Pull the plug

Humanity missing in U.S. policy

Three children died of influenza in recent months at Customs and Border Protection detention facilities. CBP claims it lacks the resources to provide adequate medical care. But on Oct. 30, it denied the delivery of flu vaccines by nurses and health professionals to immigrants at a detention facility in San Isidro, Calif.

This perverse behavior defines the broken system of an agency under the Department of Homeland Security given the responsibility of providing safe haven to immigrants awaiting court hearings.

In lieu of humane immigration policy, the country has a “detention and deportation machine” plagued by system-wide abuses that “demonizes the dispossessed, blames the poor, and empowers corporations … to massively profit from the human misery of detention centers” (Harsha Walia, Undoing Border Imperialism).

Adults and children alike sleeping on concrete floors in frigid, squalid and overcrowded cells without soap, toothbrushes or adequate food and water are not being kept in the “safe and sanitary” conditions that the administration claims and that the law requires. An appalling practice has ripped over 5,000 children from their parents’ arms since July 2017, according to recently released ACLU data.

Despite the staggering array of dangers they face in the desperate months-long trek north, migrants are setting out in ever-increasing numbers. A multitude of Central Americans can no longer live at home as flooding and droughts brought on by climate change create untenable food insecurity. In addition, unregulated extractive industries and commercial mono-agriculture exploit both land and labor in their home countries, while violent criminal gangs bully local citizenry into joining them on threat of death, and authoritarian governments advantage only the few.

According to the Pew Research Center, more than 1 million migrants arrive at our southern borders every year, with 800,000 so far this year. The U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 76,020 unaccompanied minors this fiscal year, up 52 percent over last year. On Sept. 11, a new rule barred asylum for all migrants who travel through another country before reaching the U.S. This rule and other agreements reached with Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador have reduced the number of immigrants apprehended at the border by detaining them elsewhere. Migration continues to escalate worldwide.

The administration has installed a vast military network to combat the “job-stealing criminals” portrayed in the president’s false immigrant narrative. Border enforcement extends 100 miles inland, creating militarized regions the ACLU calls “constitution-free zones.”

We are building a “standing army on American soil” that will intrude ever more deeply into our everyday lives. With a $61 billion budget, the Department of Homeland Security stockpiles arms and ammunition, and spies on American citizens, while Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), a federal law enforcement agency under Homeland Security, militarizes local police units (in Arkansas, this practice known as 287g operates in Washington and Benton counties).

The United States needs an immigration policy that provides border security, justice, and humanity. The country’s legislators must compromise over the many differences that leave unresolved an unsustainable stalemate on immigration justice.

We do not have to accept illegal and misguided practices. We have seen that grass-roots pressure on elected officials can change outcomes. All of us can come together with one voice to urge Congress to stop funding severely damaging immigration strategies and to invest in legal, common-sense solutions to the country’s humanitarian crisis.

While across-the-board immigration reform will be a multi-layered congressional effort, a portion of the existing Homeland Security budget should be redirected to begin implementing proven alternatives to detention, adequate staffing at ports of entry, community-based support services, and child welfare, medical and language professionals at the border.

We can act now to stop Congress from funding a broader fulfillment of our current, deeply misguided immigration policies. The president has requested massive budget increases for ICE and CBP to heighten militarization with additional aircraft and surveillance technologies, and to expand border patrol and detention capacity. Legislators are poised to vote on this request in coming days. Let’s raise our voices. Urge them to vote “no.”

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