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US Border Camps


mr.hobblesworth

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Wondered what people's thoughts were on this. To me, it seems utterly abhorrent and immoral that one of the richest countries on earth treat human beings, particularly children, in this way.

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The US immigration system is failing to accommodate children and families seeking legal asylum. Experts say it is a manufactured crisis, designed to create a backlog, drive political support for the president’s hardline policies and, in theory, deter migrants from crossing the border.

As a policy, it is not working. The number of children and families arriving at the border seeking asylum – a process the US is required to observe under international law – has increased as conditions in Central America have become more desperate. In the early 2000s, the majority of those apprehended at the border were single male workers, predominantly from Mexico. Most are now children and families seeking asylum. According to CBP data, about 72% of those apprehended at the border in May were families or children. In 2012, only 10% were families or children....

In testimony, children at one processing facility in Clint, Texas said they were not being given soap or toothbrushes. Some said they were sleeping on the concrete floor. Others slept in overcrowded cells next to open toilets. In a cell that held 45, six minors including four under the age of two got lice. Two combs were passed around for uninfected children to share.

Clothes were covered in mucus, vomit and, for young teenage mothers, breast milk. Time outside was rare: one young boy told a lawyer he looked forward to when the CBP officer came into the cell to clean, as he and the other kids could then play in the hallway.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/30/children-border-crisis-america-wasnt-prepared-for-trump-us-immigration

 

I find this genuinely upsetting. It appears that no record is being kept of the children's parents when they are separated by officials and the children aren't being given basics such as soap or toothbrushes and sleep on bare concrete floors with one of those foil blankets as a cover. One man has come forward and said that when he was kidnapped by Somalian pirates, he was treated better than the US government is treating children.

 

There is another heartbreaking story in the Guardian with a photo that I won't post here as it shows the bodies of a father and his 2 year old daughter who dies attempting to escape to the US.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/26/us-mexico-border-migrant-father-toddler-photo-haunt-change-us

Quote

In this photo, Valeria wears little black sneakers and her red pants show the padded bottom that indicates a diaper beneath. Martínez, face down in the water, has tucked his daughter under his shirt so she won’t be torn away from him in the river. And then there’s this: she clung to him – as I remember my own daughter at that age, clinging to me when I carried her into a hospital, and we were both terrified to death but together, together – because Valeria’s arm is still flung around his neck when they are found...

By some accounts Valeria’s family had spent months in Mexico waiting to get on a list that might – no guarantees – enable them to lodge their asylum request at a port of entry. The “metering” and “remain in Mexico” policies that Donald Trump has instituted during his tenure have forced some asylum-seeking families – displaced by the climate crisis or grinding poverty or devastating violence – to try and find another way to have their asylum claim heard in the US, even if it is a risky way, even if it means battling a body of water.

Likewise, the administration’s use of the border patrol – and even active-duty military troops – to physically prevent asylum seekers from reaching ports of entry has had a chilling effect on established asylum processes.

 

I get a horrible feeling in my stomach reading these reports and am disappointed that it isn't reported more widely.

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

 

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It is the causes of immigration that is not being dealt with only the results. People will always look for a better life, the USA was built on that promise,  Refugees are a different matter, but proxy wars seem to be unstoppable. Unfortunately dealing with both the outcomes has become much harsher in the last few years. The scale of the problem will get much larger with population shifts caused by climate change, new deserts, flooding etc, irrespective of what you think the cause is. Without international cooperation and a world governed by oligarchs it could become much worse. 

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I agree that there is a huge issue that isn't being dealt with but on a micro level, what kind of scumbag decided that children don't need beds or toothbrushes? It's all so tragic and is something that would have been unimaginable (to me, at least) a few years back. This world's a f****** horrible place sometimes.

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13 minutes ago, mr.hobblesworth said:

I agree that there is a huge issue that isn't being dealt with but on a micro level, what kind of scumbag decided that children don't need beds or toothbrushes? It's all so tragic and is something that would have been unimaginable (to me, at least) a few years back. This world's a f****** horrible place sometimes.

Obama.

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29 minutes ago, mr.hobblesworth said:

I agree that there is a huge issue that isn't being dealt with but on a micro level, what kind of scumbag decided that children don't need beds or toothbrushes? It's all so tragic and is something that would have been unimaginable (to me, at least) a few years back. This world's a f****** horrible place sometimes.

Mr H..... you have a very "western" view of the world. Millions of people don't have beds. Lots of Thais don't have beds. Because it's considered a necessity in the West doesn't make it so everywhere.

I'm neither condoning or condemning US immigration policy.

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