Big things come in small packages and that is certainly the case with Summit Wicks-Lim. The young activist attended a meeting in Florida on Tuesday with Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Summit and her mother, Ali, along with other activists, asked Sen. Warren to visit the detention center in Homestead where an estimated 2,500 migrant children, mostly from Central America, are being held without their parents. The South Florida Sun-Sentinel described the conditions at the children’s detention center as “prison-like” and reported young girls are cutting themselves and children endlessly cry. Many of the children have relatives in the United States ready to receive them and care for them.
This is why Summit and her mother, Ali, have been working to bring attention to the facility and the plight of these young children. Listen to Ali describe her meeting with Elizabeth Warren and her surprise when Warren not only took her up on the offer to visit the facility, Warren did so the very next day and brought along buses of supporters and all the media attention this facility deserves.
It’s fitting the young Warren supporter was wearing a shirt that reads, “Lead with your heart.” That’s exactly what Sen. Warren seems to be doing every single day. Her heart and her head.
Meanwhile, Democrats who have visited the facility are not only calling for it to be shut down, they are asking for an investigation into John Kelly’s role and an investigation into the treatment of the children and those running the facility.
Mucarsel-Powell, along with U.S. Reps. Donna Shalala and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, have called for an investigation into Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly joining the board of directors for Caliburn International, the parent company of Comprehensive Health Services, which operates the shelter.
Comprehensive Health Services received a $341 million, no-bid contract from the federal government, the Miami Herald reported in May.
Democratic lawmakers have said the shelter does not have a hurricane plan, and they have also voiced concerns about the handling of child sexual abuse allegations at the shelter. Florida’s child-welfare agency has received at least seven allegations of child sexual abuse, including two that involved caregivers, the News Service of Florida reported.
Shut. It. Down.
Update: Here is Elizabeth Warren’s livestream of her visit to the detention center.