14 displaced by apartment fire
Some advocates remain wary of family detention
A fire early Monday displaced 14 people from three apartments in Allentown.
Capt. John Christopher of the Allentown Fire Department said the fire in a first-floor apartment in a building on the 800 block of North Seventh Street broke out around 5 a.m. and was out in 10-15 minutes. The cause remains under investigation, he said. No one was hurt.
The fire damaged one room in the first-floor apartment and caused smoke damage throughout the dwelling. The second- and third-floor apartments also had smoke damage. Residents were being assisted by the American Red Cross, Christopher said.
A mother and her three children were the final family released Friday from the Berks County Residential Center as federal immigration authorities emptied the facility where for years families seeking asylum in the United States have been held, Sen. Bob Casey’s office said.
As many as 18 people were released Thursday and Friday in what may signal the Biden administration’s shift in policy on detaining families, immigrant rights advocates said.
For years, the county-owned center outside Reading has been the target of criticism and protests from immigration advocates who called for it to be shut down over what they contended were inhumane conditions and violations of a longstanding legal settlement on the detention of child immigrants.
“I am pleased that all the families held in the Berks detention facility have been released,” Casey said in a statement. “This is a long-overdue step to deliver justice to vulnerable migrant families, including children. The next step is to permanently close the center so that no future family or child is forced to go through what these families have endured.”
The Shut Down Berks Coalition, a group of organizations and individuals fighting to close the center, said that while it celebrates the release of the final family, it remains on high alert. Adrianna TorresGarcía of the Free Migration Project said advocates are concerned that the center could be “rebranded” to again house children as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has done with emergency shelters in Texas.
“It’s the same thing, it’s the same practice just under a different name,” TorresGarcía said, adding that the coalition is calling on President Joe Biden to end family detention.
An ICE spokesperson confirmed no one is in custody at the Berks center.Berks County officials did not respond to a request for comment.
On Thursday and Friday, ICE started calling family sponsors of those being held in the Berks County center and telling them to pick up their relatives or make arrangements for them to travel. The reasons for the releases are unclear, but lawyers representing the families told the coalition ICE was using its prosecutorial discretion, Torres-García said.
The families will be able to proceed with their legal cases outside detention, she said.
Immigrant rights advocates have long criticized the center for facilitating the federal government’s policy of detaining parents and children seeking refuge from violent crime and other threats in their home countries. Activism surrounding the center reached a crescendo as the Trump administration dramatically overhauled immigration policy.
Shut Down Berks called on Gov. Tom Wolf and other state officials to shutter the center after reports that families were denied medical care, mental health services, adequate sleep and information about the length of their detention.
In 2016, the Wolf administration revoked the center’s license to operate as a child residential facility because both children and adult parents were being held there. The center has been able to continue operating legally while it appeals the decision. The litigation remains unresolved, Department of Human Services spokesperson Erin James said.
“The Wolf Administration has been clear in its belief that families, particularly those with children, seeking refuge and opportunity in the United States should not face indefinite detainment in guarded facilities while they wait for a day in court and a fair hearing of their immigration case,” James said.
Berks County operates the center, a former nursing home in Bern Township, as a 96-bed detention facility under a contract with ICE. Public records obtained through the Pennsylvania Right-to-Know Law show Berks County receives about $1.3 million a year under the agreement.
The center was established in 2001 to provide a safe and secure location for parents and children as they go through the immigration process. Adults are housed with their children in a dormitory setting with day rooms, a library, TV room, recreation rooms and a toddler play area. Families and children older than 10 are free to move throughout the facility and an outdoor recreation area with a playground and athletic fields, according to ICE.
Those calling for the center to be closed cited reports of poor medical treatment and sexual violence.
The Guardian in 2016 reported that a 5-year-old girl suffered from cramps and diarrhea for weeks because of shigellosis, a contagious disease that went undiagnosed despite her mother’s constant pleading with medical staff. The Guardian also reported that nurses in the center told the mother of a toddler who was vomiting blood that her daughter simply needed to drink more water. It was four days before she was allowed to take the 3-year-old to a hospital, according to the report.
Children confined for months have grown depressed and desperate, and some even have contemplated suicide, a group of mothers said in a 2016 letter to the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE. The mothers too felt desperate, launching a two-week hunger strike to expedite their cases.
A guard at the center pleaded guilty in 2016 to institutional sexual assault and was sentenced to six to 23 months in prison after grooming and repeatedly sexually assaulting a woman at the center. Berks County reached a $75,000 settlement with the Honduran refugee days before a trial on her claims that officials failed to help her as she was repeatedly sexually assaulted. The settlement followed a federal appeals court ruling that officials at the center weren’t entitled to immunity because the right of immigration detainees to be free from sexual assault was clearly established.