Thread by @matt_cam

The short & long term effects on kids of having a parent taken into ICE custody for even a few days--let held for years before being deported for life--are all too well-known... and we're simply not allowed to argue this point when seeking release on bond in #immigrationcourt

https://twitter.com/_jadeisabelle/status/1365385561729429504

Immigration judges constantly deny bond and hold parents for months based on anything from pending petty theft allegations to 10-yr-old drunk driving convictions to supposed "gang ties" which DHS has no obligation whatsoever to prove. Lives, psyches, futures destroyed in seconds

We are sometimes allowed to at least introduce evidence of what separation/deportation would do to a US citizen child's mental health, but undocumented kids might as well not exist. They have no value.

It makes me physically I'll to perpetuate these harms just by doing my job

Much was properly made of what Sessions/Nielsen/Miller were told of long-term psych. effects of separating kids from parents during the #childseparation nightmare they chose to go carry out, but mostly left unsaid: our govt has been casually separating families my whole life

The 1st priority for imm. judges in a bond decision is whether release presents a "danger to the community." I've never heard mention of the danger of a child developing lifetime learning, behavioral, & relationship issues.

Harm to kids is simply assumed. Just baked right in.

Meanwhile, at least here in MA, ppl with charges which would either require or pretty much guarantee that a parent be held in ICE custody for months are almost always released by criminal courts. Because holding someone pending trial is *supposed* to be an extreme sanction.

I have dozens of reasons for wanting to see our detention and deportation system burned to the ground in its entirety and never rebuilt. But the severe harms which I have seen knowingly perpetrated on children who can't possibly understand what is happening is top of the list.