Detention
Calls to End Family Detention Come From Capitol Hill
Over the past year, the Obama Administration has rapidly propped up family detention facilities as a knee-jerk response to the influx of women and children who crossed our southern border last summer. The families fleeing violence and persecution have been apprehended, detained in poor conditions, and rapidly processed… Read More
Court Reportedly Set to Order End to Detention of Children in Unlicensed Family Facilities
In February, advocates went to court to argue that the government’s family detention centers violate the long-standing Flores v. Reno settlement agreement, which set minimum standards for the detention, release and treatment of children subject to immigration detention. In response, government attorneys claimed that the Flores settlement… Read More
Two Moms Spend Mother’s Day Traveling to Immigration Family Detention Center
On Mother’s Day morning, we said goodbye to our own children in order to visit with some other moms—courageous Central American moms fleeing persecution and detained with their children in south Texas. The facility we visited in Dilley, Texas, under the supervision of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is located… Read More
Reports: Detention Doesn’t Deter Migrants and Refugees From Coming to United States
In 2009, the Obama Administration ended family detention at the infamous T. Don Hutto jail in Texas and cut the number of immigrants in family detention to less than a hundred. However, after the surge of Central American migrants last summer, the Administration reinstituted the appalling practice of family… Read More
Mothers and Children Suffer In Immigration Detention While Administration Makes its Point
Estrella is a four-year-old girl who has been locked-up in U.S. detention centers for over eight months or one fifth of her life. She is chronically ill and has been hospitalized for acute bronchitis. She has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, adjustment disorder with anxiety, and major depressive episode. Read More
Private Prison Industry Lobbies for Detention of Immigrants
Since 2009, Congress has instructed the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to maintain 34,000 beds in immigrant detention facilities across the country, a policy known as “the bed mandate.” This mandate costs the American taxpayer $5.05 million per day–or $159 a day per immigrant detainee. A new… Read More
Faith Leaders Visit Immigrant Detention Center as Mothers Begin Hunger Strike
Faith leaders from around the country visited the Dilley family detention center in Texas just days before mothers in the Karnes detention facility, another Texas family detention center located less than 100 miles from Dilley, began a hunger strike. Shortly after their visit last week, the clerics declared… Read More
Government Claims Children in Family Detention Centers Are Not Entitled to Protections
The outcry against the detention of children and women seeking protection from violence continues. Just yesterday, over 95 national and local civil rights, human rights, immigrants’ rights, and religious organizations sent a letter to President Obama outlining the mounting criticism of family detention and urging the Administration to follow… Read More
Court Orders DHS to Stop Detaining Mothers and Children to Deter Future Immigration Flow
In June 2014, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began implementing a border security policy of detaining nearly all mothers and children fleeing violence and persecution in Central America. DHS vastly increased its detention capacity for families to “send the message unequivocally that if you come here you… Read More
The Detention of Children and Their Families is Still Unjust and Still Against the Law
Detaining immigrant children is nothing new. In 1997, the government settled a lawsuit, Flores v. Reno, about the inhumane treatment of immigrant children held in detention. The settlement agreement said officials would follow a set of minimum national standards for the detention, release, and treatment of children subject to immigration… Read More
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