Why would they want to stop something that is bringing them total power, using California as the template?
Posted on 07/05/2019 12:36:37 PM PDT by Kaslin
Immigration detention centers need to act fast to bring their standards up to par for the hundreds of children forced into their care.
Whether it’s the border wall, President Trump’s recent remarks, or Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez latest tweet calling immigration detention centers “concentration camps,” it’s easy to focus on the wrong arguments about immigration. It all detracts from a more immediate problem: how the U.S. government is treating the influx of migrants on the southern border. Immigration detention centers need to act fast to bring their standards up to par for the hundreds of children forced into their care.
Arguing over definitions and tweets is silly when there is an actual crisis that demands attention—and funding—in our nation: human harms of migrant intake occurring on the border. The same day AOC posted her viral tweet on concentration camps, the Trump administration was in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing in favor of overturning a 2017 ruling that found the federal government violated legal standards for detaining migrant children.
To understand the court’s decision to rule against the federal government, one should know how the standards came to fruition. In 1985, Immigration and Naturalization Service (now dismantled) detained 15-year-old Jenny Flores for illegally crossing the Mexico-United States border. They held the unaccompanied El Salvadorian girl among adults of both sexes, in subpar standards. INS officials also strip-searched the girl on a regular basis. Her case led to a lawsuit against the U.S. attorney general, ending in a settlement commonly referred to as the “Flores agreement.”
The Flores agreement dictates that immigration enforcement must provide “safe and sanitary” living conditions for minors, and the detention facilities must uphold state standards for housing and care of dependent children. The settlement reads facilities must “provide access to toilets and sinks, drinking water and food as appropriate, medical assistance if the minor is in need of emergency services, adequate temperature control and ventilation, adequate supervision to protect minors from others, and contact with family members who were arrested with the minor.”
These perfectly reasonable standards are apparently too high for the federal government to follow, as overcrowded detention facilities haven’t been providing soap, toothbrushes, or adequate sleeping spaces for all detained minors. One physician who visited the nation’s largest Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention center in McAllen, Texas, compared living conditions to torture facilities. After examining 39 minors with signs of trauma, she reported the center had “extreme cold temperatures, lights on 24 hours a day, no adequate access to medical care, basic sanitation, water, or adequate food.”
This is irresponsible and unacceptable. And the U.S. District Court is right to have ruled that the federal government is violating the agreement on ensuring “safe and sanitary” living conditions for migrants. But in a painful viral video, a Trump administration attorney argues to the court of appeals that providing these materials and conditions are unnecessary to comply with the “safe and sanitary” standard. The judges in the video were visibly aghast at this argument, as am I. And you should be too.
Last week, the Senate approved $4.6 billion in emergency funding for the humanitarian crisis at the border, while the Democrat-led Senate approved a different bill allocating $4.5 billion. Now the two chambers have to come together and decide where and how to spend the money. Hopefully the number they agree upon will be enough to change the current state of failure within the CBP detention centers. But even additional resources won’t solve long-term problems with how CBP treats children under their care. And it won’t stop the Trump administration from fighting in court.
No one deserves to live in such awful environments that firsthand reports have revealed about the CBP detention centers—especially children. In the immediate, the U.S. government has a moral duty to protect the safety and wellbeing of children who cannot speak for themselves.
Detainment should never equate to neglect. It’s one thing to demand education programs or entertainment to be provided, but it’s completely different to ask for clean water and soap.
Many Americans are uncomfortable with spending billions of taxpayer dollars on foreign individuals who are abusing our laws and charity. But the federal government is the one detaining individuals and their children for breaking the law, which means they are also responsible for providing adequate food, water, shelter, and general wellbeing.
Yes, CBP will likely get their emergency funding soon, but next steps are needed. It’s not feasible to throw money at the problem and expect it to go away—the federal government should prioritize better immigration laws. In the midst of a divided Congress, it’s not clear exactly what that solution looks like yet. But in the meantime, they should do all they can to limit human suffering while lawmakers negotiate.
In addition to improving living and basic health care conditions, Congress needs to set better guidelines and principles for CBP employees to follow when handling illegally present children. Some employees may require additional training, for example. No matter what emergency funding bill Congress moves forward, this accountability measure should absolutely be a part of it.
The media latches on to creating a left versus right dichotomy on immigration, but whether you support increased immigration or not, politics aside, treating detained individuals—especially children—like human beings, is a must. Things were just as bad under the Obama administration, but now, largely thanks to President Trump, people are paying attention.
No well-funded government should ever put a child to sleep on concrete floors, with bright lights on 24 hours a day, with nothing but solar blankets to provide some level of warmth. The government treats adults convicted of violent felonies better than this.
Social media has its purposes, but it’s far too easy to get caught up in offensive words and petty arguments. On immigration, it’s pertinent that we don’t fall into this trap. Migrant children and their families are facing a real crisis, and people should be concerned.
Because the flow of migrants is unlikely to stop anytime soon, the federal government should be prepared to handle the continual increase of human intake while they negotiate over broader policies to ultimately reduce illegal immigration and perhaps increase legal immigration opportunities. We must protect our nation’s integrity by treating those detained at the border with decency.
Why would they want to stop something that is bringing them total power, using California as the template?
They were not force marched to the US border. They came of their own accord. This is not US’s problem. The problem lays with those that come. They are the problem. This is not America’s fault
How many “Republican” NGO’s are in Central and South America organizing and funding these mass waves of uneducated people? NONE!
The hell it’s not partisan!
1979 Mariel Boatlift. 130k or so Cubans, many of them criminals and mental patients came over. Fidel flushed his toilet. Perhaps it was ‘only’ 130k. Now it seems the whole world wants in. What happened in 40 years? Carter dumped them in Ft. Smith, Ak which cost Gov. Clinton his reelection. So how do you allow these people in WITHOUT appearing to invite them in?
The solution is to reduce the volume of incoming traffic.
People come to the United States because the United States is soft on the hoards of asylum seekers. Moreover, many of these asylum seekers are not fleeing harm, they are flocking to money -- our money.
Moreover, our economy is usable to soak up the volume of new workers and their children. They come with nothing, with no skills, and no work ethic. Even with the latter, the USA doesn't have the jobs.
One solution has been to push first response to asylum claims to the first responders to infiltration: the Border Patrol. The problem there is that these non-citizens have the "right" to appeal decisions -- and what to do with them while the appeal wends its way through the Court system.
We are being overwhelmed.
Sorry no sale.
These people are economic migrants. They have no right to thrust themselves upon us and expect care. The writer is pretty typical in assigning responsibilities that she isn’t involved in carrying out. Whether she is identifying as a liberal or not her big government stance is appalling.
Congress made the mess & Congress needs to fix it. And we need a big beautiful wall with gates for legal immigrants.
Really I can’t even read the piece when the thesis statement is so blatantly false.
Immigration detention centers need to act fast to ......
............return these people to their own country.
Exactly
Agree that is part of the problem None should be allowed to cross illegally. They could be stopped or forced back into Mexico if the will existed. Yep the world is flushing their toilets on to the American Citizens
THIS Congress is not going to fix it.
They created it.
We will never Make America Great Again by re-electing the same Bush League Republicans that have tried repeatedly to give the Democrats a permanent majority with amnesty for illegal aliens.
We need to elect better Republicans that will side with the citizens and the rule of law.
President Trump is assembling leverage to get it done. That is the only path. You elect what you think is better and then they change like Mia Love did.
I donate to Build The Wall and to DJT, that is all I trust in at this point.
It’s partisan.
Women have been given their chance and as a group have failed convincingly.
It’s not news. It was learned millennia ago and many times since.
Oh, piff. Someone shows up on my doorstep, and I’m responsible? Forget that!
Stupidest title of the day.
Close the border and send everyone BACK to MEXICO. Let THEM handle the 'problem'!
After all; they ALL walked or rode through HUNDREDS of miles of it's territory.
Why didn't they seek 'asylum' there?
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