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A group of House Democrats who visited an unlicensed prison camp for migrant children in Homestead, Florida, described meeting kids who have been jailed there for as long as nine months. “I did not see criminals, I did not see gang members,” said Florida Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, who led the delegation with Congressional Hispanic Caucus chair Joaquin Castro of Texas. She was overwhelmed. “I saw kids who have hope … that this country will welcome them.”
Nearly 1,600 children are currently jailed at the privately run facility, which advocates say is operating without a license because it’s supposedly a “temporary” facility. The former prison camp for kids in Tornillo, Texas, opened last June and was supposed to last just one month. Its operations stretched out for months until this year, and it shut down mired in allegations that administration officials lied to Congress about background checks for prison camp employees.
Officials have now tried to paint an orderly picture at Comprehensive Health Services-operated Homestead, saying kids have talent shows and movie nights during the weekends. But other advocates who have visited described meeting children who burst into tears describing how they’re not allowed to hug one another. A prison camp for kids is still a prison camp for kids. “As a mother it was very difficult to watch,” Mucarsel-Powell said. “It has a prison-like feel.”
While officials say that all the children at Homestead are unaccompanied minors, or kids who came to the U.S. alone, some actually came with a relative and were then torn from them. “If they came with an uncle, an aunt, an older brother or sister, they’re not considered separated,” said Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Texas. “We spoke with a number of kids and they all said they said they came with someone. But they were separated, so it’s still happening.” Family separation remains a crisis.
"This was a chilling experience, not because the staff that works here isn't trying to do the best for the children, but because the system itself is unacceptable," said Florida Rep. Donna Shalala. "It's unacceptable to put children in these kinds of situations for a very long period of time." Kids do not belong in detention, period. “I think there should be no profit motive in warehousing young migrant kids,” Castro said. “This is part of a morally bankrupt system.”
Garcia said what also concerned her is that children are being deprived of a meaningful education as they remain locked up for weeks and months. “I don’t understand why these facilities don’t subcontract out to the local school district, who know the business of teaching kids, to make sure that these kids not only have hope in their minds and their dreams but also an education for their future.”
”We have to ask ourselves what can we do, because we must do better,” Garcia continued. “I know that I’ll continue to work with all these members of Congress and many others. Next week we’ll be having a hearing on Tuesday, specifically on the separation policy. So, we will get to the bottom of this. We will leave no stone unturned. Because we’ve got to make sure that these children are treated with dignity and with respect and with human kindness. No child should be treated inhumanely as I think they’re being treated here today.”