A central Florida Congress member said that the Trump administration is no longer considering the area as the future site of a migrant kids’ jail. “I’m glad that our community won't be part of the president's inhumane child detention policy,” Rep. Val Demings tweeted on Friday, “and I will keep fighting to ensure that all children are treated with kindness and care.”
Florida was among the states where the administration was mulling plans to open permanent children’s detention facilities, a move that earned an immediate rebuke from local leaders there and in Virginia. “No,” tweeted Florida state Rep. Anna V. Eskamani. “We should be closing camps, not opening new ones.” In Virginia, Alexandria Mayor Justin Wilson wrote, “Please be advised that the City of Alexandria, Virginia, has no interest in hosting such a shelter or being part of any ‘Exploratory Assessment.’”
The Florida location was also proposed just as administration officials were clearing out the prison camp for migrant kids in Homestead, which at its horrific peak jailed thousands of kids, keeping some just long enough that when they turned 18, they could be turned over to ICE. While that prison camp is now empty, the administration has kept it staffed and running to the tune of $33 million and counting, expecting to jail more kids there soon.
The administration’s priority should be to make sure that kids who are currently detained can be placed with family members already here, or suitable sponsors, as soon as possible. But instead the focus seems to be on opening more baby jails and separating more families, specifically 1,000 families at the southern border since a federal judge’s order last year blocking the practice.
Children do not belong in detention, period, but “Demings said President Donald Trump’s administration continues to look for a location in Texas and Arizona,” the Tampa Bay Times reports. When the Trump administration is asking a judge to block declarations made by a number of doctors pertaining to the inhumane treatment of kids at Homestead, does anyone really believe this administration should get a chance to jail even more kids?