MSNBC’s Mika Scorches Trump Over Sex Assault Denials: ‘What type of woman would you rape?’
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“For God’s sake, they’re kids, man.”
By Alex Samuels
Texas Tribune (6/24/19)
On Sunday, Austin Savage and five of his friends huddled into an SUV and went to an El Paso Target, loading up on diapers, wipes, soaps and toys.
About $340 later, the group headed to a Border Patrol facility holding migrant children in nearby Clint with the goal of donating their goods. Savage said he and his friends had read an article from The New York Times detailing chaos, sickness and filth in the overcrowded facility, and they wanted to help.
But when they arrived, they found that the lobby was closed. The few Border Patrol agents — Savage said there were between eight and 10 of them — moving in and out of a parking facility ignored them.
For a while, the group stood there dumbfounded about what to do next. Ultimately, they decided to pack up and head home. Savage said he wasn’t completely surprised by the rejection; before he left, the group spotted a discarded plastic bag near the lobby door holding toothpaste and soap that had a note attached to it: “I heard y’all need soap + toothpaste for kids.”
“A good friend of mine is an immigration attorney, and he warned us that we were going to get rejected,” Savage said. “We were aware of that, but it’s just the idea of doing something as opposed to passively allowing this to occur.” …
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Former Prisoners Of Iran, Taliban & Somali Pirates Say They Were Treated Better Than Migrant Children Imprisoned In US Conentration Camps
“The Taliban gave me toothpaste & soap.”
By Ramsey Touchberry
Newsweek (6/25/19)
As the Trump administration continues to receive blowback for arguing in court that detained migrant children do not need basic hygiene products, former prisoners of Iran, terrorists and pirates say they received more favorable treatment from their captors than is being afforded by the U.S. government.
The Department of Justice argued last week in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that the government is not required by law to provide soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste or beds for migrant children who were detained for illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in order to be in “safe and sanitary” conditions.
Several former captives of adversarial entities have suggested their time in captivity was spent under more favorable conditions than some migrant children currently face in U.S. government detention.
“I had a toothbrush and toothpaste—not exactly Aquafresh or Tom’s—from the first night,” Jason Rezaian, a former Iranian prisoner, revealed on Twitter.
As Tehran bureau chief for The Washington Post, the journalist was accused of espionage and ultimately spent 544 days in prison—including in solitary confinement—before being released.
“Actually, I had almost nothing else in my cell while I was in solitary confinement. I was allowed to shower every couple of days,” Rezaian added. …
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Lawyer: Inside An Immigrant Detention Center In South Texas, “basic hygiene just doesn’t exist”
By Raine Roldan
Texas Tribune (6/23/19)
Immigrants held in a McAllen-area U.S. Customs and Border Patrol processing center for migrants — the largest such center in America — are living in overcrowded spaces and sometimes are forced to sleep outside a building where the water “tastes like bleach,” according to an attorney who recently interviewed some of the migrants.
“It was so bad that the mothers would save any bottled water they could get and use that to mix the baby formula,” attorney Toby Gialluca told The Texas Tribune on Saturday.
But when she recalls the conditions described to her by the immigrants she interviewed at McAllen’s Centralized Processing Center, Gialluca said she goes back to one thing.
“Their eyes. I’m haunted by their eyes,” Gialluca said. …
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‘Torture Facilities’: Eyewitnesses Describe Poor Conditions At Texas Detention Centers For Migrant Infants, Toddlers & Children
With Meghna Chakrabarti
On Point / WBUR (6/25/19)
(Update: In the hours following air, it was announced Tuesday afternoon that John Sanders, the country’s top border security official, will resign as acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection next month.)
The U.S. government has removed hundreds of migrant children from a Border Patrol station in Clint, Texas, following reports of unsanitary living conditions and inadequate food and water.
Last week, a pediatrician visited a Texas detention facility for migrant children and says what she saw could be compared to “torture facilities.”
We hear firsthand accounts of the conditions at some Border Patrol detention centers.
Guests
- Dolly Lucio Sevier, a pediatrician who wrote up a medical declaration after visiting the Ursula detention center in McAllen, Texas. She assessed 39 children detained at the Ursula facility, which is the largest Border Patrol detention center in the U.S.
- Elora Mukherjee, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School and part of the legal team that visited the Border Control facility in Clint, Texas, last week. She’s also representing Constantin Mutu, the youngest child known to be separated from his parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.
- Nick Miroff, national security correspondent who covers immigration enforcement, drug trafficking and the Department of Homeland Security for The Washington Post. (@NickMiroff)
Link to Story and 47-Minute Audio
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Concentrate Real Hard On This, America: Here Is Why They Are Called ‘Concentration Camps’
When it comes to this kind of detention, even when a government isn’t plotting a genocide, shocking numbers of people can still end up hurt—or dead.
(Commoner Call cartoons by Mark L. Taylor, 2019. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )