HHS to cut services, Expand Internment Camps
On Wednesday the Department of Health and Human Services announced it would be cutting educational, recreational, and legal programs for children separated from their families currently in detention. Deputy Director of Americans for Immigrant Justice Michelle Ortiz told the Miami Herald, “These are children. Even death row inmates have access to educational and recreational services.”
Psychologists warn these cuts are likely to cause an increase in the self-destructive behavior already well-documented in these children.
Cutting legal services also makes it more difficult for children seeking asylum to navigate our complicated immigration process, causing longer stays.
Which is great for the private company running the nation’s largest children’s internment camp — the one in Homestead. They took in close to $billion in federal contracts over the last 18 months. That’s a lot of soccer balls.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Pramila Jaypal are calling for an investigation into how former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly came to sit on the board.
In their letter to Caliburn’s CEO, they write, “General Kelly ... was at the center of the inhumane and poorly planned immigration policies that put children in cages while separating thousands of families and that benefitted your company.” https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elizabet...
“Last week, 705 pages of court documents were filed by lawyers who spent substantial time inside … The documents painted a portrait of migrant children subjected to ‘prison-like’ regimens, potentially sustaining permanent psychological damage due to isolation from loved ones for long periods of time.” https://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...
Yahoo! News is reporting that Border Patrol agents are now confiscating children’s medicine as they enter the country.
Which makes it no surprise this week also marked the sixth child to die while in Border Patrol custody since December.
Conditions have become so crowded that HHS announced it will be opening three additional facilities for up to 4000 refugee children, including one in Texas later this month that previously housed oil workers.
The family separation policy has been an abject failure, as last month a record number showed up, throwing themselves at the mercy in the richest country on Earth, only to find there is no mercy for them.
At least not with this grifter president and his incompetent administration.