A federal judge issued a strong rebuke late last Friday of the Obama administration's handling of several refugee detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania where the government has been holding some 1,700 to 2,000 parents and children, most of whom fled to the U.S. from Central America.
In the Texas facilities, U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee said the government had failed to comply with a 1997 settlement, Flores v. Reno, that outlined the legal requirements for the government to take custody of immigrant children.
In her 25-page ruling, Gee blasted federal officials, saying that children had been held in substandard conditions at the two Texas detention centers. She found “widespread and deplorable conditions in the holding cells of Border Patrol stations.” In addition, she wrote that federal officials “failed to meet even the minimal standard” of “safe and sanitary” conditions at temporary holding cells.
“It is astonishing that defendants have enacted a policy requiring such expensive infrastructure without more evidence to show that it would be compliant with an agreement that has been in effect for nearly 20 years,” Gee wrote.
Gee ordered that the families be released and gave the government until August 3 to respond to the order.
I reached out to Rachel Tiven, executive director of Immigrant Justice Corps (IJC)—which has been sending fellows down to Texas to provide pro bono legal services to the asylum seekers—to find out what this means moving forward.
Eleveld: The Department of Homeland Security said it was "disappointed" with the ruling. Do you expect the judge's order to get wrapped up in further litigation?
Tiven: I hope that President Obama will not fight this decision. The judge spoke very clearly and said you absolutely cannot keep refugee children in jail and you shouldn’t keep their parents in jail either. Procedurally, the government can continue to debate it, but this is an opportunity for the Obama administration—which has been very vocal about its desire to defend and protect new Americans and newcomers—this is an opportunity to stop locking up refugees.
For more on the detention centers, head below the fold.
How did we get here in the first place?
Tiven: What happened was, early in his tenure, Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson said, these are not refugees, these people don’t have claims. They are going to be deported immediately and we’re going to use those deportations to deter other people from coming up.
First of all, that’s the type of collective punishment that’s not allowed under asylum law. Second, the government’s own data decisively proves them wrong. By their own numbers, 88 percent of people who have come through all three of these facilities have passed the asylum screening interview—meaning that even though they’re not necessarily going to win their claim, they demonstrate the ability to meet the standard for a refugee.
So 88 percent of those people passing those interviews versus Jeh Johnson saying, none of these people are real refugees. That’s a pretty big reality gap.
What are the detention centers in Texas like?
Tiven: Dilley, the much larger one, looks like a giant internment camp. When you see pictures of Manzanar or the refugee camps for Syrians in Jordan or Turkey, it looks very similar. It is acres and acres of trailers out in the sun, no grass, no trees, in the middle of nowhere. The trailers are all air conditioned and cooled inside, but you can’t leave, you can’t walk from one building to another without being escorted by a guard. People aren’t shackled but there’s no question that you are in jail.
The facility in Karnes City is more like a minimum sucurity prison—cinder-block construction, where you’re buzzed in one door and then buzzed in through another door and you can’t go out because you’ll have to do security all over again.
If the refugees are released, where will they go?
Tiven: Most are being released to a sponsor—a relative, sometimes close or distant, or a friend that receives them on the other end.