China Daily Online, April 11th According to a recent report by Qatar Al Jazeera, "cages" and prison cells have been a feature of the American immigration system since the 19th century, which is a euphemism. This refers to the detention of the family. Now, it seems that the US government is considering restarting this practice which was stopped because of blatant violation of human rights. What will happen when the so-called "leader of the free world" abandons the principles of freedom and the sanctity of the family?
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During George W. Bush’s administration, women and children seeking asylum due to local hemispheric crisis were imprisoned for the first time in a former nursing home named Beukes in Pennsylvania. The detention center can accommodate 40 families.
Therefore, the US Congress paid a private prison management company — — The American Correctional Company (now CoreCivic) transformed a medium-security state prison in Texas into a T Don Hutto for use by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This is a "baby prison" for holding refugee children. In August 2009, the facility was finally closed for these and other serious human rights violations.
Since then, the American government has continued to imprison innocent people. After Hato, three profit-making "baby prisons" were established: Atici, New Mexico, Karnes and Dilley, Texas.
In their reports in 2007 and 2014, the Women’s Refugee Commission and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service exposed the shocking fact that the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Bureau detained families: children were locked in their cells for 12 hours every day without books and toys; Threatened with isolation and solitary confinement for "misconduct"; With a head count every seven hours, refugees have only 20 minutes to eat those indigestible foods.
In most prisons, everyone is forced to wear prison clothes, and even newborns are given jumpsuits. However, because the laundry facilities cannot meet the needs of women’s physiological period and children who have not received toilet training, the clothes worn by prisoners are dirty. Prisoners have been living under "toxic" pressure. They lose weight, lose hair, become listless, and their children’s abilities deteriorate … … Everyone suffers from imprisonment and verbal, physical and sometimes even sexual abuse.
These detainees are prisoners of American correctional company CoreCivic and rival global private prison giant GEO Group — — Instead of being taken care of by child experts, caseworkers, educators and trauma caregivers, as envisaged in the Flores Settlement Agreement (FSA) between the US government and immigrant rights groups in 1997.
American correctional company CoreCivic private prisons are located all over the United States.
The Flores Reconciliation Agreement stipulates some minimum standards for the "safe and hygienic" treatment of minors in American immigration detention centers. The agreement stipulates that these facilities should be in an "insecure" family environment, and the detained teenagers should be released within 20 days and handed over to their parents, other relatives, approved guarantors or institutions approved to take care of children and teenagers.
However, the Flores Reconciliation Agreement was initiated for unaccompanied children and did not stipulate how to deal with children who came with their parents. At that time, the American government did not provide sufficient resources for the humanitarian and due process aspects of the American immigration system. As a result, the detention time of children accompanying about 3,600 families has been prolonged.
Now, the Biden administration intends to intensify this cruelty again. Recently, the Los Angeles Times apologized for its vicious propaganda of imprisoning 120,000 Japanese-American citizens during World War II. Nowadays, non-citizen asylum seekers may be driven to centralized detention centers. But the motivation remains the same: finding scapegoats, creating panic and dehumanizing.
Sarah Towle, the author of the article and an international educator, pointed out that President Biden once said that he wanted to "save the soul of America". He cannot achieve his goal by imprisoning his family and family values again. Crimes against the most vulnerable groups of mankind should not be defended in order to win "moderate" votes in the 2024 general election. American historical crimes such as domestic detention have left indelible moral stains, and they should never be repeated!