Thread by @RachelMcGonagi1

First we took their children away.

We detained them like prisoners, drugged them if they got rowdy.

We lost track of some. Didn't bother to track others.

Some babies, we made face judges alone.

We have 65 still in custody. Their parents...gone.

1/x
propublica.org/article/6-year…

Then we tried accepting no asylum claims for domestic or gang violence.

We did close the ports of entry to no more than 12 claimants/day.

We make them wait for months in squalor & danger in Tijuana.

2/x
nbcnews.com/news/latino/tr…

If they didn't wait, we tried to call them illegible for asylum.

When they finally make it thru our gates, we send them back to Tijuana to wait.

Or we cage Mamas & babies together.

The babies get sick. Many are detained longer than legally allowed.

3/x

https://twitter.com/RachelMcGonagi1/status/1101624332575367169?s=20

And now....now we're holding families, men, women and children, in a makeshift holding pen under a bridge where they sleep out in the cold, with pigeon droppings falling on them, on the dirt and rocks.

What have we done?

Take a look and see:

4/x

More details about the holding pen: "It's Hell There."

The wind cuts through at night, children are sick and always crying, people passing overhead yell unfriendly things at the captives below. Pigeons crap on them from their roosts.

5/x
buzzfeednews.com/article/adolfo…

Contrary to what El Paso Sector spokesman Agent Ramiro Cordero says, the migrants say there's NOT enough room for everyone inside the tent, & it doesn't have a floor anyway.

Also, people are kept there far longer than 12 hours. 3 or 4 days, some said.
6/x
texastribune.org/2019/03/28/und…

They're doing this because they're overwhelmed by numbers, CBP says. Soooo many apprehensions of people crossing the border without authorization. (Which is, of course, due to their "metering" & "stay in Mexico" policies.)

So what do they want as a fix?

MORE DETENTION BEDS.
7/x

MORE POWER TO DEPORT PEOPLE WITHOUT OVERSIGHT.

THE ABOLISHMENT OF THE FLORES RULING.

MORE MONEY!

8/x
documentcloud.org/documents/5783…

Pay no attention to @SecNielsen's lies, about why people are coming from Central America (violence, not poverty, is #1 reason), or the numbers arriving (we're not even close to the 1.6million of 2000), that they won't show up for court (DoJ's own stats show 89-93% do)...
9/x

@SecNielsen ..that ankle bracelet monitoring of one member of a family is somehow more expensive in the long run than detention at over $300/day, or that many other alternatives to detention somehow don't exist or haven't been amazingly effective in the past.

10/x
womensrefugeecommission.org/images/zdocs/T…

@SecNielsen The Family Case Management Program, for instance, had a 99% compliance rate for ICE check-in meetings, and a 100% compliance rate for court dates for asylum seekers in the program. It cost $36//family. ICE ended it in 2017.

Why?
11/x
thinkprogress.org/trump-ended-su…

@SecNielsen Poor @SecNielsen, her Agents are overworked and stretched too thin, she says. So badly they might need to close some ports for a while, so Agents can deal with this "catastrophe." That's quite a feat, considering how many she has. Let's look at a few comparisons, shall we?
12/x

@SecNielsen From these charts from actual CBP data, we can see @SecNielsen is full of shït. She has twice as many agents now for the southern border as they did in 2000, and they're "apprehending" a helluva lot fewer folks, considering most of em are turning themselves in.

13/x

@SecNielsen Then she disingenuously feigns care for the children making the trek from violent, murder wracked countries, bemoaning traffickers & drug cartels, as if her draconian policies are doing anything to stop those villains' operations. Quite the opposite.

14/x
elpasotimes.com/story/opinion/…

@SecNielsen But what she wants, what she rilly rilly wants? Is to be able to deport Central American children who arrive here on their own and ask for asylum, rather than turn them over to ORR. It's not fair, she says, to all the Mexican kids she gets to deport.

15/x
axios.com/kirstjen-niels…

@SecNielsen And she also want to be able to detain families--yes, including children--for the entirety of their wait for asylum adjudication. Months. Maybe years.

Just so's you know, that's against our current law. And it's against international laws. It's bad.

16/x

https://twitter.com/RachelMcGonagi1/status/1101268143127711744?s=20

@SecNielsen These last 2 at least, require an act of Congress, unlikely given the Democrat-controlled House, thank goodness. But the sheer # of lies & breadth of obfuscation in this letter from a Cabinet level Secretary and the "guardian o' the border" should worry all of us.

17/17

@SecNielsen .....and then this happened. 🤨

Just as with Agent Orange, you cannot believe a word that comes out of @SecNielsen's mouth. If they're sooooo desperate for beds to hold families, why are they now just cutting their capacity to hold families?

PS/1
wapo.st/2FI3FgG?tid=ss…

@SecNielsen The answer, of course, is create the appearance of a crisis. The illusion of an emergency. Well, it's an emergency, all right, but not the kind they want us to believe.

PS/2
theguardian.com/us-news/2019/m…

@SecNielsen Because CBP and/or ICE dump these refugees out on the streets with nothing, no food, money, bus tickets, nothing but the clothes on their backs and a Notice to Appear. It's up to US to help them.

Brother, Sister, can you spare a dime?

PS/3
annunciationhouse.org/financial-dona…

@SecNielsen The question we need to ask ourselves every day, as Americans, as citizens and residents, as human beings along for the ride. We cannot afford to turn a blind eye, if the cost of ignoring such cruelty, done in our names, is the full price of our souls.

immigrantjusticenow.org/latest-news/20…

@SecNielsen This is what @CBP is saying, that they're soooo caring and sooooo compassionate about the people in their care. How many times have they lied, about what they were doing, to whom, how people--CHILDREN--in their custody died and why?

https://twitter.com/CBP/status/1112032743397957632?s=20

@SecNielsen @CBP And these are the hands of a 5yr old child who was kept in the cold wind under that bridge in El Paso for DAYS. Not 12 hours. For almost FOUR DAYS. Look at her. Remember her.

https://mobile.twitter.com/taylorklevy/status/1112448310395187203

@SecNielsen @CBP The whole @CBP statement of how much they CARE, if you think you can read it without your eyes rolling so hard they impale your brain.

Oh, my! They provide shower facilities! Meals &snacks! Afuckingmazing...Do they want a cookie for the absolute minimum?

aila.org/File/DownloadE…

@SecNielsen @CBP The @ACLU filed this complaint Saturday, outlining exactly how the El Paso Bridge Pen violated the human rights of migrants in CBP detention, &demanding an end to its use and any similar holding pens in the future. It's a grim read, with far more details.

aclutx.org/sites/default/…

@SecNielsen @CBP @ACLU One bit that stood out to me was them citing stats on CBP staffing & resources. I may have seen something like this before! Glad to see @ACLU and I are on the same page here. It's unconscionable, with as much money and personnel they have, they're *still* screwing everything up.

@SecNielsen @CBP @ACLU But mostly, this complaint shows that it's not a problem with not having enough resources to meet the demand of too many immigrants needing to be processed. Or not enough space. Or not enough manpower.

The problem is the culture of cruelty of CBP Agents towards migrants.

@SecNielsen @CBP @ACLU Of CBP Personnel--and ICE, and probably DHS as an entity in general--seeing immigrants as "other," as not worthy of the time or attention or caring they might give to someone they considered more....dare I say, human?

It's a problem more than skin deep in the organization.

@SecNielsen @CBP @ACLU Part of it has to do with VERY relaxed hiring practices over the years. Part of it to do, I'm sure, with the grind of the job. But a large part is influenced from the top down, informed by the attitude of those in charge. The head of the snake, so to speak.

@SecNielsen @CBP @ACLU When the head of this particular snake is @SecNielsen and her cohort in crime (feeding garbage ideas to her boss) is White Nationalist Stephen Miller, you get a very nasty snake, indeed.

#ThisIsWhyTheHagueExists #CrimesAgainstHumanity