The US Government Is Spending Millions to Illegally Lock Up Immigrant Families
The US Government Is Spending Millions to Illegally Lock Up Immigrant Families
August 14, 2015
By Meredith Hoffman
It was a scramble for survival: tens of thousands of women and kids streaming across the southern border, bolting from Central American nations where rape and murder rates had reached heights typically only seen in countries facing civil war. They spent days on buses and trains, crossed rivers in flimsy rafts, and trekked through the desert, some mothers carrying newborns in their arms.
The families fled drug trade–fueled gang violence and sought political asylum in the US, fearing for their lives if they returned home. The flood of migrants—mainly from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador— caused a crisis at the border in the summer of 2014, leading the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to announce a controversial new policy intended to deter would-be Central American migrant families from making the journey to the border.
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Johnson's testimony signaled a shift in DHS policy, making it clear that the agency would begin detaining immigrant mothers and their children while they fought court cases for asylum ( unaccompanied minors were treated differently and sent to shelters.) Previously, families seeking asylum in the US could pay a small bond as a promise that they would appear at a later hearing, then live in the country with relative freedom until then.
Under the new DHS policy, the migrant families were put in detention centers while they waited for the court dates—prompting a need for a large-scale family detention system. Last summer, DHS contracted with two of the nation's largest private prison corporations—Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group—to open two large facilities in Texas. They were to house a combined total of nearly 3,000 people.
More:
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/us-government-spending-millions-to-lock-up-immigrant-families-813
LA forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1016130255
