Reveal from The Center For Investigative Reporting has a heart-hurting story on the secret “black-site” being used to detain immigrant children. The building is a former office building—windows blacked out—with new cameras and locks all around, and reportedly “no kitchen and only a few toilets.” The beginnings of this revelation came when a person neighboring the site began taking video, worried about seeing children in sweatsuits being “led” into the building. The building is being leased by a big defense contractor MVM, Inc.
The building was leased in March by MVM, a Virginia-based defense contractor that has received contracts worth up to $248 million to transport immigrant children since 2014, records show. The company, which once provided guards for CIA facilities in Iraq, was founded by three former Secret Service agents. One of its vice presidents is a former CIA special agent and former acting director of the U.S. Marshals Service.
According to Reveal that lease was signed one month before Attorney General and raving bigot Jeff Sessions announced the inhumane “zero tolerance policy.”
When Reveal asked MVM about the Phoenix office building, the company initially pointed to its earlier statement that it does not operate housing for immigrant children. After learning that neighbors had recorded video of children entering the building, an MVM spokesperson said the building “is not a shelter or a child care facility. … It’s a temporary holding place” for children being flown out of the Phoenix airport to other locations.
Reveal produced photos purported to be from inside of the facility which showed things like baby shampoo and an inflatable mattress. MVM is the same contractor made infamous recently for their use of commercial airlines to fly kids to detention centers far away from the parents being detained and left behind. After the Reveal story came out a second statement from MVM, Inc. followed.
"... We sometimes use this building as a temporary waiting area because it is a safe and private place for families and children in between transport. We would never leave these families or children at airport or other transportation hub to wait for hours.
"If needed and as approved by ICE, we use this building for that purpose and the standard waiting time is several hours."
I don’t believe anything they say at this point. They have no reason to tell the truth as they are making billions of dollars lying for liars who lie for a living.
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