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.
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President Biden just announced his plans to reopen Homestead — a jail for migrant children with a notorious history of abuse. The broken promises of the Biden administration are piling up. THREAD: wapo.st/3upDNPq
Homestead is a child migrant detention center run by a for-profit corporation — infamous for its history of abuse, neglect, overcrowding, and more. 2/
Detaining children is unacceptable — no matter who is in office. The conditions in these jails are inhumane and dangerous. Worst of all, locking more children up will separate them from their families yet again. 3/
.@ICEgov deported Black immigrants and put them in life-threatening situations on the first day of #BlackHistoryMonth THREAD:
As soon as a Trump-appointed judge temporarily suspended Biden’s plan to halt deportations for 100 days, @ICEgov wasted no time going back to their racist, cruel, anti-immigrant ways. 2/
Not only do deportations separate families and leave everyone involved traumatized — they’re a sure way to continue the spread of #COVID19. @ICEgov is willingly exporting this virus to countries that often lack the infrastructure to properly handle the spread of infection. 3/
.@POTUS just signed an executive order to phase out federal use of private prisons. While this is a step in the right direction, this does NOT include facilities run by ICE or DHS.
THREAD TW: Abuse
GEO Group and CoreCivic receive MILLIONS of dollars every year from ICE to house immigrants in their facilities. It’s no surprise that these two corporations had close ties with the Trump Administration. thehill.com/opinion/immigr…
People seeking safety in this country are being held in inhumane conditions while private prisons have profited from their pain. Physical and sexual assault, rape, especially of LGBTQ+ detainees, are reportedly common these prisons. newsobserver.com/opinion/op-ed/…
The recent developments regarding forced sterilizations in @ICEGov detention are horrific—but they aren’t isolated. Here is a list of atrocities @DHSGov has committed in just the last few months. THREAD:
ICE’s management of COVID-19 in their detention centers has been disastrous. With insufficient testing, minimal sanitary supplies, and virtually no ability to distance the people in detention, these centers have been “on fire” with COVID-19. 2/
While continuing to tear families apart, @ICEGov has also been caging kids in hotels for months. The agents left to “care” for these children have NOT been background checked, and the children are being denied legal representation. 3/
Trump just nominated DOJ official Iris Lan to a lifetime position as a federal judge in southern NY—one of the most powerful district courts in the country. In 2017, she helped remove a prosecutor who opposed Trump’s family separation policy. THREAD:
In 2017, DOJ prosecutor Joshua Stern told colleagues he was “disturbed” by the Trump administration’s separation of children from their parents. He also raised concerns that some children couldn’t be located after being separated from their parents. Iris Lan had him fired. 2/
The Department of Justice has not received much scrutiny for its role in enabling family separation compared to DHS and HHS. But in reality, it was the DOJ helped implement the policy which would break families apart. 3/
We are receiving reports that conditions have rapidly deteriorated in the Lasalle & Jackson Parish Family Jails after Hurricane Laura. Families are trapped in flooded cells with no electricity or ventilation — prison officials are saying this could last for two weeks. THREAD.
Some of the reports have stated that there is sewage in the flood water that is up to people’s ankles. Without ventilation, it is oppressively hot in these cells, and it is putting people at risk of contracting COVID-19 or getting heatstroke. 2/
These conditions are deplorable. The fact that ICE has let things get this bad shows that they do not care about the wellbeing of families in their care. We are calling for these camps to be closed and the families to be freed so they can be safe. #FreeTheFamilies. 3/