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‘They cry for their parents’: Mississippi Ice raids spur pleas from children
Wednesday’s raid saw about 680 immigrants detained, leaving their children in the care of strangers or relatives
Watching that on the news. :-( To make it even worse (if that is possible) consider the shooting this weekend with the shooter using donnie's own words. At least none of the el paso survivors wanted to receive him when he was on his 'LOOK AT ME' trip there.![]()
‘They cry for their parents’: Mississippi Ice raids spur pleas from children
Wednesday’s raid saw about 680 immigrants detained, leaving their children in the care of strangers or relativeswww.theguardian.com
Watching those devastated unconsolable children, yet again, made me weep, and equally boil with outrage. I fear we are witnessing the callous conduct of monsters. The timing, trauma, and long-term impacts of these pitiful actions...inhuman.Watching that on the news. :-( To make it even worse (if that is possible) consider the shooting this weekend with the shooter using donnie's own words. At least none of the el paso survivors wanted to receive him when he was on his 'LOOK AT ME' trip there.
I felt exactly the same way. Add to that the disgust I felt with what this country has become.Watching those devastated unconsolable children, yet again, made me weep, and equally boil with outrage. I fear we are witnessing the callous conduct of monsters. The timing, trauma, and long-term impacts of these pitiful actions...inhuman.
The hotlines were the only toll-free option that many immigrants in the detention facilities had, as they do not have the right to a free phone call upon being detained and the facilities do not allow calls to 1-800 numbers. The Freedom for Immigrants' number was accessible to detainees through an extension.
Microsoft, however, is not alone in corporate America when it comes to enabling ICE and Customs and Border Protection operations. In fact, corporations like Accenture, Boeing, Elbit, G4S, General Dynamics, IBM, L3 Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir (with software provided by Amazon), Raytheon, and UNISYS are among the hundreds of companies who are facilitating the migrant detention and deportation machine—and have been raking in, from 2006 to 2018, more than a combined $45 billion, dispersed among nearly 100,000 separate contracts with CBP and ICE. Besides being an enormous expenditure of taxpayer dollars, this sum also represents an unprecedented and ever-increasing reliance on for-profit companies in carrying out the government’s immigration crackdown.
Immigration enforcement budgets have ballooned from $350 million in 1980, to $1.2 billion in 1990, to $9.1 billion in 2003, to a whopping $23.7 billion in 2018, all going into what has become our border industrial complex. Those budgets then annually funnel $2.32 billion back to the private sector through federal immigration, corrections, and detention contracts.
As “Detained for Profit” lays out, federal contract revenue for 10 major private corporations has risen 17 percent just since Trump took office, and is more than double what those companies earned in 2013. While the rise began under Obama’s watch, “under Trump, spending has ramped up even more as federal government has pressed ahead with sweeping efforts to constrain the flow of immigration to the United States.”
DAY 4 – NOVEMBER 15TH
- Court started late today. Andy Silverman, member of No More Deaths legal team and Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Arizona took the stand first. He discussed the No More Deaths legal protocols and volunteer trainings: “One of the very basic principles of No More Deaths and civil initiative is that we are transparent in everything we do. The work we do, and the way we do it, is proper and legal. We provide all information and materials to prevent loss of life.”
The 3-year-old girl traveled for weeks cradled in her father’s arms, as he set out to seek asylum in the United States. Now she won’t even look at him.
After being forcibly separated at the border by government officials, sexually abused in U.S. foster care and deported, the once bright and beaming girl arrived back in Honduras withdrawn, anxious and angry, convinced her father abandoned her.
He fears their bond is forever broken.
“I think about this trauma staying with her too, because the trauma has remained with me and still hasn’t faded,” he said, days after their reunion.
This month, new government data shows the little girl is one of an unprecedented 69,550 migrant children held in U.S. government custody over the past year, enough infants, toddlers, kids and teens to overflow the typical NFL stadium. That’s more children detained away from their parents than any other country, according to United Nations researchers. And it’s happening even though the U.S. government has acknowledged that being held in detention can be traumatic for children, putting them at risk of long-term physical and emotional damage.
Without knowing the background it would be very difficult to tell if this was the USA or the UK, such is the state of our Home Office these days.