THE PLIGHT OF SYRIAN REFUGEES IS TRAGIC BUT LET’S NOT FORGET ABOUT THE NEARLY TWO THOUSAND CENTRAL AMERICAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN REFUGEES THE U.S. GOVERNMENT CONTINUES TO DETAIN AT A FOR-PROFIT INTERNMENT CAMP IN DILLEY, TEXAS
As the horrific conflict in Syria enters its fifth year, the “refugee crisis” generated by the hostilities in that region continues to dominate the media – and for good reason: An estimated four million people have fled Syria since the war began in 2011 resulting in an unprecedented crisis for Europe in regards to how to absorb the men, women and children fleeing the epic violence that has engulfed the country. And yet, another refugee crisis involving Central American women and children continues to unfold at our own border. These women and children have fled violence in their countries and sought refuge in the United States only to be illegally jailed in for-profit internment camps.
In the last week of July 2015, I had the privilege of volunteering with the CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project at the Southwest Family Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. CARA is a highly dedicated coalition of attorneys and non-attorney volunteers dedicated to providing legal and advocacy services to the women and children detainees in Dilley and to ending family detention. As a consequence of my participation as an attorney volunteer, I observed first hand the psychological violence that U.S. family detention policy continues to inflict on Central American refugee women and children. I also met a lot of inspiring and dedicated volunteers and the experience was one of the most meaningful ones I have had as an attorney.
In two scathing orders, a federal judge has declared the Obama administration’s policy of detaining minors to be in violation of a class action settlement agreement reached in 1997 and therefore illegal.[1] And yet, the administration continues to aggressively pursue family detention based on frivolous legal theories that barely pass the laugh test. The administration’s family detention policy becomes even more grotesque if one considers the enormous profits Correction Corporation of America (the for-profit private prison contractor employed by the Federal government to house the women and children at Dilley) makes off of the human suffering perpetuated at the internment camp it euphemistically refers to as a “family detention center.”[2]
The overwhelming majority of the women and children I represented in bond proceedings were from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Nearly all were under 30 and some were as young as 18. All were jailed with their children. Most were fleeing unspeakable violence at the hands of gangs, drug traffickers, and in numerous instances, domestic violence, not to mention extreme poverty. And of course, all of the women endured enormous hardships in traveling from their countries through Mexico before ultimately arriving in the United States. Many of the kids I encountered were sick with colds, earaches and coughs and their mothers frequently complained of inadequate or virtually non-existent medical care at the facility.
A palpable sense of lawlessness pervades the detention facility in Dilley. During the week I was there, ICE officers summoned women detainees (nearly all of whom had been represented by CARA attorneys) to a court room (outside the presence of counsel) in an effort to force them (through misinformation and coercion) to forgo their right to seek a monetary bond and instead agree to be released with an ankle bracelet – an embarrassing and stigmatizing apparatus that although allows a detainee to be released without putting up any money nevertheless requires periodic reporting in person to ICE for potentially the entire duration of the woman’s court proceedings, which once released from custody, could amount to as long as five years. Naturally, none of this was explained to the women. And the use of the courtroom by ICE for this purpose (aside from violating the women’s right to counsel) caused confusion and disorientation as many detainees mistakenly believed that they were attending a court hearing, when in fact they were not.
A particularly zealous CARA attorney and colleague of mine learned that one of his clients had been summoned to one of these meetings after a Judge had ordered her released from custody subject to a monetary bond and was erroneously informed by ICE at this gathering that she must accept release with an ankle apparatus. So the attorney raised hell with ICE and then filed a motion with the Immigration Court seeking redress for the numerous violations incurred by ICE as result of this practice. By the end of the week, he was forcibly removed from facility without explanation.
Notwithstanding the pathetic and disingenuous arguments of the Obama administration, family detention cannot be justified either morally or legally. And it is particularly troubling that it continues despite its blatant illegality and in the absence of any mass protest in this country. Hopefully coverage of the Syrian refugee problem will spark a renewed emphasis and comparable expression of compassion for the women and children seeking refuge at our own southern border.
[1] See Cindy Carcamo, “Judge Orders Prompt Release Of Immigrant Children From Detention,” Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2015, http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-family-detention-children-20150821-story.html
[2] See Betsy Woodruff, “Prison Gets Rich Locking Up Preschoolers,” The Daily Beast, September 8, 2015, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/08/america-s-most-lucrative-preschooler-prison.html; Aseem Mehta, “A Jail For Babies: Absurdity and Abuse At The American Border,” Fusion, July 22, 2015, http://fusion.net/story/170590/a-jail-for-babies-absurdity-and-abuse-at-the-american-border/
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