‘Expand use of family detention’
Ban ruling looms
SANTA ANA, Calif, June 24, (Agencies): The Trump administration is calling for the expanded use of family detention for immigrant parents and children who are stopped along the US-Mexico border, a move decried by advocates as a cruel and ineffective attempt to deter families from coming to the United States.
Immigration authorities on Friday issued a notice that they may seek up to 15,000 beds to detain families. The Justice Department has also asked a federal court in California to allow children to be detained longer and in facilities that don’t require state licensing while they await immigration court proceedings.
“The current situation is untenable,” August Flentje, special counsel to the assistant attorney general, wrote in court filings seeking to change a longstanding court settlement that governs the detention of immigrant children. The more constrained the Homeland Security Department is in detaining families together during immigration proceedings, “the more likely it is that families will attempt illegal border crossing.”
The proposed expansion comes days after a public outcry moved the administration to cease the practice of separating children from their migrant parents on the border. More than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents since Homeland Security announced a plan in April to prosecute all immigrants caught on the border.
It also comes as the Pentagon is drawing up plans to house as many as 20,000 unaccompanied immigrant children on military bases.
Tens of thousands of immigrants traveling as families have been caught along the southwest border in recent years, many of them fleeing gang violence in Central America.
About 9,000 immigrants traveling in family groups have been caught on the border in each of the last three months, according to federal authorities. Many immigrant children traveling alone have also been stopped — about 15,000 during the same period.
Immigrant advocates contend detention is no place for children and insist there are other alternatives to ensure they and their parents attend immigration court hearings, such as ankle bracelets or community-based programs. The federal court ruled several years ago that children must be released as quickly as possible from family detention.
“It is definitely not a solution under any circumstances,” said Manoj Govindaiah, director of family detention services at the RAICES advocacy group in Texas. “At no point should a child be incarcerated, and children need to be with their parents.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials say immigrants are given proper care in its family detention facilities, which include playrooms, educational services and access to lawyers. The Department of Homeland Security issued a statement that says it’s complying with President Donald Trump’s executive order to keep immigrant families together, but called on lawmakers to enact immigration reform, saying “only Congress can fix the problem.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement has three family detention facilities that can house up to 3,300 people — a 100-bed center opened in Pennsylvania in 2001 and two much larger facilities opened in Texas in 2014. Only the Pennsylvania facility can house men, and all of the detainees at the Texas centers are women with children.
In Dilley, Texas, a facility was built on a remote site that was once an oil workers’ encampment. It includes collections of cottages built around playgrounds. The other Texas center, in Karnes City, is ringed by 15-foot (4.5-meter) fences and has security cameras monitoring movements. It also offers bilingual children’s books in the library, classes, TVs and an artificial turf soccer field.
Govindaiah
Also: WASHINGTON:
The US Supreme Court, winding down its nine-month term, will issue rulings this week in its few remaining cases including a major one on the legality of President Donald Trump’s ban on people from five Muslim-majority nations entering the country.
The nine justices are due to decide other politically sensitive cases on whether non-union workers have to pay fees to unions representing certain public-sector workers such as police and teachers, and the legality of California regulations on clinics that steer women with unplanned pregnancies away from abortion.
The justices began their term in October and, as is their usual practice, aim to make all their rulings by the end of June, with more due on Monday. Six cases remain to be decided.