more detainee children horrors and missed deadlines

[aubiefifty 16,803]

thinkprogress.org

Separating immigrant families is ‘one of the great acts of American generosity’ – ThinkProgress

Rebekah Entralgo Twitter

4-5 minutes

The same day the federal government missed a court-imposed deadline to reunite roughly 84 children under the age of 5 with their families — after being forcibly separated from them at the U.S.-Mexico border — Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar appeared on CNN to defend how his agency has handled the recent immigration crisis.

“We have nothing to hide about how we operate these facilities,” Azar told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tuesday night, referring to the juvenile and “tender age” facilities in which many of the separated children are currently being detained, which HHS officials have barred media outlets and public figures from filming or visiting unannounced.

Speaking to the conditions in which the children are being held, he added, “It is one of the great acts of American generosity and charity, what we are doing for these unaccompanied kids.”

Azar appeared to be using an incorrect term for children forcibly removed from their families at the border; typically, the term “unaccompanied” refers to those children who arrive at the border alone or without a parent or guardian present.

The act of separating 3,000 children from their parents — HHS’ latest estimate for the number of minors in their care — is hardly generous. As many experts have noted, doing so can be deeply traumatic for the child and can cause long-lasting damage to their mental health.

Last month, several media outlets published leaked footage and audio of some of those detention centers, in which children can be heard wailing and sobbing for their parents. “We have an orchestra here,” one border official is overheard saying in audio obtained by ProPublica, mocking the crying children. In audio from a phone call given to Vice News, another detained child cries to his mother, who is on the other end of the line, in Guatemala. “Everytime I go to sleep, I pray for you,” he says.

The Trump administration has also had trouble keeping tabs on the families it separated at the border. Earlier in June, after President Trump signed an executive order reversing the family separation practice he himself had implemented as part of a broader “zero-tolerance” immigration policy, a federal judge in San Diego instructed the administration to reunite separated children with their parents within 30 days, or 14 days for children under the age of 5.

However, during a conference call Friday afternoon, government officials requested an extension of that deadline, admitting to a federal judge that they had lost track of 20 percent of separated toddlers’ parents and would be unable to reunite them with their children by the July 10 cut-off. In a follow-up call Monday, during which the judge declined to offer an extension, administration officials further admitted they had only reunited four of the 102 children younger than 5 with their families and would not be reuniting 27 of them because their parents had criminal records.

As The Daily Beast reported Tuesday, HHS has done the bare minimum to help reunite families, making the parents responsible for their own reunification. According to the outlet, U.S. officials recently told four immigrant women that they must pay for their own DNA tests in order to be reunited with their children, to prove they are, indeed, related. The tests are conducted by a private contractor on behalf of HHS’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the care and housing of immigrant children.

Contrary to Azar’s claim that the agency has been making sure children are well taken-care of, some HHS shelters housing unaccompanied minors and children separated at the border also have dark histories of abuse.

As ThinkProgress previously reported, HHS has spent millions placing immigrant children into abusive homes, and some of the “tender age” facilities where the youngest children separated at the border are sent have faced allegations of sexual and physical abuse over the years. A recent ThinkProgress investigation, for instance, found that a shelter for unaccompanied minors, contracted by HHS, currently employs a man with a history of sex crimes. The shelter has also taken in children separated at the border.

 

i hope you guys read all of this but at least read the last paragraph. and once again i have no problem enforcing immigration but this is just dead wrong.

[SaltyTiger 7,816]

more detainee children horrors and missed deadlines

We have other threads discussing the children. What is new about the government missing a deadline.

[aubiefifty 16,803]

33 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

more detainee children horrors and missed deadlines

We have other threads discussing the children. What is new about the government missing a deadline.

i posted it over something someone said in this thread. i am talking about the sex predators and others of that ilk working at these centers...............

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

7 hours ago, aubiefifty said:

i posted it over something someone said in this thread. i am talking about the sex predators and others of that ilk working at these centers...............

This is something that I don't think gets enough discussion or attention in America. Sex Slavery is very very alive today. It doesn't matter what color you are. Freaking kids in our country are sold and prostituted every day.

Many of those kids that come without parents are meant to be victims of this also. Bastards promise their parents they will get them to America to have a better life and then sell them into sex slavery.

[japantiger 4,051]

"I'm shocked, shocked I tell you" (not).... People coming here illegally lied about their background and even that the children they brought here with them were their's.....

• Now DOJ and DHS say 46 of the 103 children in custody who are under 5 years old wouldn't be safe with the adults who brought them across the border
• Some weren't actually their parents; others are in prison for kidnapping, child abuse or murder; another is wanted for murder in Guatemala
• Still others gave phony birth certificates or planned to house a child with a known child sex abuser
• A dozen were deported but declined to take their children with them 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5946471/DOJ-adults-separated-kids-border-murderers-child-abusers-kidnappers.html

Of the 103 minors in the youngest age group, the administration has reunited 57 with parents, but the other 46 are 'ineligible,' the Justice and Homeland Security Departments reported.

Eleven of the adults have 'serious criminal histor[ies],' the agencies announced, including charges or convictions for child cruelty, kidnapping, murder, human smuggling, domestic violence and narcotics-related crime. 

One of the men is wanted for murder in Guatemala, Chris Meekins, Chief of Staff, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the Department of Health and Human Services told reporters on a conference call.

Seven more were 'determined not to be a parent' at all, including three whose deception was discovered through DNA testing.

Meekins described one adult who said he was a parent 'right up until the time of a DNA swab,' and then retracted his claim.

Authorities determined that one potential child sponsor was alleged to have abused the child he was trying to claim.

Another told the government that if his child were returned to him, he planned to house the youngster with an adult who has been charged with sex abuse of a young girl.

Eleven are in state or federal custody for other reasons.

One of the adults presented a falsified birth certificate, and another has a contagious disease.

Twelve have already been deported.

'We don't have the legal authority to bring those individuals back into the country for reunification purposes,' Meekins said Thursday. 'They have no lawful right to be here.'

He also said those people had already been offered the opportunity to take the children with them when they were deporter, and declined. 

The shocking statistics will heap fuel on Trump's fiery argument that his political foes should adopt a more flexible approach

[Mikey 16,614]

If the source of something is thinkprogress.org, I always assume it contains more lies than truth. To date, this has proved to be an accurate assessment..

[aubiefifty 16,803]

3 hours ago, Mikey said:

If the source of something is thinkprogress.org, I always assume it contains more lies than truth. To date, this has proved to be an accurate assessment..

i feel the same was about trump. except even his biggest fans admit he lies but are ok with it. you certainly seem to be. iguess if you are a republican they get a pass. right mikey? you certainly do.

[AU64 10,122]

5 hours ago, Mikey said:

If the source of something is thinkprogress.org, I always assume it contains more lies than truth. To date, this has proved to be an accurate assessment..

Thanks Mikey....and how about the NTY....from 2016 with picture from 2014 of the wire cage detention centers.

Why did no one get concerned back then?   https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/us/politics/us-placed-immigrant-children-with-traffickers-report-says.html

Not excusing the current issue but those who are clamoring for the government to take the "parent's" word on the legal parentage of children from Central America and let them go with "parent" don't understand what's going on .