Tag: kids in cages

‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said

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Top department officials were “a driving force” behind President Trump’s child separation policy, a draft investigation report said.

WASHINGTON — The five U.S. attorneys along the border with Mexico, including three appointed by President Trump, recoiled in May 2018 against an order to prosecute all undocumented immigrants even if it meant separating children from their parents. They told top Justice Department officials they were “deeply concerned” about the children’s welfare.

But the attorney general at the time, Jeff Sessions, made it clear what Mr. Trump wanted on a conference call later that afternoon, according to a two-year inquiry by the Justice Department’s inspector general into Mr. Trump’s “zero tolerance” family separation policy.

“We need to take away children,” Mr. Sessions told the prosecutors, according to participants’ notes. One added in shorthand: “If care about kids, don’t bring them in. Won’t give amnesty to people with kids.” Continue reading.

120 Children Remain in ICE Detention Despite Court Order For Them to Be Released Due to COVID-19 Concerns

t least 120 children remain in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), more than two weeks after the July 27 deadline set by a court order requiring the agency release them because of the health risk posed by COVID-19.

ICE has had a month to plan for the release of the children, after the court order was issued on June 26 by California Judge Dolly Gee, who oversees the Flores Settlement Agreement, a 23-year-old class action settlement that laid the ground work for children’s rights in immigration detention. Per the Flores settlement, federal immigration officials cannot detain children for longer than 20 days. Despite that ruling, many children are detained for much longer periods—at one Texas facility alone, 47 kids have been detained for longer than 300 days. On June 26 Judge Gee ordered ICE to release all detained children because of increasing cases of COVID-19 at ICE detention centers, facilities she previously described as “on fire.”

A month later, the children are still detained. “It seems a month has been squandered not doing much of anything,” Gee said at an Aug. 7 hearing, according to Law360. At the hearing, both parities—ICE and the lawyers representing the children—explained to Gee that they had not yet reached an agreement as to how to safely and humanely remove children from custody. Continue reading.

Migrant Teen Who Died in U.S. Custody Was Unresponsive for Hours, Report Says

HOUSTON, TEXAS — A flu-ridden 16-year-old from Guatemala writhed in agony inside a U.S. Border Patrol cell and collapsed on the floor where he lay for several hours before he was found dead, according to video released Thursday that further calls into question the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrant families.

The footage published by ProPublica shows the last hours of Carlos Hernandez Vasquez, who was found dead May 20. He is one of at least six children to have died since December 2018 after being detained by border agents.

According to ProPublica, Hernandez staggered to the toilet in his cell in the middle of the night at the Border Patrol station in Weslaco, Texas, and collapsed nearby. He remained still for more than four hours until his cellmate awakened at 6:05 a.m. and discovered him on the floor.

Continue reading

Pollution, anxiety, and death: How Trump is poisoning the country and literally making us sick

AlterNet logoIf you’ve ever said “Donald Trump makes me sick,” it was probably a metaphorical statement. Or was it?

The scrapping of life-saving regulations, the lies and incessant digital braying on Twitter and children confined to detention camps in the name of America. In your name.

What’s it all doing to our minds, bodies and the earth even rich people have to live on?

View the complete October 12 article by Liz Langley on the AlterNet website here.

HHS Official Says Separated Migrant Kids Suffer ‘Extraordinary Trauma’

Cmdr. Jonathan White, a career public health official at the Department of Health and Human Services, told Congress on Wednesday that children separated from their families face “extraordinarily severe” trauma leading to likely lifelong harm of both a mental and physical nature.

Children were taken away from their families as part of the Trump administration’s attempt to discourage crossings at the border. The practice instead backfired, with the U.S. government thrust into the role of holding on to children who have been taken from their families.

White testified to a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee at a briefing titled “Oversight Hearing: Mental Health Needs of Children in HHS Custody.”

View the complete September 18 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Mumps outbreak in the camps: Cruelty isn’t going away

AlterNet logoIn the lead-up to both Donald Trump’s election and his first midterm elections, the Republican Party and right-wing media outlets like Fox News aggressively pushed the xenophobic myth that migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border were bringing a new outbreak of long eradicated communicable diseases like smallpox. That was baseless fear-mongering meant to play up the manufactured “crisis” in an effort to scare up votes.

Since the elections, Trump has continued to hype the manufactured crisis in order to build new detention camps, many of them for private profit. The Trump administration has recently moved to hold migrant families and children indefinitely in cages, under inhumane and unsanitary conditions. Now the federal government is willfully refusing to inoculate these migrants — who include many mothers and small children — from deadly diseases while keeping them in cramped conditions.

Since the elections, Trump has continued to hype the manufactured crisis in order to build new detention camps, many of them for private profit. The Trump administration has recently moved to hold migrant families and children indefinitely in cages, under inhumane and unsanitary conditions. Now the federal government is willfully refusing to inoculate these migrants — who include many mothers and small children — from deadly diseases while keeping them in cramped conditions.

View the complete September 4 article by Sophia Tesfaye from Salon on the AlterNet website here.

Homeland Security Blocks Congressional Visits To Migrant Detention Centers

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has barred staffers from the House Oversight Committee from conducting visits of detention facilities where migrants are being held.

The decision comes after migrants detailed actions and policies that could be considered abusive of detainees, particularly children.

Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings (D-MD) sent a letter to Acting DHS Secretary Kevin McAleenan on Wednesday, objecting to the action.

View the complete August 30 article by Oliver Willis on the National Memo website here.

Border Patrol Kept Families Separated To Avoid ‘Paperwork’

Unsettling details of Trump’s family separation policy were laid out in a new investigative report released by congressional staff for Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), acknowledging that “child separations were more harmful, traumatic, and chaotic than previously known.”

The investigation found that the youngest known child to be ripped away from his parents was a four-month-old Romanian boy.

In another instance, an eight-month-old baby was taken from her father in May 2018. At the time of his father’s release from custody, “the baby had spent nearly half of his life without his parents, in the custody of the Trump Administration,” according to the report. “It is unclear whether the child and father have been reunited.”

View the complete July 13 article by Dan Desai Martin on the National Memo website here.

House approves $383 billion spending package

The Hill logoHouse Democrats on Tuesday passed a $383 billion spending package, finishing work on three-quarters of the annual appropriations bills on its docket ahead of the July Fourth recess.

The package of five funding bills passed in a vote of 227-194, largely along party lines. It includes funds for commerce and justice; agriculture, interior and environment; military construction and veterans affairs; and transportation, housing and urban development.

The legislation’s passage means Democrats have successfully completed work on nine of the 12 annual appropriations bills in their chamber. They are set to pass a 10th bill, covering financial services and general government, this week.

View the complete June 25 article by Niv Elis on The Hill website here.

Acting CBP Commissioner John Sanders resigns

Axios logoJohn Sanders, the acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, announced in an internal email Tuesday that he had handed in his resignation letter — effective July 5 — to acting director of Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan on Monday.

Why it matters: Sanders’ resignation as the administration’s top border enforcer follows heightened scrutiny over the past week of the conditions at migrant children’s detention centers at the southern border.

The latest: Tuesday’s reshuffle continued as 2 DHS officials told the Washington Postthat Trump intends to name Mark Morgan — the acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — as Sanders’ replacement.

View the complete June 25 article by Alayna Treene on the Axios website here.