 |
| People who've been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States, sit in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas - U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Rio Grande Valley Sector |
VietPress USA (June 17, 2018): More than 2,000 children have been removed from their parents over the last six weeks since Jeff Sessions, the US attorney general, introduced the new approach.
Under the policy adults are being detained and prosecuted with their children taken away and sent to separate shelters.
Previously, many illegal immigrants were allowed to remain at liberty while they awaited proceedings.
According to the Telegraph News, Laura Bush was writing a guest column for The Washington Post Sunday and compared the policy to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
"I appreciate the need to enforce and protect our international boundaries, but this zero-tolerance policy is cruel," the wife of George W Bush wrote.
She said "the US government "should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso."
The US Border Patrol on Sunday allowed reporters to briefly visit the facility where it holds families arrested at the border.
President Trump blamed Democrats that caused th families separated at US-Mexico border; but the Fact check from Media confirmed that Trump declared the wrong thing to defend his policy.
Melania Trump waded into a debate over children being separated from their families at the Mexico border, saying the United States should "govern with heart".
In a rare intervention the first lady's spokeswoman said she wanted Republicans and Democrats to work together to achieve "successful immigration reform".
Her comments were taken by some as an implicit criticism of her husband's recently introduced "zero tolerance" policy at the border.
Read this news from The Telegraph on Yahoo News at: https://www.yahoo.com/news/children-separated-parents-us-border-010629298.html
VietPress USA News
oOo
Children separated from parents at US border held in cages in Texas warehouse
One teenager told an advocate who visited that she was helping care for a young child she didn't know because the child's aunt was somewhere else in the facility. She said she had to show others in her cell how to change the girl's diaper.
The US Border Patrol on Sunday allowed reporters to briefly visit the facility where it holds families arrested at the southern US border, responding to new criticism and protests over the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" policy and resulting separation of families.
More than 1,100 people were inside the large, dark facility that's divided into separate wings for unaccompanied children, adults on their own, and mothers and fathers with children. The cages in each wing open out into common areas to use portable restrooms. The overhead lighting in the warehouse stays on around the clock.
The Border Patrol said close to 200 people inside the facility were minors unaccompanied by a parent. Another 500 were "family units," parents and children. Many adults who crossed the border without legal permission could be charged with illegal entry and placed in jail, away from their children.
Reporters were not allowed by agents to interview any of the detainees or take photos.
Nearly 2,000 children have been taken from their parents since Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the policy, which directs Homeland Security officials to refer all cases of illegal entry into the United States for prosecution. Church groups and human rights advocates have sharply criticized the policy, calling it inhumane.
Stories have spread of children being torn from their parents' arms, and parents not being able to find where their kids have gone. A group of congressional lawmakers visited the same facility on Sunday and were set to visit a longer-term shelter holding around 1,500 children - many of whom were separated from their parents.
"Those kids inside who have been separated from their parents are already being traumatised," said Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who was denied entry earlier this month to children's shelter. "It doesn't matter whether the floor is swept and the bedsheets tucked in tight."
In Texas' Rio Grande Valley, the busiest corridor for people trying to enter the US, Border Patrol officials argue that they have to crack down on migrants and separate adults from children as a deterrent to others.
"When you exempt a group of people from the law ... that creates a draw," said Manuel Padilla, the Border Patrol's chief agent here. "That creates the trends right here."
 |
| People who've been taken into custody related to cases of illegal entry into the United States, sit in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas Credit: AP |
Padilla said agents in the Rio Grande Valley have allowed families with children under the age of 5 to stay together in most cases.
Hạnh Dương
www.Vietpressusa.us
