Trump Officials Plan to Use Military Bases to Imprison 5,000 Undocumented ChildrenTrump administration officials from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently visited the Fort Benning military base in Georgia as part of plans to imprison up to 5,000 undocumented immigrant children. HHS is responsible for placing children once they have left Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention, who are only supposed to hold them for a maximum of 72 hours. Commonly, they are placed in churches or with similar charitable organizations or families. Now the administration is holding the children in prison-like conditions for longer periods.
HHS is working together with the Pentagon, an indication that HHS as an agency is being integrated into the enforcement side, rather than acting as a non-policing social service agency. "At the request of [HHS] and with the support of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), HHS will be conducting a site assessment of unused DoD property for potential future use as temporary emergency influx shelter for unaccompanied alien children," HHS said in a statement. Advocates bring out that housing children in prison-like conditions is harmful to the children, who have committed no crime and have the right to asylum and their right as human beings to be treated with dignity and to have all their rights, including rights to education and health care, provided for. A number of children have died while in ICE custody, mainly from lack of health care. Use of military bases also makes it far more difficult for lawyers and advocates to assist the youth as entry to the bases is restricted. What is needed is for the children to be immediately placed with their families -- which most already have living in the U.S. -- or in housing facilities that exist in communities across the country for youth in need. Eliminating Educational Instruction for Detained Youth
The Department of Homeland Security is also preparing to imprison more babies. They bought 2.2 million diapers for a new tent detention centre in Texas, along with 20,000 baby bottles and 3,000 baby wipes. Court documents show "prison-like" conditions that can inflict psychological harm in many of the detention prisons, including those in Florida and Texas that hold thousands of youth.
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
Fort Benning, is one of
three military bases HHS is considering using,
the others being Fort Still in Oklahoma and Malmstrom Air Force
Base in Montana. Officials are deciding what buildings already in
place can be used to hold the children and what areas of land
could be used to construct more "tent cities."
More than 63 per cent of
migrants apprehended at the border in
May were children and families, mainly from Central America.
Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) arrested more than 144,000
people, many of them children, some unaccompanied minors. These
youth will be detained, sometimes for months or longer, and with
thousands more, added to those already unjustly and
inhumanely detained in "tent cities," dog kennels, and other
prison-like facilities. Even so, the government announced it is
cancelling English classes, legal aid, and recreational
opportunities for the children in detention.