawns for their broader political goals.”

And while the administration is blaming a border crisis and lack of government funds for these program cuts, immigrant rights experts said the government has itself to blame.

The number of unaccompanied immigrant children coming to the border and being placed in government custody reached a record high of 11,000 in May, and the number of kids in shelters has increased by 57% since last year, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.

There’s no doubt these numbers are stretching government resources, and HHS likely needs more funding to deal with this growing population. But immigrant youth advocates told HuffPost that the government has responded by enacting inhumane policies that exacerbate the system’s problems, such as family separation and sharing information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“This is a management crisis,” said Michelle Brané, director of the Migrant Rights and Justice Program at the Women’s Refugee Commission. “These policies create chaotic and dangerous situations and harm children.”

Rather than tackling the root issues that are spurring immigrants to flee their home countries, the Trump administration has responded with draconian policies to deal with border apprehensions that do not work as deterrents, said Cory Smith, vice president of policy, advocacy and communications at Kids In Need of Defense, a group that provides legal representation to unaccompanied kids.

“I think there’s a lot of the policies that have manufactured a crisis and are self-inflicted wounds,” Smith said.

Desai said that if shelters maintained by HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement ran efficiently and released kids promptly ― as they are required to do by the Flores settlement ― it would free up money for the kinds of programs the department is now cutting. Instead, kids are spending an average of roughly 66 days in detention, according to an HHS official, which is close to double the average length of stay before Trump took office.

The amount of time children spend in detention began increasing last May after the government began separating families, sending 3,000 more kids into unaccompanied children’s shelters.

And though the zero tolerance policy ended last June, the government is still separating families on a smaller level, which is unnecessarily adding to the volume in detention centers. “A lot of children in ORR custody should not be there in the first place,” Brané said. “We have a disturbing numbers of family separations [still] occurring.”

Last May, the government further prolonged shelter stays by requiring that everyone in a sponsor’s household be fingerprinted before they could be released. The Trump administration has since rescinded this requirement, but it still shares sponsor information with ICE, which immigration advocates say has made undocumented sponsors afraid to come forward for fear of being arrested and deported.

In February 2018, HHS reopened a temporary unlicensed shelter in Homestead, Florida, to handle an influx of kids crossing the border, which costs more than $1.2 million a day. In a recent court filing, some children described being held in Homestead for more than six months due to major inefficiencies with the case management process, such as having their sponsors rejected without explanation and having their cases passed to multiple managers.

Smith said depriving children of legal aid could also keep them in shelters for longer, since they won’t have reminders of when to show up to their court dates, or guidance about how to navigate difficult decisions.

Peter Schey, one of the lead attorneys representing detained children as part of an ongoing lawsuit, has contacted the government about how nixing educational, recreational and legal programs violates child welfare standards. He said that if the policy is not promptly withdrawn, his team will ask a U.S. District Court to block its implementation.

“I think these policy changes are heartless and unnecessarily cruel,” he said. “They plainly violate both federal laws and the Flores settlement.”

****************************

More Trump sleaziness. The Trump Administration appears to be pretty creative when out comes to finding money for building useless and unauthorized “walls.” Not so much when it comes to the welfare of children.

Idle hands, unoccupied minds, pent up energy, time on their hands: sounds like another “Trump generated recruiting opportunity” for gangs and bullies!

How low we have fallen as a nation to accept this kind of conduct from our “government.”

PWS

06-06-19

OUR AMERICAN GULAG: As Cowardly Trump Whines About The “Threat” Posed By Individuals Exercising Their Legal Rights At Border, His Administration Continues To Illegally Hold Children In Substandard Conditions — ABA President Bob Carlson Speaks Out Against This Violation Of Human Rights!

James Hohmann reports for the Washington Post’s “Daily 202:”

— Hundreds of minors are being held at U.S. facilities at the southern border beyond legal time limits. Abigail Hauslohner and Maria Sacchetti report: “Federal law and court orders require that children in Border Patrol custody be transferred to more-hospitable shelters no longer than 72 hours after they are apprehended. But some unaccompanied children are spending longer than a week in Border Patrol stations and processing centers, according to two Customs and Border Protection officials and two other government officials. … One government official said about half of the children in custody — 1,000 — have been with the Border Patrol for longer than 72 hours, and another official said that more than 250 children 12 or younger have been in custody for an average of six days. …

“The McAllen Border Patrol station, a facility near the southern tip of Texas that is routinely overwhelmed, was holding 775 people on Tuesday, nearly double its capacity. The Washington Post this week made a rare visit inside the facility, where adults and their toddler children were packed into concrete holding cells, many of them sleeping head-to-foot on the floor and along the wall-length benches, as they awaited processing at a sparsely staffed circle of computers known as ‘the bubble.’ … Experts say transferring children out of detention facilities as quickly as possible is critical, especially for ‘tender age’ children — those 12 or younger, who face physical and mental health issues even during short periods in detention. They sleep fitfully, do not eat well and suffer anxiety, said Amy Cohen, a child psychiatrist and expert witness in the Flores case.”

— Border agents apprehended 1,036 migrants in a record roundup near El Paso earlier this week. The apprehensions, which included 63 children traveling alone, reflect an uptick in the number of large groups trying to cross the border. Border agents apprehended a group of 424 migrants, the previous record, just last month. (NBC News)

Here’s the statement of ABA President Bob Carlson:

May 31, 2019

Statement of ABA President Bob Carlson, Re: Improper Detention of Immigrant Children

Share this:

WASHINGTON, May 31, 2019 — The American Bar Association is deeply disturbed by reports that hundreds of unaccompanied children seeking refuge in the United States are being held by the U.S. Border Patrol in violation of the law and federal policies.According to federal law and court orders, immigrant children generally cannot be held by law enforcement for more than 72 hours before being transferred to shelters that are better equipped to care for their physical and psychological needs. Yet news reports cite recent federal data that hundreds of children, many aged 12 and younger, have been held in Border Patrol custody for an average of six days, in facilities that are intended to be short-term processing stations.The current situation is unacceptable. Leaders at every level of the federal government, including the White House and Congress, must immediately find legal and humane alternatives that relieve the suffering of these children – and then work to create and fund comprehensive, long-term solutions.

With more than 400,000 members, the American Bar Association is one of the largest voluntary professional membership organizations in the world. As the national voice of the legal profession, the ABA works to improve the administration of justice, promotes programs that assist lawyers and judges in their work, accredits law schools, provides continuing legal education, and works to build public understanding around the world of the importance of the rule of law. View our privacy statement online. Follow the latest ABA news at www.americanbar.org/newsand on Twitter @ABANews.

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How “gonzo” has our country become? Our dishonest and unqualified “President” makes idiotic threats against our “friends” because his Administration has been too maliciously incompetent to deal with a relatively predictable flow of individuals merely seeking to exercise their legal rights. Somehow, the mess in Central America, for which we share a great part of the blame, becomes Mexico’s problem to solve. But, while the vast majority of those arriving at our borders are surrendering themselves to apply under our laws, the Trump Administration is violating the law on a grand scale by mistreating children and others in detention.

In a rational country, there would be a massive, bipartisan, expedited movement to remove this unqualified demagogue from office before he does more damage to our country and our world. But not in today’s America.

Sadly, that appears to be the real meaning of “American exceptionalism.”

PWS

06-01-19

NBC NEWS: MIGRANT KIDS CONTINUE TO DIE IN TRUMP’S “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” — 16 Year Old Guatemalan Boy 5th “Kid Casualty” Since Dec!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/16-year-old-migrant-boy-dies-u-s-custody-5th-n1007751

Daniella Silva reports for NBC News:

A 16-year-old Guatemalan boy died Monday in immigration custody in south Texas, the fifth migrant child to die since December, Customs and Border Protection said.

The teenager, who was not identified by authorities, was apprehended after crossing the border May 13 near Hidalgo, Texas, CBP said in a statement posted Monday. The boy was transferred from the Rio Grande Valley Sector’s Central Processing Center to the Weslaco Border Patrol Station on Sunday, the statement said.

He was then due to be placed with the Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency that oversees care of unaccompanied or separated migrant children after they are initially processed by immigration authorities, the statement said.

But the boy was found unresponsive Monday morning during a welfare check, the statement said. He died at the Weslaco Station.

“The men and women of U.S. Customs and Border Protection are saddened by the tragic loss of this young man and our condolences are with his family,” acting Commissioner John Sanders said in the statement. “CBP is committed to the health, safety and humane treatment of those in our custody.”

The cause of death is unknown and the incident is being reviewed by CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility. The Guatemalan government has been notified, the statement said.

The boy is the fifth migrant child to die since December. All of the children were Guatemalan. Asylum-seekers and other migrants from Guatemala have been fleeing a mix of violence, drought, food shortages and poverty.

In December, Jakelin Caal Maquín, 7, died of a bacterial infection, and Felipe Gomez Alonzo, 8, died of a flu infection while in CBP custody, according to authorities.

On April 30, Juan de León Gutiérrez, 16, died following “several days of intensive care” at a hospital after falling ill while in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services.

A medical examiner in Corpus Christi, Texas, said Juan had been diagnosed with a rare condition known as Pott’s puffy tumor, which can be caused by a severe sinus infection or head trauma, according to The Associated Press.

Last week, a 2½-year-old died after being hospitalized for pneumonia, following high fever and difficulty breathing after he was apprehended in early April, authorities said.

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The death toll for kids doesn’t even count some who have died or been killed in Mexico while awaiting processing that they are legally entitled to, but are not receiving in violation of law by the Administration.

Seems like rather than wasting time and money on walls, troops to string barbed wire, “remain in Mexico,” tent cities, increased detention, and using Border Patrol Agents illegally as unqualified “Asylum Officers,” the Administration should be concentrating all efforts on humanitarian care and assistance, fairly and timely processing asylum applicants at ports of entry, and granting as many asylum cases as possible under the current law to clear those cases out of the crowded system.

The existing law is actually flexible enough to deal with the current humanitarian situation if we had a competent, law-abiding Administration. However, the likely results, granting asylum to legitimate refugees fleeing situations in the Northern Triangle for which we share a great deal of responsibility, wouldn’t please the White Nationalist nativists. Just imagine using the law properly to protect deserving refugees, rather than “gaming” it to reject them.

One main purpose of the “Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Act” (“TVPA”) was to insure maximum protection to minors arriving at the border. Shamefully, rather than seeing that those protections are carried out, the Trump Administration and the GOP actually seek to remove Wilberforce Protection from those who need it most, thereby paving the way for massive child exploitation and casualties. Throughout his Administration, Trump and his White Nationalist cronies have been the “best friends” and “biggest boosters” of the druggies, human smugglers, cartels, and gangs. How about an Administration that protects victims rather than enriching and enabling their persecutors and abusers?

PWS

05-20-19

INSIDE THE ADMINISTRATION’S “KIDDIE GULAG:” Thousands Of Allegations Of Sexual Abuse Surface!

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/politics/hhs-documents-minors-sexual-abuse/index.html

Sophie Tatum reports for CNN:

Washington (CNN)The Department of Health and Human Services received more than 4,500 complaints of sexual abuse against unaccompanied minors from 2014-2018, according to internal agency documents released Tuesday by Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch.

In addition,1,303 complaints were reported to the Justice Department during that same time frame, according to the documents.

Deutch addressed the documents during a high-profile House hearing Tuesday on the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that resulted in thousands of immigrant children being separated from their parents.

He said that the documents “demonstrate over the past three years, there have been 154 staff on unaccompanied minor, let me repeat that, staff on unaccompanied minor allegations of sexual assault.”

“This works out on average to one sexual assault by HHS staff on unaccompanied minor per week,” he added.

Axios first reported the documents.

“I am deeply concerned with documents that have been turned over by HHS that record a high number of sexual assaults on unaccompanied children in the custody of the Office of Refugee and Resettlement,” Deutch said. “Together, these documents detail an environment of systemic sexual assaults by staff on unaccompanied children.”

HHS spokesperson Caitlin Oakley addressed the reports in a statement, saying minors’ safety is a “top concern,” and noted that there are “rigorous standards” in place for employees, which include mandatory background checks.

“These are vulnerable children in difficult circumstances, and ORR fully understands its responsibility to ensure that each child is treated with the utmost care. When any allegations of abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect are made, they are taken seriously and ORR acts swiftly to investigate and respond,” Oakley said.

At the hearing Tuesday, HHS’ US Public Health Service Commissioned Corps commander, Jonathan White, defended his agency against accusations of sexual abuse when asked by Rep. Tom McClintock, a California Republican, to respond to allegations that they were all “but serial child molesters” during a “drive-by slander a few minutes ago.”

“We share concern that I think everyone in this room feels. Anytime a child is abused in the care of ORR is one too many,” White said.

He added that “the vast majority of allegations prove to be unfounded when they are investigated by state law enforcement and federal law enforcement and the state licensure authorities to whom we refer them.”

“It is important to note that I am not aware of a single instance anywhere of an allegation against the ORR federal staff for abuse of a child,” White said.

Some of the incidents that were reported to the Justice Department included allegations against staff members who were accused of having relationships with minors, unwanted sexual touching and showing the minors pornographic videos, according to Axios. Axios also reported that of the thousands of complaints, there were 178 accusations against the adult staff.

CNN’s Geneva Sands contributed to this report.

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The Administration’s responses sound like a cover up to me. And they were “coaxed out” by GOP Reps who appear eager not to have the abuses engendered by the Administration’s toxic immigration enforcement policies fully vetted. Seems doubtful, based on my decades of Government experience, that “where there are 4,500 reports of smoke, there are no fires.”

Additionally, lawyers from the DOJ were still in court this week advancing specious and disingenuous arguments for avoiding responsibility for unconstitutional child separation that their clients had intentionally caused.

In fairness, these problems also existed under the Obama Administration. But, faced with extensive evidence of a broken system, the Trump Administration “doubled down” on problematic practices.

Eventually, there will be accountability for the detention disaster. And, when it happens both the responsible officials and the GOP legislators who are trying so hard to cover up the truth should face a reckoning.

PWS

02-27-19

NATION’S SHAME: ADMINISTRATION’S POLICY OF CRUELTY TOWARD CHILDREN WILL HAUNT US FOR MANY YEARS: “What the Trump administration does is force Americans to fight for things that should be uncontroversial, common-sense humanitarian principles; we now spend so much time reacting to a new set of atrocities that there is no energy left for anything else.”

https://apple.news/A9OIp3x0DQLqC27X2vxP05A

Jay Willis writes in GQ:

This fall, after national outrage over the Trump White House’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy forced it to begrudgingly wind down the practice of separating families at the border, administration officials began looking for a new method of implementing xenophobia as official government policy. They found it, apparently, by recruiting volunteers to serve as temporary guardians of unaccompanied minors—and then, if volunteers’ background checks indicated that they were undocumented, detaining those people and preparing them for deportation.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 170 individuals who offered to open up their homes—again, to children, many of whom were in federal custody because of the aforementioned separation policy, and who were otherwise forced to live in tent camps and converted warehouses until their immigration status could be resolved—have been arrested over the past few months for their displays of kindness. Of that group, 109 had no criminal record whatsoever.

On Thursday, The Washington Post reported the death of a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl who, along with her father and a larger group of immigrants, turned herself in to Border Patrol agents in a remote area of New Mexico last week. More than eight hours later, she began having seizures; first responders found that she had a fever of 105.7 degrees and hadn’t had food or water in days. She went into cardiac arrest and died of shock and dehydration shortly thereafter.

The agency’s response, which is laden with all the meaningless corporate bromides typically deployed to convey the appearance of sincerity, is more or less “tough shit”:

I suppose the events of this year should have dispelled the notion that when it comes to immigration, anyone associated with this regime would be inclined to momentarily suspend their prejudices to do a kind and decent thing. Yet somehow, the disgracefulness of DHS’s sting operation is still astonishing. The purpose of releasing kids to “qualified adults” is to make life better for innocent children, victims of a broken system in which they have no voice; literally the only relevant question is Will this person provide a safe place for them to live? But the administration cannot stop itself, this time preying on the basic human instinct to care for children, all in the service of rounding up a few more brown people.

The Chronicle notes that the number of children in custody has increased over the past few months—a trend observers blame on the spike in these background-check arrests. This means that despite the official end of the family-separation policy, more kids are being held in overcrowded jails, because their captors have cut off the power of otherwise willing caretakers to do anything about it. If you are lucky and don’t die in Border Patrol custody, a different set of government policies ensures that you’re still going to languish there for the foreseeable future.

There are bills on Capitol Hill that would bar DHS from doing this sort of thing. In the Senate, nine Democrats have signed on to the Families Not Facilities Act, first introduced in November, while in the House, 39 Democrats and two Republicans—both of whom just lost their re-election bids—are co-sponsors of an analogue. “Right now, unaccompanied children are being held in detention facilities or living in tent cities due in part to potential sponsors’ fear of retribution from ICE,” said California senator Kamala Harris in November. “This is an unacceptable obstacle to getting these children into a safe home, and we must fix it.”

The power of bigotry lies in the persistence of those who implement it—in their willingness to commit to it at all times, no matter the circumstances, no matter how dangerous or unconscionable, so as to never invite uncomfortable questions about why bigotry is acceptable in the first place. Death becomes just a risk that prisoners choose to assume, and volunteer caregivers open themselves up to the possibility of becoming prisoners as well.

What the Trump administration does is force Americans to fight for things that should be uncontroversial, common-sense humanitarian principles; we now spend so much time reacting to a new set of atrocities that there is no energy left for anything else. It is a policymaking war of attrition, and its goal is less to change people’s minds than it is to wear them out.

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Yup. Well said!

There is only one “right side of history” on this one. Sure it’s exhausting and frustrating to spend energy that should be spent on improving the system for everyone instead resisting gross violations of legal, Constitutional, and human rights engineered by a White Nationalist regime. But, that’s what the New Due Process Army, “Our Gang,” and many others on the right side of history are all about!

PWS

12-16-18

TAL @ SFCHRON: HOW LOW CAN THEY GO? – ICE Using Kids As “Bait” To Catch Non-Criminal Migrants, As “Kiddie Gulag” Reaches New Heights!

ICE arrested undocumented adults who sought to take in immigrant children

By Tal Kopan

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has arrested 170 undocumented immigrants who came forward to try to take migrant children out of government custody, including more than 100 with no criminal record, federal officials said Monday.

The new totals were released as the number of undocumented immigrant children in government custody has reached record highs, with no signs of slowing down.

According to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, the agency arrested 170 immigrants from July through November on the basis of information the government learned about them when they applied to take an immigrant child out of custody. Of that group, nearly two-thirds, or 109, had no criminal record.

ICE had confirmed 41 such arrests in September, prompting Democrats to propose legislation to block the practice. California Sen. Kamala Harris has joined onto a bill in the Senate, which has a bipartisan House counterpart, that would bar ICE from arresting an adult seeking to take in a child on the basis of information uncovered in a background check.

More: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/ICE-arrested-undocumented-adults-who-sought-to-13455142.php

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Golly gee, and some folks wonder why the “Abolish ICE” Movement continues to gather steam! Yes, ICE performs important law enforcement functions. But, lots of their “mission” isn’t really essential to good law enforcement, and some is actually quite counterproductive and wasteful.

Clearly, there is a case for Congress at least re-examining the amount of funding, priority, and effectiveness of some of which ICE is doing on the “civil side” these days. And, what would be the purpose of jamming more folks into a court system already crumbling under a largely artificially created 1.1 million case backlog? Not much that I can see, unless these folks being “lured” are really “bad actors,” which the majority of them don’t seem to be.

PWS

12-10-18

GONZO’S WORLD: DHS IG REPORT SLAMS GONZO’S “KIDDIE GULAG” WHILE CRITICISM OF INTENTIONAL CHILD ABUSE BY HIM AND OTHERS IN THE ADMINISTRATION CONTINUES TO MOUNT — Will The Article IIIs Eventually Draw The Line Between Incompetence & Intentional, Malicious Violations Of Constitutional Rights & Hold Gonzo & His Collaborators in DHS & ORR Personally Liable Under “Bivens?”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trumps-family-separation-policy-was-flawed-from-the-start-watchdog-review-says/2018/10/01/c7134d86-c5ba-11e8-9b1c-a90f1daae309_story.html

By Nick Miroff , Maria Sacchetti and Seung Min Kim

October 1 at 7:44 PM

The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” crackdown at the border this spring was troubled from the outset by planning shortfalls, widespread communication failures and administrative indifference to the separation of small children from their parents, according to an unpublished report by the Department of Homeland Security’s internal watchdog.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post, is the government’s first attempt to autopsy the chaos produced between May 5 and June 20, when President Trump abruptly halted the separations under mounting pressure from his party and members of his family.

The DHS Office of Inspector General’s review found at least 860 migrant children were left in Border Patrol holding cells longer than the 72-hour limit mandated by U.S. courts, with one minor confined for 12 days and another for 25.

Many of those children were put in chain-link holding pens in the Rio Grande Valley of southern Texas. The facilities were designed as short-term way stations, lacking beds and showers, while the children awaited transfer to shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. border officials in the Rio Grande Valley sector, the busiest for illegal crossings along the nearly 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, held at least 564 children longer than they were supposed to, according to the report. Officials in the El Paso sector held 297 children over the legal limit.

The investigators describe a poorly coordinated interagency process that left distraught parents with little or no knowledge of their children’s whereabouts. In other instances, U.S. officials were forced to share minors’ files on Microsoft Word documents sent as email attachments because the government’s internal systems couldn’t communicate.

“Each step of this manual process is vulnerable to human error, increasing the risk that a child could become lost in the system,” the report found.

Based on observations conducted by DHS inspectors at multiple facilities along the border in late June, agents separated children too young to talk from their parents in a way that courted disaster, the report says.

“Border Patrol does not provide pre-verbal children with wrist bracelets or other means of identification, nor does Border Patrol fingerprint or photograph most children during processing to ensure that they can be easily linked with the proper file,” the report said.

“It is a priority of our agency to process and transfer all individuals in our custody to the appropriate longer-term detention agency as soon as possible,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes Border Patrol, said in a statement. “The safety and well-being of unaccompanied alien children . . . is our highest responsibility, and we work closely with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement to ensure the timely and secure transfer of all unaccompanied minors in our custody as soon as placement is available from HHS.”

In its Sept. 14 response to the inspector general’s report, DHS acknowledged the “lack of information technology integration” across the key immigration systems and “sometimes” holding children beyond the 72-hour limit.

Jim Crumpacker, the DHS official who responded to the report, said the agency held children longer mainly because HHS shelter space was unavailable. But he said transferring children to less-restrictive settings is a priority.

[‘Deleted families: What went wrong with Trump’s family separation effort]

On June 23, three days after the executive order halting the separations, DHS announced it had developed a “central database” with HHS containing location information for separated parents and minors that both departments could access to reunite families. The inspector general found no evidence of such a database, the report said.

“The OIG team asked several [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] employees, including those involved with DHS’ reunification efforts at ICE Headquarters, if they knew of such a database, and they did not,” it states. “DHS has since acknowledged to the OIG that there is no ‘direct electronic interface’ between DHS and HHS tracking systems.”

Inspectors said they continue to have doubts about the accuracy and reliability of information provided by DHS about the scope of the family separations.

In late June, a federal judge ordered the government to reunite more than 2,500 children taken from their parents, but three months later, more than 100 of those minors remain in federal custody.

The inspector general’s report also found that U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) restricted the flow of asylum seekers at legal ports of entry and may have inadvertently prompted them to cross illegally. One woman said an officer had turned her away three times, so she crossed illegally.

At one border crossing, the inspection team saw CBP attempt to increase its detention space by “converting former offices into makeshift hold rooms.”

The observations were made by teams of lawyers, inspectors and criminal investigators sent to the border amid concerns raised by members of Congress and the public. They made unannounced visits to CBP and ICE facilities in the border cities of El Paso and McAllen, Tex.

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Meanwhile, over at Vanity Fair, Isobel Thompson give us the “skinny” on how the self-created “Kiddie Gulag” that Sessions, Stevie Miller, and Nielsen love so much has turned into total chaos, with the most vulnerable kids among us as its victims. We’ll be feeling the effects of these cruel, inhuman, and unconstitutional policies for generations!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/10/donald-trump-child-detention-crisis-is-getting-worse

Three months after Donald Trump gave in to global opprobrium and discontinued his administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the Mexican border, the stark impact of his zero-tolerance directive continues to unfold, with reports emerging that, in the space of a year, the number of migrant children detained by the U.S. government has spiked from 2,400 to over 13,000—despite the number of monthly border crossings remaining relatively unchanged. The increase, along with the fact that the average detainment period has jumped from 34 to 59 days, has resulted in an accommodation crisis. As a result, hundreds of children—some wearing belts inscribed with their emergency-contact information—have been packed onto buses, transported for hours, and deposited at a tented city in a stretch of desert in Tornillo, West Texas. According to The New York Times, these journeys typically occur in the middle of the night and on short notice, to prevent children from fleeing.

The optics of the child-separation crisis have been some of the worst in history for the Trump administration, and the tent city in Tornillo is no exception. The facility is reportedly run according to “guidelines” provided by the Department of Health and Human Services, but access to legal aid is limited, and children—who sleep in bunks divided by gender into blocks of 20—are given academic workbooks, but no formal teaching. In theory, the hundreds of children being sent to Tornillo every week should be held for just a short period of time; the center first opened in June as a temporary space for about 400. Since then, however, it has been expanded to accommodate 3,800 occupants for an indefinite period.

Again, the lag time is largely thanks to the White House. Typically, children labeled “unaccompanied minors” are held in federal custody until they can be paired with sponsors, who house them as their immigration case filters through the courts. But thanks to the harsh rhetoric embraced by the White House, such sponsors are now in short supply. They’re often undocumented immigrants themselves, which means that in this environment, claiming a child would put them at risk for deportation. In June, that risk became even more acute when authorities announced that potential sponsors would have to submit their fingerprints, as well as those of any adults living in their household: data that would then be passed to immigration authorities. Matthew Albence, who works for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, unwittingly illustrated the problem when he testified before Congress last week that I.C.E. had arrested multiple people who had applied to sponsor unaccompanied minors. Almost three-quarters had no criminal record.

Over time, the number of detained children is only expected to increase. According to The Washington Post, the flood of Central American immigrants moving north, driven by “hunger, joblessness, and the gravitational pull of the American economy,” shows no sign of abating. The number of men who cross the border with children has reportedly risen from 7,896 in 2016 to 16,667 this year, while instances of migrants falsely claiming children as their own have reportedly increased “threefold.” “Economic opportunity and governance play much larger roles in affecting the decision for migrants to take the trip north to the United States,” Kevin McAleenan, a border-security official, told the Post, adding that “a sustained campaign that addresses both push and pull factors” is “the only solution to this crisis.”

Given the attitude of the current administration, such a campaign seems unlikely to materialize. With Congress poorly positioned to pass comprehensive immigration reform, and a suddenly swamped detention system draining money and resources and damaging the mental health of thousands of children, the escalating crisis seems poised to become an ever more serious self-inflicted thorn in the president’s side. Although the White House is confident that, as hard-liner Stephen Miller boasts, it can’t lose on immigration, it will at some point be forced to acknowledge that its draconian strategy has morphed into chaos.

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Wonder if any of these evil dudes who along with Sessions helped plan and implement the “Kiddie Gulag” knowing that it was likely in violation of the Constitution (in Federal court, DOJ lawyers didn’t even contest that a policy of intentional child separation would be unconstitutional) took out the “Bivens Insurance” offered to USG employees at relatively low-cost (I sure did!).

The only good news is that they are likely to be tied up in law suits seeking damages against them in their personal capacities for the rest of their lives!

So, perhaps there will eventually be some justice! But, that’s still won’t help traumatized kids whose lives have been screwed up forever as an illegal, immoral, and bogus, “deterrent” by a racist White Nationalist regime.

PWS

10-02-18

AIC: DATA IN NEW REPORT CLEARLY SHOWS THAT FAMILY DETENTION DIMINISHES DUE PROCESS WITHOUT OFFSETTING POSITIVES – So, Why Do Administrations Of Both Parties Keep Resorting To, & Even “Doubling Down On” This Expensive, Wasteful, & Repugnant Practice?

http://immigrationimpact.com/2018/08/16/detention-family-separation-government-data/#disqus_thread

Tory Johnson reports in Immigraton Impact:

In the wake of the government separating thousands of asylum-seeking families, the Trump administration has scrambled to reunite families. In place of family separation, the administration is pursuing the expansion of an equally horrific practice: holding families in detention camps. This practice has sadly persisted in the United States since 2001.

Neither option—separation or detention—is suitable for families. According to a recent study that analyzed 15 years of government data, detention poses significant barriers to justice for asylum-seeking families. The study’s findings, released this week in a report from the American Immigration Council, provide further evidence that detaining families seeking protection is unnecessary, costly, and inhumane.

The United States currently detains more asylum-seeking families than any nation in the world—even without the expansion proposed by the current administration. This practice has skyrocketed since 2001, when the United States began operating the first detention center to exclusively hold families. But what do we know about the impact of detaining families?

Until now, there was little information about how detained families fare in the immigration court process and what barriers they face in pursuing their asylum claims. “Detaining Families: A Study of Asylum Adjudication in Family Detention” is the first empirical study of family detention and the U.S. immigration court process. The report presents the analysis of government records from more than 18,000 immigration proceedings initiated between fiscal years 2001 and 2016, which involved families held in one of five family detention centers in the United States.

The findings detailed in the report are vital as the government weighs policies that affect asylum seekers and the immigration courts. The report reveals that over the course of 15 years, the United States relied on—and overused—detention in various ways to imprison families seeking asylum, sometimes for prolonged periods.

The thousands of family members included in the study faced serious barriers accessing the court system and a fair asylum process. Notably, the report finds that access to legal representation is limited in detention and in fast-track removal proceedings. Having counsel is critical when navigating the U.S. immigration system—and may be the difference between life and death for an asylum seeker.

These hurdles are particularly concerning given the findings from the period studied (2001 to 2016), which show that families pursue viable claims for protection and had increased representation when released from detention.

Specifically, the main findings discussed in the report include:

Family members who were released from detention had high compliance rates; the overwhelming majority (86 percent) of family members released from detention showed up for their court hearings.

Representation increased among family members who were released from detention; 76 percent of released family members were represented by counsel at their most recent merits hearing, whereas only 47 percent of family members who remained detained had counsel.

Family members who were released from detention and obtained counsel had a relatively high rate of success in their completed cases; 49 percent of released family members with counsel successfully obtained relief from removal. This rate dropped significantly for unrepresented family members who remain detained—only 8 percent had the same success in their cases.

In addition, the report reveals the important role that the immigration courts can play in maintaining due process in asylum proceedings. While the courts are vulnerable to variability based on different jurisdictions, they serve as a vital check on the detention decisions of immigration officials. For example, in the period studied, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers issued initial custody decisions that unnecessarily prolonged the detention of families. These decisions were regularly overturned after immigration judges found that family members were eligible for release.

The study adds to mounting evidence against family detention, underlining the fact that detaining families is unnecessary, costly, and inhumane. In contrast, the study’s findings provide strong support for different policy choices—ones that uphold access to justice for families and respect a system with checks and balances.

As a country, we must choose policies in line with our values and end the horrible practice of detaining families. Family unity does not, and should not, require imprisonment.

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One obvious answer as to why this horrible and counterproductive practice remains prevalent across Administrations of both parties: although punishment, deterrence, and “sending messages” are not appropriate reasons for immigration detention, that’s what’s really at work here. Even though there is little or no documentable “deterrent value” to such detention, Administrations of both parties like to send “hard-line border enforcement” messages to certain constituencies. Add to that individuals and entities from both parties who stand to profit from immigration detention, and you have a prescription for a major disaster. Not surprisingly, that’s exactly what overuse of immigration detention has been!

Ironically, the Trump Administration’s widespread public misuse of immigration detention has focused public attention on its immorality and wastefulness, and therefore might ultimately lead to the curtailment of the practice.

PWS

08-20-18

NEWS FROM JUST OUTSIDE SESSIONS’S “AMERICAN KIDDIE GULAG” – MOTHER & SON “CAMP OUT” NEARBY IN SEARCH OF TRUTH ABOUT OUR NATION’S OFFICIAL PROGRAM OF CHILD ABUSE! — “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.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mom-camping-tender-age-shelter_us_5b476891e4b0e7c958f8cbd8

Ashley Casale writesin HuffPost:

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?

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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.

PWS

07-16-18

NYT: NO, THIS ISN’T OUT OF A CHARLES DICKENS NOVEL – IT’S ABOUT HOW KIDS ARE TREATED IN JEFF SESSIONS’S “AMERICAN KIDDIE GULAG” – “[T]he 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.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/us/migrant-children-shelters.html?emc=edit_nn_20180715&nl=morning-briefing&nlid=7921388620180715&te=1

By Dan Barry, Miriam Jordan, Annie Correal and Manny Fernandez

July 14, 2018

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.

Last week, in trying to comply with a court order, the government returned slightly more than half of the 103 children under the age of 5 to their migrant parents.

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.

PWS

07-15-18

DOUG CRISS @ CNN: NEWS FROM THE KAKISTOCRACY: EXPOSING AMERICA’S “KIDDIE GULAG” — PUBLIC FINALLY STARTING TO GRASP THE UGLY TRUTH — SESSIONS, TRUMP, & NIELSEN HAVE INSTITUTED A NATIONAL POLICY OF CHILD ABUSE – BROAD SPECTUM IS FINALLY SPEAKING OUT AGAINST IMMORAL AND DISINGENUOUS ACTIONS OF OUR SO-CALLED “LEADERS!”

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/us/five-things-june-15-trnd/index.html

Doug writes:

Criticism is heating up over the Trump administration’s decision to separate children from parents who cross the border into the US illegally. Rallies against it were held yesterday across the country. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tried to use the Bible to justify the policy, but that only seemed to tick people off more. CNN’s Bob Ortega went inside the largest facility where children are being held. It’s in a former Walmart superstore in Brownsville, Texas, and holds almost 1,500 kids. Religious groups have spoken out against the policy, and now medical organizations — like the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association — are sounding the alarm as well.

******************************************

Wow! What a great, concise, clearly written report! Doug says a lot in five sentences with helpful links to help us understand how evil Sessions actually is. Compare real writing like this with the 30 or so pages of turgid legal prose and gobbledygook that Sessions spewed forth in Matter of A-B- in an attempt to mask his evil intent and unlawful actions!

Time for folks to stand up fight this horrible individual who is abusing his office and power and attacking America’s and the world’s future!

Evil is evil! Call Sessions out, and demand that the Article III Courts and Congress put an end to this disgusting abuse!

DUE PROCESS FOREVER! JEFF SESSIONS NEVER! JOIN THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY TODAY AND FIGHT EVIL AND INJUSTICE FROM BORDER TO BORDER, SEA TO SEA, UNTIL IT IS BANISHED FROM OUR LAND FOREVER! END THE KAKISTOCRACY THAT IS RUINING AMERICA!

PWS

06-14-18

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No Touching, No Running

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DUE PROCESS FOREVER! JEFF SESSIONS NEVER! JOIN THE NEW DUE PROCESS ARMY TODAY AND FIGHT EVIL AND INJUSTICE FROM BORDER TO BORDER, SEA TO SEA, UNTIL IT IS BANISHED FROM OUR LAND FOREVER! END THE KAKISTOCRACY THAT IS RUINING AMERICA!

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