Thread by @PatrickMichels

Today in federal court, lawyers filed dozens of statements from children detained at the unlicensed mega-shelter in Homestead, Florida.

@lauracmorel and I will share a few highlights as we read them. courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…

Human rights attorney Hope Frye visited Homestead and said the noise in every building was "disturbingly high." She says the manager told her boys like the bunks because "it feels like a slumber party."

From attorney Hope Frye, a description of the solitary confinement room where children are sent on their 18th birthdays:

ORR is only supposed to hold children for as long as it takes to identify and vet a family to take them in. But children in Homestead say they've been warned that rule-breaking will keep them locked up longer.

At big "influx" facilities like Homestead, advocates say it's easy for kids to miss out on legal help. This seems to be happening at Homestead.

@lauracmorel and I wrote about this at Tornillo earlier this year: revealnews.org/article/no-one…

According to Homestead's manager, 17% of the children (so ~364 kids) only have access to caseworkers over Skype.

In fact, according to a 2018 contract with Southwest Key I just got, ORR is considering shelters w/ all-remote case managers.
documentcloud.org/documents/6111…

One child, interviewed in Homestead on their 17th birthday, said they were warned that breaking the rules in detention would hurt their immigration case — another side-effect of prolonged detention while the gov't sorts out kids' cases.

At Homestead, kids said they're not allowed to have physical contact even alone with family members. "There are cameras here watching us."

Here is a new one: According to a review of federal data by Stanford medical professor Ewen Wang, DHS has assigned the same identification number to "distinctly different" children at Homestead. documentcloud.org/documents/6111…

According to that same report from the Stanford professor, from Jan 2018 thru April 2019, 2,500 children 5 years old or younger spent time in ORR custody.

Dr. Marsha Griffin, a pediatrician who met with children at ORR's large facility in Tornillo, describes how impractical it is for a child to get their own lawyer from inside:

documentcloud.org/documents/6111…