Over the past year, 7,500 detention beds have been added in Alabama, Arizona, California, Georgia, New Mexico and Texas, and the average daily detainee population has risen to about 28,000 from 18,000 last July, Torres told Congress.
We put many Japanese in internment camps during WWII. How is this different in nature? My country is really doing this, and I have so much trouble with it.
From a Chicago Tribune reporter:
U.S. sued over detention of immigrants
TAYLOR, Texas - In flatlands beside silos and freight-train tracks, an old medium-security prison has been reborn as a detention site for suspected undocumented immigrant families, helping end the nation's controversial "catch-and-release" practice.
..."Already, the family facility in Taylor for non-Mexican immigrants is at the center of a federal lawsuit by detainees and their attorneys, including lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, who allege that until recently, parents and their children were treated worse than prison inmates. Federal officials told a judge that many of the problems cited in the complaints have been fixed. Hutto represents a shift in federal policy on how non-Mexican suspected undocumented immigrants are dealt with. As recently as 2005, U.S. authorities released more than 100,000 arrested immigrants after they were scheduled for a court hearing. Because the vast majority never showed up for their hearings - which can occur as long as two months after arrest - the U.S. seeks to detain arrested immigrants until their day in court. Whole families are now detained, and the federal government is trying to keep them intact at places like Hutto.
I have used the word "punitive" a lot here lately, because I see the mindset taking hold in many areas. I saw it especially when I posted about the 5 and 6 year old girls being arrested at school...it is the new method. The worst shock was how many here agreed with it. Punishment taken to the highest level before trying other options.
I use the word again when I read articles like this. This country doesn't deal with things sensibly and rationally anymore, instead we put kids in jail.
Before the government said conditions had been improved, children were forced to wear urine-stained prison garb, confined to cells with open toilets up to 12 hours a day, fed bad food that led to illness and weight loss, deprived of toys in their bunks, and had received only an hour of schooling each weekday, according to court papers. Crying bouts were common. Guards threatened family separation if children continued crying or misbehaved.
"I think it is not fair to run away from torture to come to be tortured. Not physically, but mentally, psychologically and emotionally," said plaintiff Raouitee Pamela Puran in court documents. She and her 4-year-old daughter are from Guyana and seeking asylum.
There is more at the
linkI have a thought. Perhaps when ICE has their raids they could handle it from the top down, starting with the business owners who are knowingly doing this.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
