Thread by @DeportationIs

If you’re upset about our treatment of migrants and would like to help, but have limited time and money, please consider this one thing: call your representatives and ask them to support overturning this rule. I’ll explain.

texasmonthly.com/wp-content/upl…

The short version is this: US government agents who are in charge of taking care of unaccompanied children are now required to allow ICE and CPB to check anyone coming forward as a sponsor, to see if anyone in that sponsors household is deportable. Even shorter...

...kids in custody are essentially being used as bait to catch undocumented relatives in the US.

The upshot is that very few families are coming forward to take any of their young relatives in their care. This is the biggest reason centers with kids are overcrowded.

Now...

There are plenty of good reasons to take this rule back, no matter where you are on the political spectrum. So I’m going to run through as many as I can, as thoroughly as I can.

First, let’s cover the easy one - money.

Taking care of children in detention centers is ridiculously expensive. Placing them with extended family who will take care of them on their own is not.

The numbers vary depending on how you calculate, and on who is calculating, but they’re all high.

Let’s say we’re talking about one of the tent cities that were erected immediately after Trump’s family separation policy, like this one in Tornillo, Texas. Calculated cost, per day, and per child? $775. Tornillo held, at its peak, nearly 1500 children. Let that sink in.

Tent cities are by nature expensive, but permanent facilities still aren’t cheap. The calculated cost for keeping a child in a permanent facility? If you ask GQ, it’s $256 a day.

google.com/amp/s/www.gq.c…

Don’t trust GQ? No problem. How about the conservative Washington Times?

Their calculated cost, per child, per day, is $670.

google.com/amp/amp.washin…

This is a lot of taxpayer money. And one of the objections you might get here is this: releasing these children is not going to make this money reappear. However...

...the more the government shows willingness to hold children and migrants for long periods of time, the more corporations are going to jump at the chance to build new facilities. That’s a lot of taxpayer money down the drain.

In contrast, releasing a child to family members...

...in the US costs next to nothing in comparison. The child is fed, educated, and protected with family member cash.

There’s the money argument. It’s one I’m bringing up in discussions with fiscal conservatives here in Texas.

Next up on why the 4/13/18 memo is a bad idea? Crime

(If you’re joining me somewhere in the middle, I’m asking people to call representatives to support repeal of a 4/13/18 memo that requires all potential sponsors for migrant children in custody to submit themselves and their entire households to screening by ICE and CBP.)

I don’t like bringing up gangs when talking about migrant children, because the fear and stereotypes that pop up whenever someone says MS – 13 on the news is one of the reasons we’re in this mess.

However, if a goal of increased border security is safety from gangs...

...the safest bet for US citizens is to have these children released to families in the US.

The worst option? Keeping them in crowded, poorly provisioned centers where they will likely have to band together for safety and resources.

That one’s a no-brainer.

Now let’s get to the ethical stuff.

It should be really obvious that the longer a child stays in one of the centers, the more long-term psychological damage is possible. This is true for even the best-kept centers. Pediatricians have been sounding this alarm for some time.

latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/…

But most of these centers are not in top shape. And no matter what you might hear from Chattanooga pastors making visits, the government itself freely admits that they’re running out of resources. DHS outlined this clearly…

...in a recent report from the Office of the Inspector General.

oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/…

(This report is specifically discussing the centers in which migrant children stay before they are taken into more permanent camps, but the reason these particular centers are overwhelmed...

...is because there’s simply no more room at any more permanent facility to hold any new children.)

Now, assume the absolute best about everyone working at these facilities for a moment – even with top-level caring staff and unlimited resources...

...we’re still using gobs of taxpayer money to hold children in expensive detention centers, all while increasing the likelihood of long-term psychological damage and future mistrust of US authority figures. That’s the best case scenario for what is now happening.

But what about the worst case? Overcrowding and strained resources leads to neglect. Neglect leads to outbreaks, like measles or typhoid. Guards become abusive. Sex and violence is used to secure food and protection.

All of this is possible the longer kids stay in these overcrowded centers. And if we allow their family members to come claim them without checking in with ICE and CBP for possible deportation, we could start to empty them out. As of 4/13/18, we can’t do that.

ORR, the agency responsible for taking care of these migrant kids, already had a long and thorough vetting process for any sponsors that included checking in with state and local police, the FBI, and sex offender registries, personal interviews, and home visits.

Adding ICE/CPB to this process has already resulted in the removal of over 100 sponsors whose only crime was being undocumented - in other words, they weren’t a danger to the child. They didn’t have papers. That’s, give or take, 100 kids who would no longer be in government care.

google.com/amp/s/mobile.r…

Arresting parents and relatives who step forward to take care of a child has made it far more likely that no one else will come forward. To state the obvious.

Call your representative. Ask them very specifically to push to take this rule back.

Here it is again, one more time.

texasmonthly.com/wp-content/upl…

Make a commitment to call once a week. All we need to do is get this on their radar. Rescind the 4/13/18 memo.

Thank you.

@chiproytx, I’ll be calling you about this later this week again.

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