Thread by @fams2gether

BREAKING: In its latest attack on immigrant communities, the Trump administration is moving to dismantle the ONLY established protections for children in government custody. We can't let this happen, here’s why👇🏾👇🏽👇cnn.com/2019/08/20/pol…

These protections (aka the Flores agreement) have been in place for decades. They require that immigrant children are:

1⃣ not held in detention for more than 20 days;

2⃣ kept in safe and sanitary conditions when they can’t be released.

Why does the administration want to dismantle critical protections for children? Because they are constantly in violation of them. Instead of making things better, they want to manipulate the rules to keep kids in detention camps for longer periods of time.

Remember when this DOJ lawyer shamelessly tried to argue that children don’t need soap or beds to be safe in @CBP custody? That these items don't qualify as “safe and sanitary”? She was arguing against the Flores agreement.

If the Trump administration succeeds in terminating the Flores child protections, officials will be able to keep children in brutal conditions and jail migrants indefinitely. Children and families will continue to be abused and traumatized.

As we know, conditions in detention camps are horrific; there are constant reports of abuse, and there is countless evidence of trauma. The least we can do is keep these protections in place so children get proper care in custody.

Overall, this is just the latest example of how the Trump administration continues to manipulate the law and violate human rights. The bottom line is that migrant children DO NOT belong in detention and the camps need to be closed down immediately.