The drone footage of Trump and Sessions’ “migrant tent city” for children is stark enough. The Department of Homeland Security’s inability to provide anything resembling transparency as to where and who is detained in these places is frightening. The attempts by the administration to rebrand its crimes against humanity have been pathetic. The cost to our country’s collective soul is incalculable. Now, the administration is planning to triple the size of the “temporary” camp set up in a desert outside of El Paso, Texas, because our country is detaining so many migrant children.
HHS, the federal agency tasked with caring for migrant children and teenagers in U.S. custody, said it would more than triple the size of its camp at the Tornillo-Guadalupe Land Port of Entry from 1,200 beds to as many as 3,800.
The Trump administration wants everyone to know that the need for all of these beds isn’t the result of family-separation policies.
“‘Family separations’ resulting from the zero tolerance policy ended on June 20, 2018 and are not driving this need,” Wolfe said in a statement.
HHS officials have “worked round the clock to add beds or add shelters to avoid any backup” at the border,” Wolfe added. He said the agency has 12,800 minors in its custody, the highest number ever. Minors spend an average of 59 days in HHS custody, up from 51 days in 2017.
Like everything Trump, what is driving this is the desire for prison interests to make some sweet taxpayer money off of human misery and draconian policies. Trump’s administration has tried time and time again to pretend that these internment camps are more like “summer camps” than anything else. Of course, they blanch at the suggestion of sending their children to such prisons. And rightly so. It would be child abuse to do such a … oh, right.
Go over here and help to get rid of the people allowing this misuse of resources.