Category: The Americas,

Head of Amnesty International says migrant children detained ‘much longer’ than 20 days; head of ORR tells her it’s OK

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The agency’s national director, Jonathan Hayes, flew down from Washington, D.C., to accompany them on the tour and he told her that he believes it is OK to hold children for longer than 20 days because it is not considered detention but “care and custody.”

…“His position is that they are not a detention facility; they are a care and custody shelter, which under international law is the same thing. And we believe that Flores does in fact apply to all the ORR shelters,” Huang said.

“It’s an interesting response. In previous meetings, ORR has acknowledged that they haven’t been able to meet the Flores requirements. It was a bit of a surprise to hear today that they don’t feel they’re obligated to. So that’s a big concern for us,” Huang said.

…Rumors have been circulating that as early as Monday, Mexican government officials will force the [refugees waiting for their opportunity to apply for asylum] from the tent encampment [where they have been forced to stay] and send them to a stadium about six miles south of the border, where volunteers have told Border Report they will not be able to take meals, water, hygiene items or offer legal advice.

…As for the child detained for nearly eight years, Huang said she was disturbed by the revelation: “It’s affected me a lot to think about that child. Even if it’s just months, I wonder about how many are caught in something that feels like detention to them for sure.”

Head of Amnesty International says migrant children detained ‘much longer’ than 20 days; head of ORR tells her it’s OK | FOX31 Denver

For fucks sake white people…. This kind of blind “benevelence” is what gave us decades of Indian schools. Get over yourselves and stop being Satanic to people with darker skin than yours.

Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’: Families used to be split up in East Germany, too. It caused lifelong trauma.

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Europe,, Media and Culture,, Modern Parenting,, The Americas,Leave a comment

In a now-unified Germany, forced adoptions have become synonymous with the state terrorism and injustice that was rampant in the formerly socialist East, known as the GDR. Reached by phone Wednesday and told about the U.S. controversy, Behr, 50, drew a direct comparison between her experience and the fate of children now being separated from their parents in the United States.

“Of course when I hear of this, I immediately think of my own upbringing. Witnessing the arrest of my mom and being separated from her at that age caused a lifelong trauma for me,” said Behr, who lives in Berlin and is involved in research projects about childhood trauma caused by family separation during the GDR.

Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’: Families used to be split up in East Germany, too. It caused lifelong trauma. – The Washington Post

Sigh….

Border wall book details turbulent week of Donald Trump’s directives

On By peanutgallerynhIn Domestic Affairs,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Trump had at times privately talked about “fortifying a border wall with a water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators, prompting aides to seek a cost estimate. He wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh.”

Additionally, after aides told him that his public suggestion of soldiers shooting migrants if they threw rocks was illegal, he backed down. But, he later suggested that they “shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down.”

“That’s not allowed either, (staff) told him,” according to the excerpt.

…The comments came around the same time [that Trump] publicly threatened to close the border, saying he would if “Mexico doesn’t get with it.” [He] later backed off from that threat. 

Border wall book details turbulent week of Donald Trump’s directives

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Trump administration privatizing migrant child detention

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,, Modern Parenting,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, The Americas,1 Comment

“The United States is the country in the world that detains the most children for immigration reasons, and probably for the longest period of time. No other country comes close,” said Michael Bochenek, a Human Rights Watch attorney who serves on a United Nations research team examining the global detention of children. “To have private companies move into the area of the care and custody of children in detention-like settings is especially troubling.”

…Nonprofit providers, however, have faced criticism of their own. Earlier this year, a review of 38 legal claims obtained by the AP — some of which have never been made public — showed taxpayers could be on the hook for more than $200 million in damages from parents who said their children were harmed while under care from nonprofit foster providers and other shelters.

…The Trump administration has started shifting some of the caretaking of migrant children toward the private sector and contractors instead of the largely religious-based nonprofit grantees that have long cared for the kids.

So far, the only private company caring for migrant children is CHS, owned by beltway contractor Caliburn International Corp. In June, CHS held more than 20% of all migrant children in government custody. And even as the number of children has declined, the company’s government funding for their care has continued to flow. That’s partly because CHS is still staffing a large Florida facility with 2,000 workers even though the last children left in August.

…DC Capital Partners bought CHS, a company with a troubled past. The firm agreed in 2017 to pay out $3.8 million to settle an investigation involving allegations that it double billed and overcharged the federal government for medical services.

Despite the fraud settlement, CHS went on to win a no-bid contract to operate Homestead. At the time, federal officials said they didn’t have to open the bidding to competitors, typically the way taxpayer dollars are spent, because there was “unusual and compelling urgency.”

…No-bid contracts can lead to higher costs. CHS, a contractor, typically hires locally, staffing up as quickly as it can, hiring hundreds of people through online ads and at community job fairs. In contrast, nonprofits typically are paid through grants. They have screened staffers on call, who can be flown in if a shelter needs to care for a sudden increase of children for a short period.

…Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly joined Caliburn’s board this spring after stepping down from decades of government service; he joined the Trump administration as Secretary of Homeland Security, where he backed the idea of taking children from their parents at the border, saying it would discourage people from trying to immigrate or seek asylum.

Critics say this means Kelly now stands to financially benefit from a policy he helped create.

…Kelly and other corporate directors including Retired Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, Retired Admiral James G. Stavridis and Retired Rear Admiral Kathleen Martin could have received at least $100,000 a year for their service and advice, and a $200,000 bonus if the company went public.

…CHS’s business plan going forward depends on having more kids in their shelters, according to a prospectus its parent company Caliburn filed last year to go public with a $100 million stock offering.

…Overall, the federal government spent a record $3.5 billion caring for migrant children over the past two years to run its shelters through both contracts and grants.

…The government doesn’t disclose the names of individual shelters, nor how many children are in each one. But confidential government data obtained by the AP shows that in June nearly one in four migrant children in government care was housed by CHS. That included more than 2,300 teens at Homestead, Florida, and more than 500 kids in shelters in Brownsville, Los Fresnos and San Benito, Texas. For each teen held at Homestead at that time, it cost taxpayers an average $775 per day.

Trump administration privatizing migrant child detention – MarketWatch

sigh….

In Alaska hometown, Native women say police ignored rapes

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Chick Stuff,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Susie reported to Nome police that she had been assaulted and went with the investigating officer to the hospital, where a forensic nurse was prepared to perform a sexual assault exam.

But the officer told the nurse not to bother, according to a hospital record that Susie released to The Associated Press.

…Rape survivors and their supporters told the AP that the city’s police department has often failed to investigate sexual assaults or keep survivors informed about what, if anything, is happening with their cases.

Survivors and advocates contend that Nome police pay less attention and investigate less aggressively when sexual assaults are reported by Alaska Native women. More than half of Nome’s population is Alaska Native, largely of Yupik heritage or — like Susie — of Inupiaq heritage. All of its police department’s sworn officers are non-Native.

In Alaska hometown, Native women say police ignored rapes – ABC News

sigh…

‘Can’t feel my heart:’ IG Says Separated Kids Traumatized

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Modern Parenting,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

The little boy, about 7 or 8, was under the delusion that his dad had been killed. And he thought he was next.

Other children believed their parents had abandoned them. And some suffered physical symptoms because of their mental trauma, clinicians reported.

…Already distressed [by events] in their home countries or by their journey, [many] showed more fear, feelings of abandonment and post-traumatic stress symptoms than children who were not separated [from their families.

…Thousands of childcare workers were given direct access to migrant children before completing required background and fingerprint checks.

…A second Office of Inspector General report found 31 of the 45 facilities reviewed had hired case managers who did not meet Office of Refugee Resettlement requirements, including many without the required education. In addition, the review found 28 of the 45 facilities didn’t have enough mental health workers.

…Children were being given psychotropic medications. …About 300 children overall between May and July of 2018 were prescribed antidepressants. Staff described some concerns that dosages or types of medication may not have been right.

…Federal investigators also found some shelters relying on employees to report their own criminal histories. A background check found one employee — who “self-certified” that she had no history for crimes involving child abuse — had a third-degree child neglect felony on her record.

…Only four of the 45 shelters reviewed by the U.S. Health and Human Services inspector general met all staff screening requirements.

…During a time when sponsors had to be fingerprinted, children were held in facilities for as long as 93 days.

…The watchdog said the longer children were in custody, the more their mental health deteriorated, and it recommended minimizing that time, …creating better mental health care options, and hiring more trained staff.

…”Significant factors”  [the agency refused to own to any responsibility for contributed to the problems.] Those included a surge in children at the border, the children’s …mental health needs and a [lack of the foresight needed to do things like bring in more] qualified bilingual [staff of every kind,] especially in rural areas.

‘Can’t feel my heart:’ IG Says Separated Kids Traumatized

agggggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Journalists Blocked from Attending Secretive Immigration Tent Courts

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The Trump administration is conducting asylum hearings in makeshift tent facilities by the ports of entry in Laredo and Brownsville for migrants who have been forced to wait months in Mexico under the chaotic Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program.

…Court data show that almost no migrants have …lawyers …[representing] them.

…Over 6,000 migrants who arrived in Laredo have been returned to Mexico under MPP; more than 6,000 in Brownsville have also been sent back across the border. Nationwide, more than 42,000 have been returned. In some cases, they have been sent to the city of Monterrey and even as far as Chiapas, well over 1,000 miles away from the U.S. border. Migrants have faced numerous ordeals in Mexico—everything from homelessness to assault.

…Members of the press are normally allowed to observe immigration court proceedings.

…DHS has kept its port courts shrouded in mystery. …[Reporters] have emailed both DHS and the Department of Justice dozens of times to ask when MPP hearings would begin and whether press would be allowed. They have stubbornly refused to provide information.

…DHS finally provided a statement, in which a spokesperson said the tent facilities “will not be open to in-person public access, including media access.”

Journalists Blocked from Attending Secretive Immigration Tent Courts – The Texas Observer

Grrrrrrrrrr

An Brazilian Indigenous Leader Shares His Experience With And Ideas to Solve Man-Made Climate Change

On By peanutgallerynhIn Environment,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Our rivers cannot exist without the forest, our animals cannot live without the forest, and we ourselves depend on these plants and animals for our consumption, for our existence.

Deforesting was one of the greatest catastrophes that happened in our territory. People felled our forests, and that made our rivers very dry. There were many species of fish that disappeared, as the forest has been cut down, many kinds of animals also disappeared, or disappeared from that region at least. We have experienced a lot more heatwaves now, almost unbearable heatwaves. There would be rains during the summer time as if it were winter time, and also dryness during the rainy season. There’s been growing lightning storms and hurricane storms that would come and uproot many trees. We had great floods that caused many animals to die, and even people. Because of climatic changes, there are many species of trees whose fruits are borne before the correct time of the year. All the people who live in the forest realize that over the last 30 years, the changes have been very significant.

…Our environment, our natural fruits, animals and plants are the security of our lives. And if we don’t take care of all these species, of this richness of nature, we are heading towards a great catastrophe that may affect us in a very deep way. 

…I want to show young people in particular how they can tend the forest in order to guarantee their futures, to create a sustainable situation consciously, without harming the environment in such a violent way as man does.

…Our governments are creating projects that actually harm people’s lives, perhaps slowly, but in a very pervasive way. People are just trying to get rich, and they are killing one another, sometimes without even knowing it. …They also need to respect everyone’s lives, the lives of all human beings, who depend on the land to survive. It is our very governments who are killing the earth.

An Brazilian Indigenous Leader Shares His Climate Solutions | Time

hmmmm

California bans private prisons – including Ice detention centers

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Currently, one company, the Geo Group, operates four private prisons in California under contract with the California department of corrections and rehabilitation. The contracts for these four prisons expire in 2023 and cannot be renewed under AB32, except to comply with a federal court order to reduce crowding in state-run facilities.

…The bill’s author, the assemblymember Rob Bonta, originally wrote it only to apply to contracts between the state’s prison authority and private, for-profit prison companies. But in June, Bonta amended the bill to apply to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency’s four major California detention centers.

…Two of Ice’s largest immigrant detention centers in California are operated by the Geo Group through complicated contracts that use cities as middlemen.

…This complicated subcontracting model allowed Ice and Adelanto to forgo competitive bidding for the center’s operations subcontract.

…“To expand their detention center, Geo Group and Ice would have to cut their ties with the city of Adelanto,” said Jose Servin, the communications coordinator of the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance.

Geo Group asked both cities to break off their Ice contracts and the cities agreed. Ice then provided Geo Group with temporary contracts to operate Adelanto and Mesa Verde. Both agreements expire next March, after AB32 is expected to go into effect.

“My understanding is AB32 would prevent new contracts for these facilities,” said Panah. “The fact they’re on a one-year bridge, it won’t allow them to move from the one-year contract to a longer-term contract.”

…Servin said that while the new law was a significant victory, there was one other thing immigrants rights groups were concerned about. When several sheriffs’ departments canceled their contracts to house Ice detainees last year, instead of freeing the detainees, Ice moved many of them to prisons in Colorado and Hawaii.

California bans private prisons – including Ice detention centers | US news | The Guardian

hmmmm

Evelyn Hernandez, El Salvador rape victim, at center of controversial abortion trial acquitted

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In April 2016, Hernández was found on the floor of her bathroom drenched in blood. She was taken to a local emergency room in her hometown of El Carmen, roughly 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) east of the capital by her mother and a neighbor.

Doctors who examined her saw signs of a delivery but no baby and reported her to the authorities. When local officials arrived at her home five hours later, they found the newborn dead in a septic tank.

..”It seems the judicial system is starting to understand that stillbirths are not crimes, they are obstetric emergencies,” Guillen told CNN. “People in El Salvador now understand that the law, as it stands right now, criminalizes women in poverty.”

…Most of the women who have faced criminal charges for abortions in El Salvador come from poor rural backgrounds, and many suffered miscarriages or had obstetric complications because they weren’t able to get regular checkups due to lack of resources.

…Prosecution witnesses presented evidence that suggested that the baby died from complications during the delivery.

…Prosecutors had asked for the longer sentence during her retrial, even after evidence of a stillbirth was presented by their witnesses.

Evelyn Hernandez, El Salvador rape victim, at center of controversial abortion trial acquitted – CNN

hmmmm

The Five-Year-Old Who Was Detained at the Border and Persuaded to Sign Away Her Rights | The New Yorker

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A month earlier, the Trump Administration had announced, amid public outcry over its systemic separation of migrant families at the border, that it would halt the practice. But, at a packed processing hub, Christian was taken from Noehmi and placed in a cage with toddlers. Noehmi remained in a cold holding cell, clutching Helen. Soon, she recalled, a plainclothes official arrived and informed her that she and Helen would be separated. “No!” Noehmi cried. “The girl is under my care! Please!”

Noehmi said that the official told her, “Don’t make things too difficult,” and pulled Helen from her arms. “The girl will stay here,” he said, “and you’ll be deported.” 

…At the time of her apprehension, in fact, Helen checked a box on a line that read, “I do request an immigration judge,” asserting her legal right to have her custody reviewed. But, in early August, an unknown official handed Helen a legal document, a “Request for a Flores Bond Hearing” …which was filled out with assistance from officials. There is a checked box next to a line that says, “I withdraw my previous request for a Flores bond hearing.” Beneath that line, the five-year-old signed her name in wobbly letters.

…“Well, where is Helen, the five-year-old?”

The judge, Delgado recalled, seemed startled. Both he and the government prosecutor had no idea that Helen existed, let alone where she was being held. 

…Now stage three has commenced—one in which separations are done quietly, LUPE’s Tania Chavez asserts, and in which reunifications can be mysteriously stymied. …An uncounted number of separated children in shelters and foster care fall outside the lawsuit’s current purview—including many like Helen, who arrived with a grandparent or other guardian, rather than with a parent. Many such children have been misclassified, in government paperwork, as “unaccompanied minors,” due to a sloppy process that the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General recently critiqued. …Through misclassification, many kids have largely disappeared from public view, and from official statistics. 

…The completion of Noehmi’s background check was delayed for unexplained reasons.

On August 17th, Helen was transferred to a foster home in San Antonio. “I feared, did they give Helen away?” Noehmi told me; she worried about the prospect of adoption.

…On September 7th, LUPE was told that Helen would finally be released, nearly two months after she was taken from Noehmi. …“Then she wasn’t released.” ….LUPE’s team adjusted the petition to address a greater number of O.R.R. officials, each of whom received a personal e-mail every time a person signed. …Then, that Monday, Noehmi and Jeny got a phone call: they should be at their local airport at 6:20 p.m.

..The shelter sent a small black backpack that Helen had left behind. It held Helen’s legal paperwork, including the document that the five-year-old had been told to sign, withdrawing her request to see a judge. 

The Five-Year-Old Who Was Detained at the Border and Persuaded to Sign Away Her Rights | The New Yorker

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