Democrats sign letter urging US to close 'harmful' immigration detention centers

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/27/democrats-letter-immigration-detention-centers

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Two-thirds of the Democratic members of the House of Representatives have written to the Obama administration calling for the immediate closure of family detention centers in which immigrant mothers and their children are detained in conditions that the politicians describe as harmful and contrary to “our values as a nation”.

Some 136 out of 188 House Democrats signed the letter that was sent on Wednesday to Jeh Johnson, the homeland security secretary, protesting strongly the ongoing detention of about 1,000 mothers and children in three centers in Texas and Pennsylvania. Conditions in the jail-like facilities, in which some infants have been detained for more than a year, have caused a rising tide of protest that has now reached the higher echelons of Congress.

Related: Child immigrant detainees: 'There's an overwhelming sadness among them'

The signatories include Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and the party’s whip in the House, Steny Hoyer. They and their party peers accuse the Obama administration of failing to grasp fully “the serious harm being inflicted upon mothers and children in custody. We believe the only solution to this problem is to end the use of family detention.”

The letter, organized by representatives Lucille Roybal-Allard and Zoe Lofgren of California and Luis Gutiérrez of Illinois, goes on to say that detention in a secure facility is “detrimental to mothers and children and is not reflective of our values as a nation. Children require special protections and should not be placed in jail-like settings.”

To support their case, the Congress members cite recent reports in the Guardian that have highlighted the plight of families from Central America who have been caught up in detention since the so-called surge in the number of migrants crossing the Mexican border into the US last summer. The letter says that the harsh treatment of detainees exposed by the Guardian and other news outlets was “simply unacceptable. We cannot continue to hear reports of serious harm to children in custody and do nothing about it.”

More than 50,000 families and a similar number of unaccompanied minors came across the border last summer, prompting a political crisis. In response, the Obama administration emphasized detention and deterrence, despite the fact that some of the children involved were only days old.

“In the past year,” the letter states, “we have learned of the detention of children with intellectual disabilities, a child with brain cancer, a mother with a congenital heart disorder, a 14-day-old baby, and a 12-year-old child who has not eaten solid food for two months.”

The government is coming under mounting pressure to release the families, or drastically reform the conditions of their detention, after a federal judge in California indicated that she was minded to declare the centers in violation of child protection laws. Crisis talks are understood to be ongoing between government lawyers and attorneys for several of the detained mothers who have issued a lawsuit calling for the centers to be shut down.

Two weeks ago the DHS announced changes to the regulations governing the family centers, promising that the reforms would increase transparency and offer families more frequent reviews of their detention. But the proposals have failed to satisfy critics, either among the immigrant families themselves or among senior Democrats in Congress.

Barack Obama now finds himself fighting battles over his immigration policy on two separate fronts. In addition to the rising criticism he is facing from his own party over the detention of mothers and children, his attempt to extend protections against deportation using his own executive powers was also knocked back this week by the federal courts.

In a statement to the Guardian, a DHS spokesperson said that the department would be responding directly to the letter’s signatories. “The well-being of detained families, particularly of children, is of paramount importance to DHS.”

The DHS continues to defend the use of the detention centers. In its statement, it said that the centers “serve as an important part of the US government’s comprehensive response to the unprecedented spike in illegal migration at the Rio Grande Valley that occurred last summer. Family residential centers are an effective and humane alternative for maintaining family unity as families go through immigration proceedings or await return to their home countries.”