Despite Warnings, Trump Moves to Expand Migrant Family Detention. DILLEY, Tex. — On a burning hot day last summer at the South Texas Family Residential Center, a federal detention facility for immigrant families, Kenia and her son, Michael, 11, were hunched over a foosball table in an air-conditioned recreation room when Michael dropped to the floor and started sobbing.
He curled his body into a ball and writhed as if he were in pain. The other parents and children in the room looked up from their jump ropes and boomboxes as Kenia knelt down and pleaded into Michael’s ear: Would he please go back to their room before the guards noticed him? “I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here,” Michael shouted, his eyes clenched. The date of this particular meltdown, Kenia can’t remember — not because it wasn’t memorable, but because it was one of many times her son broke down during the four months they were detained after arriving in the United States. Kenia also felt like she was falling apart, unsure of what would happen to them.
“He’s angry every day. Over 10,000 migrant children are now in US government custody at 100 shelters... Migrant Families Would Face Indefinite Detention Under New Trump Rule. But Mr.
McAleenan told the House Homeland Security Committee in May that the Flores settlement had incentivized migration to the United States, saying that “if an adult arrives with a child, they have a likelihood of staying in the United States.” Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the chairman of the committee, reminded Mr. McAleenan of the original purpose of the court-ordered regulations. “Prolonged detention of children had proven to be harmful to their health,” Mr. Thompson said. The Trump administration’s new regulation, which is several hundred pages long, would eliminate a requirement that federal detention centers for immigrant families be licensed by states, most of which had no such licenses. Mr. But critics of the administration have long argued that the facilities were unsuitable for children for long periods of time. But Mr.
Judge Blocks Trump Administration Plan to Detain Migrant Children. The History of Migrant Children Protection in America Started With Two Girls ... Complying with the standards in the settlement, she said, was “the right thing to do for kids.”
Little did the plaintiffs’ lawyers know that holding the government to the consent decree would become their life’s work. “By and large, there was substantial compliance,” recalled Mr. Schey. Then, in 2014, Central American families and unaccompanied children began pushing across the border in ever-larger numbers, fleeing horrific gang violence, domestic abuse and entrenched poverty. Most of them were seeking asylum. Mr. Migrant Caravans. Record High: 1,600 Migrant Children Currently Detained In Tent City. AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to switch to another gear in the last minute we have with you, and that is the ACLU’s involvement with the migrant children issue, The New York Times reporting the Trump administration has begun transferring detained migrant children from shelters across the country to a barren tent city in West Texas.
The Times reports hundreds of children are being sent each week from shelters to the tent city, which currently houses 1,600 children. The facility reportedly has no school. Children have limited access to legal services. The U.S. government is now detaining a record 13,000 migrant children. Your thoughts on this latest news and what it means for these kids? LOUISE MELLING: I’m so glad you raised it, because I think it’s incredibly important that this story break through, even in the midst of the incredibly important hearings about the Supreme Court. LOUISE MELLING: Yes. AMY GOODMAN: —and tried to prevent her from getting an abortion. This is Democracy Now! The Continuing Tragedy of the Separated Children. A Conservative Town Embraces Its Immigrants, Documented or Undocumented by Ja... Migrant Families Have Been Reunited. Now, a Scramble to Prevent Deportations. A Migrant Boy Rejoins His Mother, but He’s Not the Same. More Than 450 Migrant Parents May Have Been Deported Without Their Children.
Pediatricians share migrant children's disturbing drawings of their time in US custody. The staff at the center asked the children to depict their time in CBP custody.
A social worker at the center gave the drawings to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which gave them to CNN. "The fact that the drawings are so realistic and horrific gives us a view into what these children have experienced," said Dr. Colleen Kraft, immediate past president of the AAP. "When a child draws this, it's telling us that child felt like he or she was in jail. " The pediatricians' group has been trying to advise CBP on how to screen and care for children in their custody, but Kraft said a series of meetings came to an end without producing concrete results. Kraft said she and other pediatricians had three phone meetings in December, January and February with Kevin McAleenan, who was then commissioner of the federal agency. "We're going to continue to seek the AAP's input as we tackle the crisis," CBP's assistant commissioner for public affairs, Andrew Meehan, told CNN when the talks began.
Dr.