Tag: Trump immigration policy

House Democrats to hold hearing next week on treatment of migrant children

The Hill logoThe House Oversight and Reform Committee has scheduled a hearing next week to hear testimony from Trump administration officials about the separation and treatment of immigrant children at the southern border.

Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) has invited acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan and acting Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Mark Morgan to testify at a hearing on July 12. Neither have confirmed their appearance, according to the committee. 

“The Trump Administration’s actions at the southern border are grotesque and dehumanizing,” Cummings said in a statement Tuesday.

View the complete July 2 article by Morgan Chalfant on The Hill website here.

Homeland Security admits it’s using abhorrent conditions at detention centers to deter migration

It isn’t working and no one wins.

Poor conditions including overcrowding, flu outbreaks, and a lack of clean clothes are just par for the course at an El Paso border station, according to a report released Monday by the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Office of Inspector General. In the report, border patrol argues that these conditions are necessary to stem the flow of migrants to the United States.

The report, first obtained by NBC News, detailed the conditions during a May 7 tour of a border station in the El Paso sector and found that only four showers were available for 756 immigrants. Additionally, over half of the immigrants were being held outside in the Texas heat, while the immigrants inside were being kept in cells at over five times their capacity. One cell meant for a maximum of 35 people held 155 adult males with only one toilet and sink. The cell was so overcrowded that the internal temperatures reached over 80 degrees and the men were unable to lay down to sleep.

While border patrol processing centers are only meant for temporary stays of up to 36 hours, some migrants at this facility in El Paso reported stays of over 30 days.

View the complete July 1 article by Rebekah Entralgo on the ThinkProgress website here.

Judge Orders Swift Action to Improve Conditions for Migrant Children in Texas

New York Times logoLOS ANGELES — A federal judge has ordered a mediator to move swiftly to improve health and sanitation at Border Patrol facilities in Texas, where observers reported migrant children were subject to filthy conditions that imperiled their health.

Judge Dolly M. Gee of the Central District of California asked late on Friday that an independent monitor, whom she appointed last year, ensure that conditions in detention centers are promptly addressed. She set a deadline of July 12 for the government to report on what it has accomplished “post haste” to remedy them.

“We are hoping we can act expeditiously to resolve the conditions for children in Border Patrol custody,” said Holly Cooper, part of a team of lawyers who asked the federal court to intervene.

View the complete June 29 article by Miriam Jordan on The New York Times website here.

Migrant Children Are Spending Months ‘Crammed’ in a Temporary Florida Shelter

New York Times logoHOMESTEAD, Fla. — About half of the roughly 2,300 children confined in a privately run Florida facility intended as a temporary shelter for migrant teenagers have been there for more than 20 days and many of them for months, despite legal standards that require children who cross the border to be speedily released or sent to state-licensed shelters that are equipped to offer longer-term care.

The Homestead center near Miami, the only one in the government’s large network of shelters run by a private, for-profit corporation, is intended to keep children for only a few days, but has been holding them for much longer as a result of the unusually large number of unaccompanied children arriving in recent months along the southwest border.

A recent population census, from June 25, showed that 1,162 children at the shelter had been there longer than 20 days. The report, obtained by The New York Times from a Homestead employee, listed 840 children who had been there more than 30 days, and 224 for at least 60 days.

View the complete June 26 article by Miriam Jordan on The New York Times website here.

U.S. asylum officers call on court to end Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy

Axios logoU.S. asylum officers on Wednesday implored a U.S. appeals court to block the Trump administration from requiring migrants to stay in Mexico while awaiting immigration hearings in the U.S., the Washington Post first reported.

Why it matters: The Trump administration’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy, which forces asylum seekers to wait in Mexico until their cases have been finalized, can put migrants fleeing dangerous situations at risk. The labor union for federal asylum officers called the program in an amicus brief filing. “fundamentally contrary to the moral fabric of our Nation and our international and domestic legal obligations.”

View the complete June 26 article by Gigi Sukin on the Axios website here.

Shep Smith delivers epic fact check to Fox News audience: We’re treating migrant children worse than prisoners of war

AlterNet logoAs favorable to President Donald Trump as Fox News generally is, certain Fox hosts aren’t shy about criticizing him at times. One of them is Shepard Smith, who equated conditions in immigration detention centers near the U.S./Mexico border with “violations of the Geneva Convention” during a Tuesday broadcast.

Trump has claimed that conditions in migrant detention centers in 2019 are “much better than they were under President Obama.” But Smith disagreed vehemently on Tuesday, describing conditions at a detention center in Clint, Texas as “horrendous” and saying that children were wearing clothes “covered in snot” and had “no access to toothbrushes or toothpaste or soap — basic necessities for any of us and all the more so for children.”

Smith was also highly critical of conditions in those detention centers during his Monday, June 24 broadcast. Following up the next day, Smith explained, “We reported accurately here yesterday that were these prisoners of war instead of innocent children, those withholding of those items would be violations of the Geneva Convention. That is what the president considers treating well the children of migrants who came across the border without documents — children who are now separated from their families.”

View the complete June 26 article by Alex Henderson on the AlterNet here.

‘A ‘A Constant Game of Musical Chairs’ Amid Another Homeland Security Shake-Up

New York Times logoWASHINGTON — Turmoil intensified on Tuesday inside the agency responsible for securing the country’s borders as a top official was replaced by an immigration hard-liner and former Fox News contributor who last week pushed for nationwide raids to deport undocumented families.

That hard-liner, Mark Morgan, will take over as the head of Customs and Border Protection, administration officials said Tuesday.

The move again overhauls leadership at the Department of Homeland Security, which is responsible for cybersecurity, disaster relief and the enforcement of customs, border and immigration law, just two months after a purge of officials destabilized the agency.

View the complete June 25 article by Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman on The New York Times website here.

Mark Morgan to replace John Sanders as border chief as DHS shake-up continues

Washington Post logoA week after beginning his reelection campaign with promises of mass deportations, President Trump sent the agencies responsible for immigration enforcement deeper into disarray on Tuesday, replacing his interim border chief with a figure he plucked from cable news punditry last month.

Mark Morgan, who Trump installed as acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in early June, will take over as acting commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, replacing John Sanders, according to two Department of Homeland Security officials and a legislative staffer briefed on the move.

Trump ran for president promising a sweeping immigration crackdown and a monumental border wall, but he has presided over the worst migration crisis in at least a decade while dizzyingly hiring and firing DHS officials. The shake-up Tuesday comes after weeks of interagency squabbles and political knifings among agency officials who are struggling to cope with a record surge of migrant families and squalid conditions inside U.S. Border Patrol detention cells stuffed beyond capacity.

View the complete June 25 article by Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey on The Washington Post website here.

House approves $383 billion spending package

The Hill logoHouse Democrats on Tuesday passed a $383 billion spending package, finishing work on three-quarters of the annual appropriations bills on its docket ahead of the July Fourth recess.

The package of five funding bills passed in a vote of 227-194, largely along party lines. It includes funds for commerce and justice; agriculture, interior and environment; military construction and veterans affairs; and transportation, housing and urban development.

The legislation’s passage means Democrats have successfully completed work on nine of the 12 annual appropriations bills in their chamber. They are set to pass a 10th bill, covering financial services and general government, this week.

View the complete June 25 article by Niv Elis on The Hill website here.