Tuesday, July 02, 2019

Bringing the Fire


We start with that proviso, because almost all of what follows is from Twitter.  Still, it beats cut 'n' paste, which is even harder on my end.

To begin, then, Rick Wilson this morning is less than impressed with the CBP (Yes, "CPB" is public broadcasting; CBP is Customs and Border Protection; moving on):

We can call this, for him at least, the "bottom line":
This is, at least in part, what he's basing that on:
The cruelty is a feature, not a bug.
Speaking truth to power really pisses off power.

• The government is required to release children from immigration detention without unnecessary delay in order of preference beginning with parents and including other adult relatives as well as licensed programs willing to accept custody.

• With respect to children for whom a suitable placement is not immediately available, the government is obligated to place children in the “least restrictive” setting appropriate to their age and any special needs, and notice of rights.

• The government is required to implement standards relating to the care and treatment of children in immigration detention.

The standard of care and treatment includes basic requirements, including safe and sanitary facilities, toilets and sinks, drinking water and food, medical assistance, temperature control, supervision, and contact with family members, among other requirements.

The Flores settlement also mandates that authorities operate with a policy favoring release to a parent, legal guardian, adult relative, or licensed program. Upon taking a minor into custody, federal government or the licensed program must make and record a prompt and continuous effort toward family reunification and release, as well as maintain up-to-date records of minors held for longer than 72 hours, including biographical information and hearing dates. A more recent federal law is relevant here, too. The William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA), passed in 2008, requires that after an unaccompanied child is screened by Customs and Border Protection officers, he or she must be transferred to custody of Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Department of Health and Human Services, typically within a 72-hour period, for care and further screening. This requirement puts children in the care of an agency set up to safeguard their best interest, rather than an agency whose mission is to enforce immigration laws.
And what are conditions in these centers?

 I personally interviewed a boy who was 4 years old and a girl who had turned 18 the day before. However, one of the team members interviewed a 2-year-old. I also interviewed three teen mothers who carried their infants in their arms—one baby was only 5 months old. Everyone I interviewed had been at this facility for at least nine days. Most had been in the facility for more than 12 days, and some for 17–20 days. Several of the younger children I interviewed were unbathed and wore dirty clothes. Some did not have socks. Their hair was dirty. I came to realize that the younger children were dirtier than the older children because the smaller ones were hesitant to bathe by themselves; there was also no one who helped them wash their clothes. With only a couple exceptions, none of the children I interviewed were offered clean clothes. All reported that the belongings they carried to the border were thrown away by CBP officers.

One 5-year-old boy that I interviewed was sick. He had a runny nose and coughed. He said that he had not seen a doctor. I reported this to a CBP officer, and she told me that the boy would be seen by a doctor “tomorrow.” Some girls reported that they felt unsafe going to the bathroom. Many reported that they were not given sufficient food to eat and that they were often hungry. I interviewed one 13-year-old boy who had the flu and a 17-year-old boy who was getting over the flu. They both contracted the flu while at the CBP facility. They both felt that they caught the flu because they were in cramped quarters where other people were coughing or sick.
And is the problem that CBP is "rogue" (it clearly is, but...).  Is the problem the record number of immigrants?  Is the problem that there is no solution?  No, of course not:

Under the TVPRA, CBP should not be holding the children for more than 72 hours. CBP is clearly in violation of the law and the Flores agreement. CBP has conceded that it is not equipped to handle the detention of children for more than a few days. CBP points its fingers at ORR (which is operated by HHS) for not having enough capacity to take the children sooner.
Some allies of the migrants argue that ORR should be processing and releasing the children currently in its facilities more quickly to waiting sponsors to free up space. That is one solution.

But in my view, the better solution is to not separate the children from the relatives who accompanied them to the border in the first place—and to not detain them. I have been doing this type of work for more than 40 years, and the appearance rate for those who are released is way over 90 percent. In other words, there is not a serious problem with them absconding. Also, the Family Case Management Program pilot program began operating in January 2016. Under the program, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that oversaw the program, provided basic necessities when these families arrived, ensuring they had appropriate access to food, shelter, and medical care so they could be more ready and able to comply with immigration requirements. The program worked very well for the over 900 families it served, incentivizing them to comply with immigration court appearances. But the Trump administration abruptly halted the program. 
CBP is not rogue; it's functioning just the way Trump wants it to.  The cruelty is the point.

Children who reach the border with an aunt, uncle, older sibling, or cousin are immediately separated from that person at the border—no matter how old the child. One of the most striking things I witnessed was how toddlers are left to care for themselves—including a 2-year-old the team encountered. After completing the declaration for one of the children I had interviewed, I walked into a larger conference room to use a printer while two other team members were conducting interviews at opposite ends of the room.

One attorney was interviewing a 6-year-old girl, who began crying. Honestly, that sight made me cry. The attorney took the girl by the hand and walked over to a teen detainee holding a 2-year-old and being interviewed on the other side of the room. It turned out that the teen was not the mother or relative of either little girl. The teen had been comforting the toddler and the 6-year-old for days out of a sense of sympathy. The teen was simply a kind person who was assigned to the same room as the toddler and 6-year-old. The 6-year-old had been separated from an aunt at the border by CBP officials days earlier.

Siblings of different genders are not housed together. They only get to see each other during meals, and it is at a distance. Two of the nursing mothers wore shirts that were stained in the breast area. Although all the mothers indicated that they received three meals per day, the meals did not contain fruits or vegetables. No milk was ever given to the mothers to drink. Two infants had recently been hurriedly hospitalized off-site for a few days after contracting the flu—fever, chills, vomiting, diarrhea.

Many of the older children had the flu. In that case, they were moved to a “flu room” where all children suspected of having the flu were confined. 
This isn't a question of funding, or of passing more laws that express the outrage of some in Congress, nor even the indifference of others in Congress.  This is an institutional and governmental failure brought about by the election of Donald Trump and by the GOP in Congress.  This is a violation of standing court orders and of U.S. law.  More laws won't fix that, and enforcement of the laws on the books is of no interest to the U.S. Attorney General.   You want someone to blame?  Look in the mirror.  We put into office a man who talks like this:


That's pure frontier gibberish, but it explains the CBP all the day down to the ground.  The problem, for Trump, is immigrants and "sanctuary cities" and "liberals."  If we think the solution is more "liberals" and fewer people like Trump, we're just replacing one demon with another.

This is our country.  We have let these people run it.  We are responsible for how they run it.  Deny that all you want, it makes it no less true.  Outrage on the internet is as cheap as air.  So are "political solutions."  I just spent an hour listening to Heidi Heitkamp describe why "rural America" feels disenfranchised (most of them live in North Dakota, apparently) and a Bernie backer explaining why Bernie will solve all our problems once people realize he is the Messiah.  And nobody is talking about common humanity.

We have an obligation to help these people.  We don't have an obligation to make them citizens, or to fix all the problems of their countries (though we should be doing more for those countries, not less), or to care for them in perpetuity.  But that isn't being asked of us, or offered by us.  We have an obligation to treat human beings like human beings.  What we are doing now, what is being done in our name and authority, is disgusting and unAmerican.  And like the monarchs of old who, in the stories at least, stepped in to right wrongs and finally manifest injustice, we the people have an obligation to right this manifest injustice.  We have an obligation to make our government responsive; and to reshape our government through our elected officials.

We are the bottom line.  This is on us.
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