Briefing Book Trip to the Border March 2018 - Kids in Need of Defense
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Briefing Book Trip to the Border March 2018
Table of Contents
The Legal Landscape for Unaccompanied Children . . . . . . . . . 2
Statistics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Unaccompanied Children (UAC) Continue to Arrive in the United States at High Rates ....4
Unaccompanied Children Come to the United States to Flee Violence in Central America ......5
Step-by-Step Guide on Apprehension and Detention of Juveniles . . . 6
Lawyers are Vital to Receiving Legal Protection . . . . . . . . . . 12
News Updates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Legal Landscape for Unaccompanied Children
There are two laws and a settlement agreement that most directly affect U.S. policy regarding
the treatment and administrative processing of unaccompanied children: the Flores Settlement
Agreement of 1997, the Homeland Security Act of 2002, and the Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Act of 2008.
The Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997
During the 1980s, following allegations that unaccompanied children were being mistreated
by Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) officials, the Center for Human Rights and
Constitutional Law filed a series of lawsuits against the government challenging procedures
regarding the detention, treatment, and release of unaccompanied children. After many years of
litigation, including an appeal heard by the United States Supreme Court, the parties reached a
settlement in 1997 referred to as the Flores Settlement Agreement (Flores).
Broadly, Flores imposed several obligations on immigration authorities, which generally fall into
three categories:
1. The government is required to release children from immigration detention without
unnecessary delay to, in order of preference, parents, other adult relatives, or
licensed programs willing to accept custody.
2. If a suitable placement is not immediately available, the government is obligated
to place children in the “least restrictive” setting appropriate to their age and any
special needs they may have.
3. The government must implement standards relating to the care and treatment of
children in immigration detention.
In September 2017, a leaked internal Department of Homeland Security memorandum revealed
that the Department was exploring multiple avenues of how to circumvent protections for children
laid out in Flores. The memorandum was entitled, “Removing the Burden of the Flores Settlement
Agreement.”
Homeland Security Act of 2002
The Homeland Security Act of 2002 divided responsibilities for the processing and treatment of
unaccompanied children between the newly created Department of Homeland Security (DHS)
and the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of Refugee Resettlement
(ORR). The law assigned responsibility to DHS for the apprehension, transfer, and repatriation of
unaccompanied children. Congress gave HHS responsibility for providing care and custody for
unaccompanied children. HHS is required by this law to place children in the least restrictive setting
possible and reunifiy them with a sponsor in the United States. In certain situations, they must
provide follow up services to ensure a child's saefty post-reunification.
2
William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008
In response to ongoing concerns that unaccompanied children were still not being treated
humanely and protected adequately, Congress passed the William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims
Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA). The TVPRA established three new categories of
protections that were designed to do the following:
1. Enhance the care and custody of unaccompanied children.
2. Ensure safe placement of unaccompanied children with sponsors.
3. Make the immigration process more child-friendly for unaccompanied children
seeking legal protection.
Under the TVPRA, once the federal government apprehends a child and determines that such
child is unaccompanied, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) must notify ORR that it has an
unaccompanied child in its custody within 48 hours. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
must then transfer the unaccompanied child from the CBP detention facilities to ORR within 72
hours. However, the TVPRA set forth a different set of rules for unaccompanied children from
contiguous countries (i.e., Mexico and Canada), whereby the children are only transferred to ORR
custody if the children can explain to DHS officials that they have been trafficked or fear returning
home. If the children are unable to do so, they are permitted to withdraw their application for
entry into the United States and are returned immediately back to their home country.
Additionally, prior to enactment of the TVPRA, unaccompanied children would be placed in
adversarial removal proceedings and would have to make their case alone. This is in contrast to
children who are with their families and thus participate in the removal proceeding alongside their
parents. The TVPRA addressed this problem in several ways:
1. Unaccompanied children now may file an initial, affirmative claim for asylum with
an Asylum Officer with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS),
and if unsuccessful in their first attempt, unaccompanied children then have a
second opportunity to make a defensive claim before an immigration judge in
removal proceedings.
2. Unaccompanied children are exempted from expedited removal, a cursory
screening process that is applied to adults.
3. Unaccompanied children are not subject to the one-year filing deadline that
otherwise applies for submission of an asylum application following entry into the
United States.
4. The federal government is required to help facilitate access to counsel for the
children.
3
Unaccompanied Children (UAC) Continue to Arrive in the United
States at High Rates
• Unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children continue to come to the United States from
Central America in significant numbers primarily due to continued violence and danger in
their home countries. UAC arrivals from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala—collectively
known as the Northern Triangle of Central America—started to increase in October 2011 and
rose significantly each year after that to a historic peak in 2014. Following annual peaks of
68,631 UAC in 2014 and 59,757 UAC in 2016, migration trends in 2017 suggest that this
inflated number of apprehensions of UAC is becoming the new standard. The number of UAC
apprehended last year is more than double the number of UAC apprehended before the rise
starting in 2011.
• In Fiscal Year (FY)
2017, a total of 41,456
unaccompanied children
were apprehended by
Customs and Border
Protection (CBP).
See accompanying Graph A
• CBP recently released
data on apprehensions
in the U.S., noting that
“[d]uring the month of
February, CBP saw a
2.4 percent increase in
individuals apprehended
Graph A: Based on U.S. Border Patrol UAC Statistics1
while trying to enter
the country illegally in
between established
ports of entry, and
in those presenting
themselves for entry,
without proper
documentation along
our Southwest border.
This is typical of
migration patterns in the
month of February.”
See accompanying Graphs B
Graph B
1 https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2017-Dec/BP%20Total%20
4
Monthly%20UACs%20by%20Sector%2C%20FY10-FY17.pdf
CBP also has stated that “[i]n February a total of 26,666 individuals were apprehended
between ports of entry on our Southwest Border, compared with 25,978 in January and 28,998
in December. In FY17, USBP apprehended 303,916 individuals along our Southwest Border,
compared to 408,870 in FY16, 331,333 in FY15, and 479,371in FY14.”
See accompanying Graphs C and D
Graph C
Graph D
Unaccompanied Children Come to the United States to Flee
Violence in Central America
Unaccompanied immigrant and refugee children are primarily driven to the U.S. by brutal and
pervasive violence and human trafficking in the Northern Triangle. Their countries of origin match
the overall migration trend of increased immigration from Central America, as immigration from
Mexico decreases.
• El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala are among the most violent countries in the world.2
• Honduras is the most murderous country in the world, with a murder rate of 91.6 murders
per 100,000 inhabitants.
• El Salvador is the next deadliest country with 69.2 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.
• Guatemala has the sixth highest murder rate at 38.5 murders per 100,000 inhabitants.
• El Salvador and Guatemala have the world’s highest homicide rates among children and
adolescents.
• More than half of those killed in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala in 2015 were under 30
years of age.
• El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras rank first, third, and seventh, respectively, for rates of
female homicides globally
• More than two-thirds (69%) of victims of sexual and gender-based violence tried to find
safety by fleeing elsewhere in their own country, but they continued to experience similar
levels of violence even in new locations.
• According to U.S. government statistics, 82% of 16,077 women from El Salvador,
Honduras, and Guatemala, countries who were interviewed by U.S. authorities were
found to have a credible fear of persecution or torture and were allowed to pursue their
claims for asylum in the United States.
2
World Atlas, Murder Rate by Country, https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/murder-rates-by-country.html. 5
Step by Step Guide on Apprehension and Detention of Juveniles in
the United States
Part I: The U.S. Government’s Immigration Enforcement Framework
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was created in 2001. Two of its agencies, the U.S.
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), are
responsible for all immigration enforcement in the United States. 3
CBP is charged specifically with securing the U.S. borders and facilitating trade. Its primary
mission is preventing terrorists and terrorist weapons from entering the United States. CBP is also
responsible for apprehending individuals attempting to enter the United States illegally, as well as
stemming the flow of illegal drugs and other contraband. It is the agency that initially apprehends
and detains children who are trying to enter the United States without authorization.
The two components of CBP most likely to encounter immigrant children entering the United States
are the Office of Field Operations (OFO) and Border Patrol (BP). OFO officers screen all foreign
visitors, returning U.S. citizens and imported cargo that enters the U.S. at more than 300 land,
air and sea ports. BP agents work along U.S. borders in the areas between ports of entry. Border
Patrol is responsible for securing almost 7,000 miles of border between the U.S. and its Canadian
and Mexican neighbors, as well as other coastal areas. 4
ICE is tasked with enforcing immigration laws in the interior of the country and ensuring that
people living in the United States have authorization to do so. The agency devotes the majority of
its resources to its two principal operating components - Homeland Security Investigations (HSI),
responsible for detecting criminal immigrants, and Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO),
dedicated to removing migrants without authorization to remain in the United States. 5
Graph E
3 Prior to the creation of DHS, the Immigration and Nationality Services (INS), which was established on June 10, 1933 as part of the
Department of Justice, protected and enforced the U.S Immigration and Naturalization laws. The INS also addressed illegal entrance
into the United States, prevented receipt of benefits such as social security or unemployment by those ineligible to receive them, and
investigated, detained, and deported those illegally living in the United States.
4 www.cbp.gov
5 www.ice.gov
6
Part II. How Migrant Children Arrive at the United States Southern Border Seeking
Entry
Most migrant children attempting to enter the United States, traveling alone or with family,
cross into the United States through the U.S./Mexico border. Once at the U.S./Mexico border
children may present themselves at an official port of entry and ask for asylum or protection, or
they may attempt to cross into the country between ports of entry, usually in the desert. Children
presenting themselves at the ports of entry are screened by OFO officers and if they do not
have authorization to enter the United States, they are held in OFO facilities until they can be
repatriated or sent to longer-term government custody. Children who are apprehended by BP
agents attempting to enter between the ports of entry are taken to BP short-term hold facilities until
ICE transfers them to longer-term government facilities or until they can be repatriated.
Part III: The Process When an Unaccompanied Child Is Apprehended Trying to Enter
the United States without Permission
A. Children from non-contiguous countries
As previously stated, CBP officials are the most likely enforcement officials to apprehend children
attempting to enter the U.S. through the Mexican border. After apprehension, the children will be
taken to a CBP short-term hold facility for processing. Once DHS has determined that an individual
is under the age of 18, it must then determine whether he or she meets the definition of an
unaccompanied child (UAC). If the child meets the definition of UAC, he or she must be transferred
to an appropriate facility within 72 hours of apprehension.6 ICE is responsible for these transfers.
B.Children from contiguous countries
As stated previously, the TVPRA codified different rules for children coming to the United States
from contiguous countries. That law requires CBP to at least screen children to ensure that they
are not a potential victim of trafficking, have no possible claim to asylum, and can voluntarily
accept return. This is commonly referred to as “contiguous country screening.” Unless all of these
questions are answered in the affirmative, the child cannot be immediately returned, but rather
must be treated like all other unaccompanied children and be referred to the Office of Refugee
Resettlement.
6 See discussion in Part III, Section C “Children Traveling with Family Members” for a discussion on the concerns caused by the definition of
unaccompanied alien child as it relates to non-parent family members.
7
Graph F
8Consular involvement
Mexican children found by CBP to be without protection concerns, can be immediately repatriated.
The mechanisms of their repatriation are governed by an umbrella agreement between DHS and
the Secretary for Exterior Relations of Mexico, implemented by local agreements at different
border areas.
Under the 1963 Vienna Convention, and other agreements between the United States and Mexico,
all Mexican nationals in the United States are guaranteed 1.) the right to speak with a consular
official, 2.) and that the Mexican government will immediately be notified if a citizen is in U.S.
government custody, and 3.) that a Mexican Consular Official has the right to visit a Mexican
national in detention.7 CBP has given Mexican consular officials office space in many of the OFO
and BP stations so that a local consular official can come to the facility to interview the migrant and
help facilitate repatriation. When CBP wants to return a child to Mexico, the consular official will
often coordinate the return of that child with Mexico’s national child welfare agency to ensure the
safe repatriation of that child.
Children traveling with family members:
Family groups traveling with children raise unique issues for DHS. DHS has long struggled with
how to treat family units apprehended at the border.
Until the summer of 2014, DHS maintained only one family facility, the Berks Family Residential
Center in Leesport, Pennsylvania, which was opened in 2001 to accommodate immigrant families
in ICE custody for usually short periods of time. When DHS apprehends a family, they have the
discretion to release family units to sponsors so that they may pursue asylum or other legal claim
in immigration court, or they may place them into “expedited removal,” a fast-track deportation
process without the right to make a case before an immigration judge. Currently, DHS practice
is to place families into expedited removal and detention as long as they have detention space
and absent exigent circumstances. In these cases, families are detained and must first pass an
initial screening interview, known as a credible fear interview, to be considered for release,
avoid summary removal, and to make a full asylum case before an immigration judge. In 2014, in
response to an increase in mothers with children arriving at the southern border, DHS dramatically
expanded the detention of families in its custody, opening the (now closed) Artesia Detention
Center, the South Texas (Dilley) Family Residential Center, and converting the Karnes County
Detention Center into a family facility. The additional facilities represented a 30-fold increase in
family detention.
9
7 United Nations Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, April 24, 1963, 596 U.N.T.S. 261.Graph G
Part IV. Overview of Detention Conditions for Immigrant Children in the United
States
When a child entering the United States without authorization is apprehended, there are three
different kinds of detention they may be subject to: detention in a CBP short term hold facility,
longer term ICE detention facilities designed for families traveling together, or shelters and
programs specifically for unaccompanied children run by ORR/Department of Children’s Services.
A. Detention in Border Patrol facilities
When a child is initially apprehended entering the United States without authorization, he or she may
be encountered by Customs and Border Protection. CBP maintains short-term hold facilities along the
border and at all official ports of entry to the United States, including airports and bridges. If CBP
encounters a child, traveling alone or with family, and they do not believe that child has permission to
enter the United States, they will put that child in a holding cell. If a child is traveling with family, the
child will be held with their family members. If they are unaccompanied, they will be held with other
juveniles.
CBP facilities are intended to be short-term holding areas for children while BP officers determine the
child’s authorization to enter the United States, to process a credible fear claim (if accompanied) or
while they are waiting for another agency to transfer the child to another facility (such as an ICE or
ORR facility). Children should not be held in those facilities for longer than 72 hours.8 After 72 hours,
if CBP deems it necessary to continue the detention of a child, ICE must transfer that child to a long-
term ORR or ICE facility.9 Often, due to delays in transport or a lack of long-term immigration detention
8 TVPRA.
9 Id.
10capacity around the country, children have been held for much longer, up to two weeks.10 Despite the
Flores and TVPRA standards for the treatment of children in CBP facilities, in practice, these facilities
are not appropriate places to hold children.
B. Detention in ORR facilities
If it is deemed necessary for a child to be sent to an ORR facility because they are unaccompanied
and are not able to be returned directly to Mexico, ICE will transfer the child from the short-term CBP
facility to an ORR facility.
ORR has four different kinds of detention facilities to hold unaccompanied immigrant children. These
facilities operate along a continuum of care from least restrictive settings to more secure settings. From
least to most restrictive, the types of facilities are: short-term and long-term foster care; shelters and
group homes; therapeutic foster care and residential treatment centers; and staff-secure and secure
facilities. The placement determinations for each child are made based on information regarding the
child’s best interests and security risk.
C. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention
While many detained immigrant children in immigration proceedings today are in the custody of
ORR, DHS retains custody of some children. In general, ICE should not have custody of any children
other than those who have been ordered removed (and whom ICE is in the process of removing),
those whom ICE is transferring within 72 hours, and those classified as a national security risk under
the Patriot Act.11 There may be cases where children are determined accompanied because they are
apprehended with a parent or legal guardian. Those children may be detained in a family detention
facility with their caregiver.
Numerous studies have documented that family detention facilities are especially inappropriate for
children, and that DHS should release families who pose no security risk. Although the length of
detention for families has significantly decreased for many families, even short stays in family detention
facilities are inappropriate for children and inhibit crucial access to counsel.
Part V: Release from Detention
Once an unaccompanied child is determined eligible for placement in an ORR facility, the federal
government makes a determination as to whether or not that child can be reunified with an adult
sponsor in the United States for the pendency of their immigration court case. A sponsor for a child
may be a parent, legal guardian, family member, or other responsible adult willing to care for the
child. Of the 90% of children who are eventually reunified, about 50% of them go to live with a parent
or legal guardian.
For children detained with their parents, they may be released, at ICE’s discretion. In most
circumstances, ICE does not consider a family for release until after a parent has passed a credible fear
interview. In some cases, ICE denies release. In other cases, ICE often attaches conditions to release,
such as placement on an ankle monitor, enrollment in a case management program, or a bond. If a
parent wishes to appeal a bond determination, they may ask an immigration judge to reconsider.
10 Women’s Refugee Commission, Forced From Home: The Lost Boys and Girls of Central America (October 2012) (“Forced From Home”). http://
wrc.ms/Forced-background.
11 Women's Refugee Commission, Halfway Home: Unaccompanied Children in Immigration Detention (2009), p. 12. http://wrc.ms/Halfway_Home.
11Having a Lawyer is Vital to Receiving Legal Protection
• About 60% of unaccompanied children in the United States—tens of thousands of children—do
not have lawyers in immigration court.
• Unaccompanied children with attorneys are five times more likely to gain U.S. protection while
only 10% of unaccompanied children without attorneys are able to avoid being returned to
their home countries.
• When KIND represents a child through case completion, we have a 98% success rate.
Graph H
12News Updates
To Curb Illegal Immigration, DHS Separating Families At The Border
NPR, John Burnett | February 27, 2018
US-Mexico border migrant deaths rose in 2017 even as crossings fell, UN says
The Guardian, AFP | February 6, 2018
U.S. Border Agents Routinely Locking Up Families With Young Children In
'Freezing Cells' For Days, Report Says
Newsweek, Chantal Da Silva | February 28, 2018
13To Curb Illegal Immigration, DHS Separating Families At The Border
NPR, John Burnett | February 27, 2018
Gregory Bull/AP
The Department of Homeland Security has undertaken its most extreme measure yet to discourage
asylum seekers from coming to the U.S. — family separation.
A 39-year-old mother is named as Ms. L in a lawsuit brought against the U.S. Department of Home-
land Security by the American Civil Liberties Union. Ms. L traveled with her 7-year-old daughter,
named as S.S., from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Mexico. They surrendered to immigra-
tion agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry near San Diego in December and asked for asylum.
They said they were fleeing violence in DRC.
The mother is being held in the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, Calif. by Immigration
and Customs Enforcement; her daughter is 2,000 miles away at a youth shelter in Chicago run by
the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. They are only able to speak by phone.
"When the daughter was taken, she (Ms. L) could hear her daughter in the next room, screaming,
'Mommy, don't let them take me!'" said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights
Project.
The lawsuit claims that immigration agents violated the Congolese mother's constitutional right to
due process when they took her daughter away. It asks the government, if it is going to detain
them during the asylum process, at least allow them to be together.
14"The child has become the pawn in a public policy move by the administration trying to deter other
asylum seekers," said Gelernt.
Under Obama, DHS detained some unauthorized families in camps in South Texas rather than
release them in the U.S. while their cases are heard. But the Trump administration has gone further,
arresting immigrant parents in the U.S. who paid smugglers to bring their children across the bor-
der. It also wants to expand detention space for immigrants.
Asked why the mother and child were separated, Katie Waldman, a public affairs officer with
Homeland Security emailed NPR: "As a matter of policy, we don't comment on pending litigation."
The practice of separating undocumented families to discourage them from coming to the U.S. is
not a formal, stated policy of the Trump administration. But immigrant activists say it has been qui-
etly growing in frequency along the southern border.
"The increase in family separation is something that's being documented by organizations around
the country. We began to hear a noticeable increase in this practice in the summer," said Katharina
Obser, senior policy advisor with the Women's Refugee Commission. Her organization and other
immigrant advocates released a report in December denouncing ICE's use of family separation.
And earlier this month, 75 Democratic members of Congress sent a letter to Homeland Security
Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen blasting family separation as wrong and unlawful.
Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service has documented 53 incidents of family separation in the
last nine months, mostly Central Americans. Other immigrant support groups say there are many
more cases.
Asylum seekers from Central America say they're fleeing rampant gang violence. But the adminis-
tration believes most of them are gaming the system.
"It's terrible what these smugglers do to these individuals," Matt Albence, an executive associate
director with ICE told NPR's All Things Considered in December. "We need to realize that stopping
this flow and preventing these crossings is the best thing that we can do right now."
He added, "It's a huge operational problem. We have hundreds of thousands of these cases clog-
ging up the immigration court docket. A vast majority of these individuals that get to this country
and served with a notice to appear in front of an immigration judge don't show up."
Immigration lawyers say the tactic is effective — mothers may drop their cases and go home in
order to be reunited with their children.
But is that a reasonable way to curtail illegal immigration?
"Separations from their parents, especially in moments of extreme distress and displacement, has
very negative impact on child well being, mental health, and development," said Dr. Lisa Fortuna,
director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Boston Medical Center. As an expert on the impact
of trauma on immigrant families, she submitted an amicus brief in the ACLU lawsuit.
"And I don't think that we want to be a society that does that to children," Fortuna said.
15US-Mexico border migrant deaths rose in 2017 even as crossings fell, UN says
The Guardian, AFP | February 6, 2018
Last year 412 migrant deaths were recorded
on either side of the border, up from 398 a
year earlier, with 16 recorded so far in 2018.
The number of migrants who died near the US-
Mexico border rose in 2017 even as the number
of attempted border crossings fell dramatically,
according to the United Nations’ migration
agency.
Last year, 412 migrant deaths were recorded
on either side of the border, up from 398 a
year earlier, the International Organization for
Migration said, adding that 16 migrant deaths had
Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images already been recorded in the area so far in 2018.
“The increase in deaths is especially concerning, as the available data indicate that far fewer migrants
entered the US via its border with Mexico in the last year,” Frank Laczko, head of IOM’s Global Migration
Data Analysis Centre, said in a statement.
Last year, the US border patrol reported apprehending 341,084 migrants along the south-western border –
a 44% drop from the 611,689 migrants apprehended in 2016.
Fewer migrants thus appear to be making the perilous overland journey to America from Central American
and Mexico, in what has widely been attributed to harsh, anti-immigrant rhetoric from US President Donald
Trump since he came to power in early 2017.
Migrants from Central America and Mexico willing to make the dangerous trip risk being victimised by
thieves, criminal gangs and traffickers who sometimes take their money and abandon them in desperate
conditions on either side of the US border.
Violence does not appear to be a main cause of migrant deaths near the border.
According to IOM statistics, only five of the deaths recorded last year were confirmed to be due to violence,
such as blunt force trauma and gunshot wounds.
However, “there are a lot of bodies recovered which are skeletal or otherwise heavily decomposed on
the border, so for many of the deaths we record we do not know the cause of death,” Julie Black, who
coordinates IOM’s Missing Migrant Project, told AFP by email.
Gender can also be difficult to determine: while only 20 of last year’s victims were determined to be
women, gender could not be determined in more than 100 cases, Black said.
Seven of the migrants who died last year were children, the IOM numbers show.
One major cause of death among migrants along the border in 2017 was the heavy rainfall early in the
year that swelled the Rio Grande, making it more treacherous to cross.
In all, 91 of the migrants who died near the border last year drowned, up from 67 in 2016, the IOM
statistics show.
Another 46 died from exposure and dehydration during warm months, when temperatures often top 40C
(104F), while 18 died from hypothermia.
16U.S. Border Agents Routinely Locking Up Families With Young Children In 'Freezing
Cells' For Days, Report Says
Newsweek, Chantal Da Silva | February 28, 2018
John Moore / Getty Images
U.S. border agents are routinely holding families, including young children, in "freezing cells" and
conditions that violate international and national policies, a new report by Human Rights Watch alleges.
The 44-page report, titled “In the Freezer: Abusive Conditions for Women and Children in U.S. Immigration
Holding Cells,” details the experiences of dozens of people, including children, who say they were held in
freezing holding cells, sometimes for days on end.
The human rights watchdog said it identified more than 100 cases in which women and children allege they
were held in frigid cells beyond the three-day period recommended in U.S. Customs and Border Protection
(CBP) guidelines. It said adult men and teenage boys were routinely separated from their wives, mothers
and children.
Immigrants said they were only given mylar blankets, the foil sheets that are usually found in first Aid
emergency kits, for warmth. They also said they did not have any mattresses or other amenities for sleeping.
"It was cold, really cold … There weren't any mats. We just slept on the floor," one Guatemalan woman
identified as Carolina R told HRW.
Officers also allegedly forced families to discard layers of clothing, permitting only a single layer.
17"They didn't want me to keep both my blouse and my sweater. I had to pick one to keep, so I chose my
sweater," a woman who said she spent three nights in a holding cell with her infant child in Nogales,
Arizona, reported. "They didn't explain why," the woman, identified as Adela R, added.
“The persistent practices in immigration holding cells are degrading and punitive,” said Michael Garcia
Bochenek, senior children’s rights counsel at HRW. “Immigration authorities should keep families together
and shouldn’t detain children overnight in holding cells.”
Most of the women and children who spoke with HRW said they had fled their home countries after being
targeted for violence or other persecution.
“Conditions in immigration holding cells are not only needlessly cruel but also demonstrably harmful,
particularly for people who have suffered persecution,” Bochenek said. “The U.S. should not persist in
practices that traumatize children and their families.”
The watchdog also warned of the mental health impacts of detaining people under "abusive conditions." It
pointed to a 2015 report published by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, a non-profit focused
on providing disaster relief and promoting human rights, which identified time in holding cells as the "most
difficult and traumatic" period of detention for people apprehended by U.S. immigration authorities.
HRW also deemed holding cells at the U.S. border unhygienic, alleging that they often do not provide hand
soap. This means that parents are unable to hygienically clean their hands before and after eating, feeding
infants, using the toilet or changing infants's diapers.
One woman interviewed by HRW said she and her-five-year-old son were left "sitting on the cement floor,
completely freezing" after being placed in a cold cell, despite being soaked from wading across the Rio
Grande.
“In the end, I had to sleep seated upright, with my son in my lap, because I couldn’t let him lay down on the
cement floor," she said.
A CBP official told Newsweek the agency "is aware of the Human Rights Watch report and has met with the
organization about the concerns in that report."
The agency said it operates "short-term detention facilities," maintaining that detained individuals are
"generally held for 72 hours or less, as defined in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act."
It added that "CBP treats all individuals with dignity and respect, and ensures that all such facilities meet
all relevant legal and policy requirements." It also said agents and officers must monitor conditions in hold
rooms, saying it has several "compliance mechanisms" in place, including a self-inspections program and
inspections by CBP's Management Inspection Division.
HRW said that while CBP officials have consistently denied that holding cells are cold, detainees regularly
report that the temperatures in such facilities feel much colder than in other immigration detention centers.
In October 2017, the Women’s Refugee Commission also reported that nearly all of about 150 women
interviewed in 2016 and 2017 said they were held in "freezing cold" CBP facilities for days on end.
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