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Wtf, wtf…
https://time.com/5605120/trump-migrant-children-fort-still
The Trump Administration has opted to use an Army base in Oklahoma to hold growing numbers of immigrant children in its custody after running out of room at government shelters.
Fort Sill, an 150-year-old installation once used as an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II, has been selected to detain 1,400 children until they can be given to an adult relative, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
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More from WaPo
On Tuesday, the agency announced it has chosen a military base as a temporary shelter: Fort Sill in Oklahoma, which was used during World War II as an internment camp for Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants. Before that, it was the longtime prison for Apache leader Geronimo.
The Trump administration has been under fire for its treatment of migrant children, drawing comparisons to the U.S. government’s internment of Japanese Americans and Japanese immigrants in the 1940s. Yale historian Joanne Freeman said on Twitter: “It feels as though history can’t yell any louder than this.”
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This is the first post in a long thread that talks about ongoing efforts to deny access and scrutiny to the treatment of immigrants. They are kept in inhuman conditions, and are being moved onto military bases where ALL access can then be denied. Something must be done.
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ICE’s kidnapping is still happening, just more quietly
Here’s a List of Companies Making Money From Miami’s Child-Migrant Detention Camp
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Civil servants say they’re being used as pawns in a dangerous asylum program
Asylum officers worry they’re being forced to send some Central Americans to wait in Mexico — even when they’re in danger of persecution there.
As the Trump administration’s Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program has expanded since it was introduced in January and the lawsuit over its legality has progressed slowly, many asylum officers have gotten increasingly uncomfortable with their role in the process. They worry that they’re being used to whitewash the program, and claim they don’t actually have as much power to allow migrants to stay in the US if they’re in danger as the Trump administration has publicly stated. One asylum officer described the interviews as “pro forma” — just for show.
Under the Migrant Protection Protocols, the Trump administration, as part of its serial efforts to stem a growing tide of Central American asylum seekers, started sending some Central American asylum seekers — first a handful a week, then dozens, now hundreds — back to Mexico after initial processing, with instructions to show up at a port of entry at a particular date for a hearing before an immigration judge on their asylum case.
The policy has raised serious concerns among lawyers and human rights advocates, who worry that there’s no way for immigrants to obtain American lawyers while in Mexico; that they may not be able to return to the US in time for their hearings; and, fundamentally, that northern Mexico isn’t necessarily a safe place for Central Americans fleeing persecution to be — that the US would essentially be violating the principle of non-refoulement (that a government must not send a migrant back to a country where they’d be persecuted or imperiled).
To my knowledge, this isn’t happening here… yet.
Yet.
Resignation Syndrome afflicts children who have lost all hope. How long before we see it here?
The Refugee Kids Entering Comas as They Face Deportation
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Yup, this is actual fascism. We should call a spade a spade.
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I want to scream right now.
Here’s the argument (at around 25:00). The Justice Department is arguing that a consent decree requiring the gov’t to provide “safe and sanitary” conditions for detained minors doesn’t mean they need to be able to sleep or wash.
Judge Berzon: “Really?”
Feds Tell 9th Circuit: Detained Kids ‘Safe and Sanitary’ Without Soap
“You’re really going to stand up and tell us that being able to sleep isn’t a question of safe and sanitary conditions?’” U.S. Circuit Judge Marsha Berzon asked the Justice Department’s Sarah Fabian.
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In any other facility, like a daycare or group home or even a private home, this would be considered criminal neglect and the children would be immediately removed for a hospital intake by Child Services.
The attorneys who recently visited the facility near El Paso told The Associated Press that three girls, ages 10 to 15, said they had been taking turns watching over a sick 2-year-old boy because there was no one else to look after him.
When the lawyers saw the boy, he wasn’t wearing a diaper and had wet his pants, and his shirt was smeared in mucus. They said at least 15 children at the facility had the flu, and some were kept in medical quarantine.
The children told lawyers that they were fed uncooked frozen food or rice and had gone weeks without bathing or a clean change of clothes at the facility in Clint, in the desert scrubland some 25 miles southeast of El Paso.
“In my 22 years of doing visits with children in detention I have never heard of this level of inhumanity,” said Holly Cooper, an attorney who represents detained youth. “Seeing our country at this crucible moment where we have forsaken children and failed to see them as human is hopefully a wake up for this country to move toward change.”
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Lawyers claim infants, children are in dangerous situation at border detention site
A team of attorneys who recently visited a Border Patrol facility near El Paso told the AP that three girls, ages 10 to 15, said they had been taking turns keeping watch over a sick 2-year-old boy because there was no one else to look after him.
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4 Severely Ill Migrant Toddlers Hospitalized After Lawyers Visit Border Patrol Facility
The kids were unresponsive, feverish and vomiting, yet receiving no medical care, according to lawyers.
One 2-year-old’s eyes were rolled back in her head, and she was “completely unresponsive” and limp, according to a lawyer who visited a Border Patrol facility.
Trump Bets We’ll Stop Caring About Migrant Kids
One year ago, Trump outlawed family separation. It hasn’t stopped.
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From Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin who runs ResistanceLive on Patreon and FB
They just released a video - see here…
Lights for Liberty 7/12/19
MASS MOBILIZATION
Lights For Liberty: A Nationwide Vigil to End Human Detention Camps
Please share this far and wide.
Please follow at the event page: Lights for Liberty
#Lights4Liberty #DontLookAway #EndTrumpsDetentionCamps
We are a coalition of people, many of whom are mothers, dedicated to human rights, and the fundamental principle behind democracy that all human beings have a right to life, liberty and dignity. We are partnering with national, regional and local communities and organizations who believe that these fundamental rights are not negotiable and are willing to protect them.
On Friday July 12th, 2019, Lights for Liberty: A Vigil to End Human Detention Camps, will bring thousands of Americans to detention camps across the country, into the streets and into their own front yards, to protest the inhumane conditions faced by refugees.
Across this country, we have witnessed acts against people fleeing persecution many of us thought we would never see in modern times.
At Trump’s human detention camps, teen mothers and babies are held outdoors in “dog pounds.” We have witnessed the sick and elderly confined to “icebox” rooms for weeks at a time. Unbelievably, children as young as 4 months are taken from their parents, medicine is confiscated, and medical care withheld, and LGBTQ and disabled individuals are held in solitary confinement.
“The Trump administration’s immigration policies and detention camps meet the United Nations’ definition of genocide and crimes against humanity,” said Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin, lawyer, activist and organizer. “Congress is refusing to stop the president and his policies. We cannot allow these atrocities to be perpetrated in our name.”
Perhaps most terrifying, refugees are beginning to be moved onto military grounds, where there will be a complete lack of oversight from the media, lawyers, and human rights monitors. Many of us thought we would never see anything like this in modern times.
“Now is the time for every person to stand up and say, ‘We will not accept this!’ No more hesitating. No more denial. No more fear. We need to be bold, and loud, and unrelenting. That’s the only way we can stop this,” said Kristin Mink, activist and organizer.
Lights for Liberty seeks to create this event in solidarity and allyship with communities most impacted by the abuse of our immigration system. We seek to work in solidarity with grassroots organizations both new and historic, those who are well-funded and on shoe-string budget. We are moved to mobilize with anyone: moms, dads, and people of moral conscience who cannot stand to see families and communities destroyed.
Simply put, our country is at a tipping point.
EVENT DETAILS
On July 12th, Lights for Liberty will shine a light on the horrific abuses of the Trump administration in human detention camps.
People will begin arriving at 7pm local time at locations around the nation. At five main locations, legislators, activists, and organizers will speak until 9pm.
At 9 pm local time, at every detention camp (there are more than 200+ and at least one in every state), and in cities, towns, and homes around America, a silent sea of candles will light up the nation.
El Paso, Texas, where migrants are being housed in outdoor conditions under a bridge with no running water for months at a time, is the anticipated site of the main Lights for Liberty vigil. Legislators, activists, organizers, and members of impacted communities are expected to speak.
Other key events are planned in:
Homestead, FL, at a migrant child detention facility that has caused mass abuse and neglect;
San Diego, near the point of entry site from Tijuana;
New York City, at Foley Square, where hundreds of migrants are processed through detention a day;
and Washington, DC, in front of the Capitol building, to demand action from Congress to end human detention and impeach the President.
Details of exact vigil locations will be announced in the coming days.
We welcome all individuals and organizations who support an end to human detention camps to participate in a main or local event. Please email us at [email protected] if you or your organization is interested in sponsoring or supporting an event in your area.
These events are being funded entirely out of the pockets of our organizing team. We have no sponsors and will not be asking for any financial contribution for these events.
We will invite the public to directly contribute to organizations supporting migrant refugees on the donations page of our website.
This moment has the opportunity to be a turning point in our nation’s history, a moment in which we bring these camps out of the shadows, stop America’s rapid slide into unspeakable horror, and demand that our country stand up for the values it strives to uphold.
We invite you to stand beside us on the right side of history on July 12th.
For more information please visit our website: www.lightsforliberty.org
And in the interim, from now until the end of this administration and its horrific policies, we invite you to light a candle in our window to keep vigil for all those still held in Trump’s detention camps, and all those persecuted, marginalized and harmed by this administration.
For a press release with all the details shared above, go to https://bit.ly/2Isbf1S .
#DontLookAway #Lights4Liberty #EndTrumpsConcentrationCamps
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Love AOC’s statement here.
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Article from 4.19 in Forbes Magazine describes the investor who gets about $210 milion annually from the government to house migrant (and separated) families.
A lot of protesting going on here.
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Trump has pushed back the ICE raids for two weeks; he claims Democrats asked him to, but it smacks of fearmongering and gaslighting.
“At the request of Democrats, I have delayed the Illegal Immigration Removal Process (Deportation) for two weeks to see if the Democrats and Republicans can get together and work out a solution to the Asylum and Loophole problems at the Southern Border. If not, Deportations start!”
My theories: 1) this is the third 11th hour “save” in a month. That maybe his new go-to.
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The GOP will make a bad faith offer the Democrats turn down, trying to place the onus on him when the raids occur in 2 weeks.
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Smokescreen. He may go through with it when everybody’s guard is down.
All told, this bears vigilant watching.
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Wow, what a threat! The problem is not going to be solved in two weeks. Congress is not going to approve the ending of asylum. He just wants it to look like Democrats are obstructing his agenda. This is all in bad faith.
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Exactly. It’s gaslighting. And that’s providing he follows through and doesn’t run the raids anyhow ether early or after
.
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Must read Q&A with the lawyers interviewing children in these camps from the New Yorker.
This passage struck me the most,
We met almost no children who came across unaccompanied. The United States is taking children away from their family unit and reclassifying them as unaccompanied children. But they were not unaccompanied children. And some of them were separated from their parents.
Family separation never ended and there was never a good reason for the policy to begin with,
Almost all of these children have family members, including parents, in the United States, who are able to and want to take care of their children. All we need to do is to get these children to their families, and we know that almost all of them will be well cared for, and it will cost the U.S. taxpayer no money to care for these children, because they will be cared for by their parents.
Now, when I say that—of course there are certain inherent costs in running a society that will be incurred, but as far as direct care, at the facilities that we have the numbers for, such as the large facilities like Homestead, it costs seven hundred and seventy-five dollars a day to care for these kids. There is no reason for the American taxpayer to have to pay seven hundred and seventy-five dollars a day to care for children who have families who love them, and are here in the United States, and want to take care of them. There are multiple kids that we could put on a plane this week to be with their parents in the United States. Many of them have never spoken with their parents since they got there.
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‘There Is a Stench’: No Soap and Overcrowding in Detention Centers for Migrant Children
Know Your Rights Community Toolkit
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