A mock memo I produced for a Politics and the Media class. This article uses reporting to address the issue of detained children and suggests policy changes, specifically with the Flores Settlement.
By Hannah Sammut
Subject: Children Detained at the Southern Border— Policy Plan
Overview
The influx of children detained at southern border crossings has caused a plethora of human rights violations, stated is a plan to ensure the safety and well-being of children who cross the U.S.- Mexico border.
Statement of Issue
Over 250,000 children have been detained by immigration enforcement in 2019, a 42% increase of children held in federal custody in 2018. U.S. law defines migrant children as under the age of 18. Of these detained children, 76,000 are unaccompanied, meaning they don’t have any relatives in the United States able to care for them. While they may cross the U.S. border with parents, many make the journey alone. Threats of gang violence, domestic abuse, and rising poverty levels incentivize undocumented children to enter the United States.
Actions taken under the Trump administration have led to brutal care practices for children in federal care. Multiple reports and investigations have uncovered children separated from their families for extended periods of time, being denied clean drinking water, forced to sleep on freezing cement floors, and having no access to hygiene products. The mistreatment outlined below is currently a national embarrassment, and the Biden administration needs to work towards providing adequate care for these children.
The 1997 Flores Settlement, modeled after the 1993 Reno v. Flores ruling, gives clear instruction on how long undocumented children should be in federal custody— no more than 72 hours. This has served as the basis of protocol for years in the United States, but an increase of crossings renders this ruling no longer applicable. The current Flores Settlement states that detention centers with over 130 occupants can keep children for as long as it takes for them to find proper treatment and care. The current figure designed for overflow of detention centers is a number modeled after 1997 immigration numbers. With so many children in custody, this protective law hasn’t been applicable for years.
As a result, children can be left in federal detention for periods as long as over 3 weeks, in some cases. These centers are designed to be temporary shelters, and current standards have stated that these spaces aren’t even designed for more than 10 hours of custody.
Because these facilities are overcrowded and ill-fitted for long-term use, conditions in these facilities are deplorable. The initial design for these places to be temporary means that they aren’t outfitted for overnight stay. As a result, children sleep on the floors with often no mats and only a thin aluminum Mylar blanket. The lights are kept on for 24 hours a day, leading to psychological effects such as confusion and delirium. Water and soap are unavailable for use after using the restroom or before meals. Children spend days unshowered in unsanitary holding cells as they wait to be brought to long-term detention centers. Flu viruses and other illnesses are rampant due to conditions. Elora Mukherjee, the director of Columbia Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, spent time with children at the Migrant Detention Center in Clint, Texas. She told The Atlantic about the horrors she witnessed there. Noticing the clothes soiled with bodily fluids that the children wore, she commented, “I have never seen such degrading treatment of children…Children were dirty, they were scared, and they were hungry.”
One of the main complaints amongst detained children has been that they are constantly hungry. All of their food is cold, and they don’t have access to juice, fruit, or vegetables. Whether the minors in custody are toddlers, grade-school age children, or pregnant teens, they all receive the same amount of food despite having different caloric needs. One Guatemalan woman told the Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit that seeks to end the mistreatment of immigrants at the U.S-Mexico border, that her ten-year-old son had nothing to eat for three days. His disability requires him to eat liquified food, and nothing was provided for him. He was denied medical care and fainted twice. Another teen mother reported to the organization that she was forced to feed her five-month old son cow’s milk because the center didn’t have any formula. Her baby became extremely ill.
Lack of access to medical care also seems to be a common theme in the facilities. A sixteen-year-old Guatemalan girl claimed that her baby was denied medical care after it spent days coughing, running a high fever, and vomiting. So far, at least 7 children have died in ICE custody since 2018. Prior, a child hadn’t died in custody in over a decade. Most of the children who died were stricken with either the flu or pneumonia while at the detention centers and spent days without access to medical treatment.
Children spend days without their parents present, and are usually tasked by guards to take care of younger detainees. Instances of children as young as seven years old attempting to take care of toddlers as they sit in dirty diapers have been recorded. This causes immense stress for children who feel as if the well-being of others are dependent on their care. In most cases they are ordered to take care of these children.
Perhaps one of the worst reported grievances that have been against these facilities have been the temperature control methods. Detention centers are referred to “hieleras”, or “iceboxes” by Spanish-speaking detainees. The facilities are freezing, with some temperatures below 50 degrees. For “safety reasons”, usually only one layer of clothing is permitted when entering a detention center, so children are usually shaking and spending all of their energy trying to stay warm. Lips are blue as well as fingers and toes. Some have been subject to hypothermia from spending days in an inhospitable facility.
Discussion of Target Audience
The adaptation and proper implementation of the Flores settlement will benefit children in ICE care. Additionally, improvements to detention centers will affect adult detainees, as some of the facilities are shared. However, this should concern the Biden administration because the treatment of these children at the present moment is a national embarrassment, as stated earlier. The United States looks down upon our history of the internment of Japanese individuals in detention centers in the 1940s— the abuse and degradation these children face at the hands of U.S. policy should be treated with the same scorn. President-elect Biden has an opportunity to set himself apart from zero-tolerance immigration policy that President Trump has implemented. We should be striving for a greater and kinder America.
Strategy
- Use modern immigration numbers to re-evaluate what is “overflow” in detention centers. Should “overflow” be too common of an occurrence with new data and pre-existing centers, more temporary shelters should be built to ensure that children spend no more than 72 hours in custody.
- Separation of children from family members should be used as a last resort method.
- The Flores Settlement should be revised to fit current immigration numbers and should enforce its current care standards. Enforcement will include random welfare checks of centers from third party organizations.
- Care standards should include (but not be limited to):
- Comfortable temperatures of facilities
- Bedding for overnight stays
- Mental health and physical health screenings, as well as social workers on staff to provide guidance for distressed children
- Proper care for infants which include diapers, formula, medicine, and ample clothing
- Nutritious meals that should fit the caloric needs of each child
- Access to hand-washing stations for use after the restroom and before meals
- Hygiene kit which includes feminine products, toothbrush, deodorant, soap.
- Access to safe showers
- Ample clothing should current clothing be inadequate or soiled
- Guards to be replaced with care staff
- Staff members appointed to children who are unable to take care of themselves
- Trauma specialists and other mental health providers
- Windows in spaces
- Ability to exercise and leave cell areas
- Legal advice and representation for upcoming immigration hearings
- Refrain from splitting up siblings and other family members
- Ability to call parents or other relatives
- Social worker appointed to each child’s civil case
Anticipated Obstacles
Many children don’t want to speak up about their lives prior to crossing the border out of fear of gang retaliation. Cases should be kept confidential between the child, the case worker, and the judge. Some children also need to spend longer amounts of time in federal facilities because foster parents or group homes are unable to take them at the current time. Providing a safe environment for long-term stay while details of their case are being figured out should continue to be an option. However, facilities that are currently for long-term use are mostly for-profit detention centers. For-profit detention, especially for children, should be eradicated. In these centers, children should also have more freedom since they will be living there for some time. Some children are also afraid to speak up about their experiences since they fear it’ll impact upcoming hearings, which is why I had difficulty speaking to those who experienced detention centers first-hand. It will also take time to appoint a legal team who is willing to work with these children, as well as find third parties that will do welfare checks. Lastly, language barriers could be an issue, though staff at centers should ideally be bilingual.
These new outlines for care may not be favorable to GOP senators and house members. Some would argue that providing better care for detained children enables more to cross borders. To that statement, the Biden administration should emphasize that proper treatment of children is a human right and that the United States has the responsibility of providing a safe haven for children who are fleeing violence.
Measuring Efficacy
Efficacy of these new standards will be measured by welfare checks by third parties. Interviewing children on how they feel under these new conditions will also be an effective way to measure success. Improvements of health conditions in detention facilities will be standardized across all facilities.
Closing Statements
In closing, the treatment of children in federal detention centers needs to change. With standardized care conditions and increase in budget to improve these facilities, the United States can improve its international image and the well-being of the people who wish to find safety and security.
Hannah Sammut 