Her 18th birthday should have been a special day for “Sofia,” but because she was jailed at the prison camp for migrant children in Homestead, Florida, the asylum-seeker was instead shackled and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Now considered an adult even though she’d also been a minor just 24 hours earlier, she would have to be moved to an adult detention facility.
“It made me feel really bad,” she said about being shackled, “because it made me feel like a criminal when I hadn’t done anything.” She’s right: These kids haven’t done anything wrong—asylum is legal immigration—but despite this, they’re kept locked at Homestead for months on end. She told CBS News Miami that she spent 82 days at Homestead after fleeing Honduras with her sister. Their mom had died of cancer, and their brother was missing, presumed killed at the hands of gangs. So they fled.
Like other children who have been jailed at Homestead, Sofia described a turbulent existence at the for-profit, unlicensed facility. Sometimes she felt like she was okay, but sometimes she and other children were verbally abused by Homestead workers, who would tell them that “Hondurans were dirty and all we would do is just make the place dirty. Several of these ladies would make us feel bad,” she said.
”Sofia recalled one of the workers threatening to have one girl deported,” CBS News Miami continued. She said the worker asked the girl, “Did you expect the United States was going to receive you with open arms?’ So, the girl said, `No, I’m just asking a question.’ The lady said, `No, all of you deserve to be deported for intruding this country.’”
Other children jailed there have alleged that they were sexually abused, both by staffers and by other detained children. “Allegations of abuse and neglect are rampant in part because Trump and [Health and Human Services Secretary] Alex Azar are allowing a private company to prioritize profit over the well-being of vulnerable children,” said an infuriated Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell. “I will continue to urge the administration to bring the Homestead facility to come into compliance with existing law or be shut down.”
Homestead has dwindled in the number of jailed children from thousands earlier this year to fewer than 800 right now, but half of those children are teens who are 17 and could soon be turned over to ICE when they turn 18, just like Sofia was. “I wasn’t expecting to spend the day like that and actually it was pretty horrible,” she said about ICE agents coming for her. She would spend 18 days in ICE custody before her attorney was able to secure her release.
Sofia is now living with an aunt in Miami as she presses her asylum claim, and hopes that she can stay here so she can study. She has hopes and dreams—but she’s also scarred by Homestead. She said she’s thought about what she would have told the worker who threatened the girl with deportation. “I would tell them they can’t really talk,” she said. “And they can’t judge us because they don’t know why we came here, what we’ve suffered, and what we’ve done to come here.”