Thoughts on the zero tolerance policy and what it is doing to children

[Debp]

4 hours ago, Davida said:

http://www.breitbart.com/california/2018/06/15/photos-inside-shelter-for-illegal-alien-children-separated-from-parents/

 

Joel B. Pollak  15 Jun 201833342

The Department of Health and Human Services hosted Breitbart News and other media on a tour of a facility in El Cajon, California, on Friday where migrant children are being sheltered after being separated from their parents.

The children are separated from their parents — or, to be precise, from the adults accompanying them, who may or may not be their parents — when their parents cross the southern U.S. border illegally and are caught and detained.

Previously, under the “catch-and-release” policy, the adults would be released. Under the “zero tolerance” policy of the Trump administration, the adults are being detained and prosecuted. Children cannot be incarcerated with them.

However, families that arrive together at legal ports of entry and apply for asylum status are generally not split up and are permitted to stay in the U.S. pending the adjudication of their applications (which can take several years).

Democrats and the mainstream media have accused the administration of separating the children of “immigrants” from their parents and imprisoning them in “cages.” On Thursday, CNN analyst and Playboy reporter Brian Karem shouted at White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: “These people have nothing. They come to the border with nothing and you throw children in cages.” None of the reporters in the briefing room corrected him.

The facility at El Cajon, however, is not a “cage.” It is a comfortable facility providing lodging, meals, clothing, medical care, education, recreation, counseling, and other services.

It is run by a nonprofit organization called Southwest Key as part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) Program, run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF).

The facility is located on a main street in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. It has 65 beds, occupied by boys ages 6 to 17. The rooms are spare, with three to four beds in each; the boys are responsible for cleaning the rooms and making their own beds. There is an outdoor recreation area with picnic tables and a small soccer pitch.

There is a classroom area, and English lessons. The goal is “reunification”: letting each child depart with a legal guardian.

Some 90% of the children at the shelter arrived at the border without adults; the other 10% were separated from the adults accompanying them. Once the children arrive — usually brought by U.S. Border Patrol agents — they are greeted in the “intake” office, where they receive any urgent medical care, are assigned a case worker, and are given food, a shower, and new clothing. They are also given toiletries and lessons in hygiene — literally how to flush a toilet, brush their teeth, and operate the shower, which some of the children may have never seen in their lives.The children receive six hours of education daily, which include lessons in English and physical education. The boys interact with girls who are housed offsite and brought to the shelter during the day to access its services.They have limited access to telephones to call relatives, both in the U.S. and abroad. They receive therapy, both as individuals and in group sessions. They enjoy field trips to local museums, parks, and the zoo, where they can explore the city beyond the shelter. And they also have social activities, including a recent “prom” for which they dressed up.“Cages,” these are not. What is immediately striking about the facility is the enthusiasm and care of the staff who work there. One administrator greeted the journalists on the tour: “Welcome to our home.” The children at the facility seemed genuinely happy, despite their unfortunate circumstances and the trauma of their long journey.

The real scandal is how the media have portrayed the shelters. When MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff toured a similar facility this week in Brownsville, Texas, for example, he referredto the children there as being “incarcerated,” which is only true in the same sense that hospital patients, too, are not permitted to leave, for their safety. (One official who had seen Soboroff’s televised report accused him of “flat-out lying” about the facility — such as, for example, reporting on a mural of Donald Trump without noting 19 other presidents were similarly depicted.)

Southwest Key has operated its facilities — 27 in total, across California, Arizona, and Texas — since 1997, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Flores v. Reno that unaccompanied illegal alien minors could not be held in detention facilities. This is not a new problem, even though it took Trump to make the media realize it existed.

Update: HSS provided a video of the visit:

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.

Note: the photographs of the tour were provided by HHS after review by officials to ensure the privacy of the children in the shelter. Journalists were not allowed to take their own photos or videos, for the same reason.

This piece has been updated to add the information about field trips, which was inadvertently omitted.

 

Thanks for the good article and photos describing the centers where the children are being housed and taken care of.   They are given good treatment, medical care, opportunities for play, etc.   We don't hear anything about this on our local news as they like to report only the sensational news which can incite people and has done that.

[ayin jade]

I havent read most of this topic, but as someone who lives in a border state and sees reality and not media portrayals, I felt like I should step up and tell you what I see. 

First, the policy everyone is suddenly up in arms over was done under obama too. With nary a squeak of protest. 

Its not peaceful immigrants now. The illegals coming over now are a different breed. Border patrol agents in arizona will tell you its cartels and criminals crossing these days. Not "hard working families just looking for a better life".

Parts of my state are off limits to us citizens because they are essentially taken over by drug cartels (there are signs). For instance, outside of casa grande, a good hour and a half from the border, there are outposts where cartel members watch for border patrol and guide the cartels through the desert. Solar powered etc outposts. The "trails" they come in on are roads at this point.

They have trashed and destroyed ranches in southern arizona, rendering the land worthless. No one will buy the land. There have been us citizens harmed and killed by illegals. My own sis in law is one of those harmed. Almost killed. In the news every day here you can see articles about an illegal who has commited robbery/murder/shootout on the freeway/major crime du jour.

Ive had my car searched on the interstate. Ive gone through as many as 4 armed checkpoints in one day driving in arizona and not anywhere near the border. 

Please come down here and see for yourself. The media has an agenda so you will not get accurate reporting. You need to see what it is really like here. 

[Gideon]

2 hours ago, shiloh357 said:

Exactly.   The ONLY reason this is an issue NOW is because

• Russia collusion didn't work;
• Stormy Daniels didn't work; 
• Obstruction of justice didn't work;
• Taxes are down;
• Unemployment is down across the boards; 
• $Trillions$ are coming back to the US;
• The President has made the US safer, stronger, wealthier and more respected; 
• And the president had a banner week at the successful Singapore summit last week. 

They need something to take all of that good news off of the news cycle and this is what they are trying to use to gain some traction.  It has NOTHING to do with caring about the children.

Just a gentle reminder. The point of this post is not politics. Regardless of how or why it is happening, this is traumatizing children and why it does or does not move US as His children to have deep empathy for a situation such as this reveals a lot about our walks with the Lord. 

Blessings, 

Gideon

[Guest shiloh357]

41 minutes ago, Gideon said:

Just a gentle reminder. The point of this post is not politics. Regardless of how or why it is happening, this is traumatizing children and why it does or does not move US as His children to have deep empathy for a situation such as this reveals a lot about our walks with the Lord. 

Blessings, 

Gideon

It traumatizes little children in the US when their parents commit crimes and go to jail and are separated from their children. Separating families is a normal practice in the US legal system.

  The fact is that these children  are being given better treatment than our homeless veterans, they are being taken care of in a Christian manner because the overwhelming majority of these children are not coming with families.  They were kidnapped by human sex traffickers trying to pose as their parents. 

Where is the Christian sympathy over that???    These kids were separated from their parents back in Central America, not at the border.   Our gov't is doing the best it can to keep from putting those children back into the hands of sex traffickers.  How about some empathy for that?   How about getting the facts about what is going on down there instead of believing the media and it's exploitation of these things as a smear campaign against other Americans??

[ayin jade]

A lot of fuss was made about kids from honduras being brought to the us during the obama regime. Kids, separated from their parents, were encouraged to come to the us by the us govt under obama (hows that for hypocrisy on the part of liberals). Reports came out that some of them were clearly not kids but adults sneaking in as kids. What was neglected by the media were cases of us kids ending up in hospitals with a polio like disease that is prevalent in central and south america. How did us kids get it? Because one of the endemic areas is honduras. You bet that connection got squashed by the media yet its known in medical circles. 

[Gideon]

1 hour ago, shiloh357 said:

It traumatizes little children in the US when their parents commit crimes and go to jail and are separated from their children. Separating families is a normal practice in the US legal system.

  The fact is that these children  are being given better treatment than our homeless veterans, they are being taken care of in a Christian manner because the overwhelming majority of these children are not coming with families.  They were kidnapped by human sex traffickers trying to pose as their parents. 

Where is the Christian sympathy over that???    These kids were separated from their parents back in Central America, not at the border.   Our gov't is doing the best it can to keep from putting those children back into the hands of sex traffickers.  How about some empathy for that?   How about getting the facts about what is going on down there instead of believing the media and it's exploitation of these things as a smear campaign against other Americans??

You said most of these children are victims of human sex trafficking. Can you please confirm that as fact, not someon’e opinion? 

Thanks, Shiloh

Gideon

[Debp]

6 hours ago, Saved.One.by.Grace said:

The illegal alien who got away with murdering USA citizen Kate Steinle because Californians currently shield and protect illegal immigrants above all else.  But now he’s suing the USA because he doesn’t think people were nice enough to him after he killed Kate.  Remind me, what country do we live in?

Didn't the courts let him go back to his country, rather than give him time for murdering that young lady?   I thought that was a travesty....that he committed murder and was released!   Also, hadn't he come across our border many times, after being deported again and again?

3 hours ago, ayin jade said:

I havent read most of this topic, but as someone who lives in a border state and sees reality and not media portrayals, I felt like I should step up and tell you what I see. 

First, the policy everyone is suddenly up in arms over was done under obama too. With nary a squeak of protest. 

Its not peaceful immigrants now. The illegals coming over now are a different breed. Border patrol agents in arizona will tell you its cartels and criminals crossing these days. Not "hard working families just looking for a better life".

Parts of my state are off limits to us citizens because they are essentially taken over by drug cartels (there are signs). For instance, outside of casa grande, a good hour and a half from the border, there are outposts where cartel members watch for border patrol and guide the cartels through the desert. Solar powered etc outposts. The "trails" they come in on are roads at this point.

They have trashed and destroyed ranches in southern arizona, rendering the land worthless. No one will buy the land. There have been us citizens harmed and killed by illegals. My own sis in law is one of those harmed. Almost killed. In the news every day here you can see articles about an illegal who has commited robbery/murder/shootout on the freeway/major crime du jour.

Ive had my car searched on the interstate. Ive gone through as many as 4 armed checkpoints in one day driving in arizona and not anywhere near the border. 

Please come down here and see for yourself. The media has an agenda so you will not get accurate reporting. You need to see what it is really like here. 

I have heard this about Arizona.  I recall hearing about a rancher that was murdered by someone coming across the border near his ranch.

 

[ayin jade]

25 minutes ago, Debp said:

Didn't the courts let him go back to his country, rather than give him time for murdering that young lady?   I thought that was a travesty....that he committed murder and was released!   Also, hadn't he come across our border many times, after being deported again and again?

I have heard this about Arizona.  I recall hearing about a rancher that was murdered by someone coming across the border near his ranch.

 

Not only was he murdered but later after his widow pushed for action, she was harmed in a deliberate "accident".

[Sower]

Here in south Texas we rarely see a winter blizzard, like many up north do. I don't relate. I do not believe that most of the country has an "up close and personal" taste of the reality of what people living in south Texas and Arizona fear, as ayin jade posted. For their very lives. But you may get the chance to see. After sneaking across, they head north.

"Texas Governor Rick Perry caused a stir last week when he suggested that the deployment of U.S. troops into Mexican territory may be necessary, pointing out that five of his state’s citizens died in the past two weeks. The fight against the barbaric drug cartels has escalated each year since 2007, and terrorist groups are looking to benefit from the chaos. It has become a full-scale war worthy of attention, but Perry seems to be the only major politician sounding the alarm.

“I think you have the same situation as you had in Colombia,” Perry accurately said. About 31,000 people have been killed in the Mexican drug war since December 2006 -- more than five times the number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2001. And it is getting worse. There has been a 53 percent increase in murders since last year, with 10,000 murders so far this year.

Last week, four people in Tijuana were murdered in one day, with two having their corpses hung from a bridge and one being decapitated. Almost the entire population of 6,000 of Ciudad Mier near the Texan border has fled. A Pentecostal minister who fled said, “We have no mayor, no police, no transit system. We have been left to fend for ourselves.”

The drug cartels are so strong that the authorities fighting them must be genuinely concerned for their lives. In October, an American tourist was shot while riding a jet ski near Ciudad Mier. The investigator assigned by the Mexican authorities was killed only days later with his head found in a suitcase in front of military barracks. In August, 72 illegal immigrants on their way to the U.S. were found massacred by the Zetas at a ranch in the state of Tamaulipas that borders Mexico. Here again, the lead investigator was murdered within two days.

The violence has already spilled into the U.S. The federal government has placed signs along 60 miles of Interstate 8 in Arizona warning people of the danger in the area. This is over 100 miles north of the Mexican border and less than 50 miles south of Phoenix, well into American territory. Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County says that local law enforcement has been overpowered by the cartels and that the “Mexican drug cartels literally do control parts of Arizona.”

“They literally have scouts on the high points in the mountains and in the hills and they literally control movement. They have radios, they have optics, they have night-vision goggles as good as anything law enforcement has,” Sheriff Babeu said.

 

There are strong indications that terrorist groups are aware of the opportunity open to them in Mexico and are taking advantage of it. In July, a Hezbollah-like car bomb killed four people in Ciudad Juarez. This came shortly after Rep. Sue Myrick reported that a high-level Mexican army officer had informed her of information about Hezbollah training drug traffickers in bomb production. Several car bombs have since been detonated in Mexico. The Mexican authorities have arrested a Hezbollah operative in Tijuana trying to set up a network using Mexican nationals with Lebanese backgrounds.

The cartels are in a very good position to help terrorist groups smuggle operatives and supplies into the U.S. The Drug Enforcement Agency recently discovered a 600-yard long underground tunnel into San Diego from Tijuana, complete with lighting and ventilation systems. The cartels have entered into business with the Colombian FARC terrorists who also deal drugs with Al-Qaeda in West Africa. Hezbollah also uses the cartel networks for its own smuggling. It is not unlikely that terrorists could use the cartels to enter the country via these tunnels or through other methods.

Texas Governor Perry is right that securing the border and fighting the drug cartels must be a top priority. We are no longer talking about the possibility that the cartels will reach into the U.S. because it has already happened. It is only a matter of time before the terrorists and drug traffickers enter into a business agreement that causes enough American death to make the border finally be taken seriously.

[ayin jade]

Local news report on drug cartel lookout. This mountain is right off the intersection of interstates 10 and 8. 

http://www.azfamily.com/story/31154548/drug-cartel-scouts-living-in-mountain-ranges-south-of-phoenix