Pro Publica has a report by Mica Rosenberg:
It’s a horror story. Here’s an excerpt:
…Around 3,500 detainees, more than half of them minors, have cycled through the center since it reopened, more than the population of the town of Dilley itself. Although a long-standing legal settlement generally limits the time children can be held in detention to 20 days, a data analysis by ProPublica found that about 300 kids sent to Dilley by the Trump administration were there for more than a month. The administration in legal filings has said the agreement from 1997 is outdated and should be terminated because there are new statutes, regulations and policies that ensure good conditions for immigrant minors in detention.
Habiba Soliman, 18, told me she had been detained for more than eight months with her mom and four siblings, ranging in age from 16 to 5-year-old twins, after her father was charged for an alleged antisemitic attack in June at a rally in Boulder, Colorado, supporting the Jewish hostages who were being held in Gaza. Their father, Mohamed Soliman, pleaded not guilty to federal and state charges. Authorities have said they are investigating whether his wife and her children provided support for the attack. They deny knowing anything about it and an arrest warrant reports that he told an officer he never talked to his wife or family about his plans.
Despite Trump’s promise to go after violent criminals, the vast majority of adults detained at Dilley over the last year had no criminal record in the United States. Some of the parents I spoke to had overstayed visas. Many had filed applications for asylum, had married U.S. citizens or had been granted humanitarian parole and were detained when they voluntarily showed up for appointments at ICE offices. They said that it was unfair to arrest them, and that detaining their children was just plain cruel.
emphasis added
Cruelty is what the Trump regime runs on. Cruelty is the core value of the Republican Party. Among other things, the Pro Publica article reports that food and water are of questionable quality, and that medical care is hit or miss at best.
...Gustavo Santiago, the 13-year-old boy who’d been living in Texas, said he has been sick several times since he and his mom were detained on Oct. 5 of last year at a Border Patrol checkpoint. His mom, Christian Hinojosa, said that when Gustavo had a fever, the medical staff told her he was old enough for his body to fight it off without medication, so she sat up with him all night, draping him in cold compresses. She had to take him to the infirmary for a skin rash that she believed was caused by poor water quality at the center. She said he has also experienced stomach pain and nausea, which she blamed on unsanitary food preparation.
Keep in mind that DHS lies about everything, and while Rosenberg managed to talk to some of the children being held, access and oversight is, to put it mildly, somewhat lacking.
One of the important lessons learned from George W. Bush’s Global War on Terror is that the United States can kidnap people, ship them to other countries to be held in prisons, and tortured — and only token low level people will pay a price for those crimes. What’s happening now with ICE and DHS builds on that foundation.
There will be no path forward for America unless the people at the top who made this happen pay a price. Remember the deck of cards American forces used to keep a tally of most-wanted Iraqi officials in Saddam Hussein’s government? A 52-card deck won’t be enough for this crew.
So much for Justice...
