First migrant facility for children opens under Biden

[WhiskeyGrinder]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/immigrant-children-camp-texas-biden/2021/02/22/05dfd58c-7533-11eb-8115-9ad5e9c02117_story.html

CARRIZO SPRINGS, Tex. — Dozens of migrant teens boarded vans Monday for the trip down a dusty road to a former man camp for oil field workers here, the first migrant child facility opened under the Biden administration.

The emergency facility — a vestige of the Trump administration that was open for only a month in summer 2019 — is being reactivated to hold up to 700 children ages 13 to 17.

Government officials say the camp is needed because facilities for migrant children have had to cut capacity by nearly half because of the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border has been inching up, with January reporting the highest total — more than 5,700 apprehensions — for that month in recent years.

But immigration lawyers and advocates question why the Biden administration would choose to reopen a Trump-era facility that was the source of protests and controversy. From the “tent city” in Tornillo, Tex., to a sprawling for-profit facility in Homestead, Fla., emergency shelters have been criticized by advocates for immigrants, lawyers and human rights activists over their conditions, cost and lack of transparency in their operations.

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

1. I am sure there is a difference.

I am sure they are not in cages. I am sure they are getting medical attention. I am sure they are getting education. I am sure they are not being forced to sleep on the floor. I am sure their treatment is much better.

There may be a fence around the complex but that is much more likely to help protect the children from assholes who would rather see them dead.

They need someplace to house them until they either find their parents or a good foster home.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. "much more likely to help protect the children from assholes"

From later in the article:

The detention centers overseen by ICE are reserved for adults or families and often are run by private prison companies. Carrizo Springs is run by the nonprofit BCFS Health and Human Services, a government contractor for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the agency within HHS that focuses on unaccompanied children.

From a 2018 article about BCFS:

BCFS Health and Human Services is the second-largest contractor operating in Texas. The group operates six facilities that may accept migrant children. It was founded in 1944, according to its website.

At a Harlingen facility owned by BCFS, employees were alleged to have struck up “inappropriate relationships” with children in their care. Children complained of raw and undercooked food, and one child in late 2016 suffered an allergic reaction after a staff member gave the child a snack.

At another BCFS facility in San Antonio, a staff member last April helped arrange for a child’s family member to send money for the child — but when the cash arrived, the staff member kept it. The year before, an employee gave children “inappropriate magazine pages” that depicted naked women, while a few months before, staff members were found to have failed to supervise their wards closely enough to prevent one child from “inappropriately” touching two others.

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

3. What I meant is that under the Biden administration

it would be changed. I do not see the Biden administration keeping the same people in charge or policies. Maybe I am wrong.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. The Biden administration gave BCFS the authority to manage this "new" facility.

BCFS has done terrible things to kids in its custody in the very recent past. So...

[Ka-Dinh Oy]

5. Well, I guess I am wrong then

The Biden administration is knowingly hurting people according to that article.

Mind, I did not say according to me only the article.

[leftstreet]

6. Kids in cages is now kids in detention facilities?

huh guess that sounds better

whatever

[Hortensis]

7. Anyone remember people claiming Obama put kids in cages first?

That's happening again.

We all should KNOW that if Democrats are doing it, it's extremely different from Trump's "just following orders" child abusers committing crimes against humanity and extreme cruelty to children. .

Forget that those who don't know that are smoking RW propaganda. What the fuck are those who don't doing here? Shouldn't they be marching on the WH?

Obama's admin gathered up 50,000 kids so they wouldn't be alone on the streets and trying to make their way across America to family -- and in many cases getting in great trouble and/or failing. The Republicans did it because persecuting and torturing minorities satisfied Trump and their "red in tooth and claw" base, including gathering and separating brown-skinned families to both throw most out -- and also to send some children to federally funded for-profit care facilities for later adoption, also for profit, and for religious indoctrination.

Kids need to be cared for. Now. Not when things are made just right. It doesn't matter that the new care facilities are the same ones as those the Republicans terrorized children in. We're not THEM.

Here's ANOTHER WaPo article that specifically rebukes the one in the OP. That's rare, but the author felt was justified. I do too.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/02/23/no-bidens-new-border-move-isnt-like-trumps-kids-cages-not-hardly/

But those who won't or can't read it should know that WE ARE NOT THEM. We're good people. We can't and won't make everything well for all these children. But THEY're the kind of people who became Nazis in Germany and under Trump became monsters here.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

8. "Kids need to be cared for."

Absolutely true. Which is why organizations such as the NASW and SEIU have proposed multiple polices that move away from the carceral-centered approach and toward a social work approach. But that is not what this facility has adopted. And there are plenty of small but potent organizations that can provide humanitarian care between detention and letting kids loose on the street until a sponsor is found. What if we funded those instead?

It matters not in the slightest that the new care facilities are in the same location as the prior abusive ones.

It does matter that the organization managing the facility abused and neglected children in its custody as recently as 2018.

We're good people.

The problem is, when we tell ourselves that, it means that what people we like do in our name must also be good. That's not always true.

[Hortensis]

11. Maybe read other pieces. Children need to be cared for right now.

Lunch, dinner, bath, bed, comforting, friends, toys, etc. Not later after "proper" facilities are developed.

They know that. They're pushing for more.

But they should do it more rationally and responsibly, without feeding Fox and "friends" false ammunition to use against us. And, as we see, all too easily undermining the confidence of prospective Democratic voters in the administration that just took office.

The world's full of well meaning fools who help evil people elect Trumps. How do you think we got him? It wasn't the trumpists who did it.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

12. What do you mean by "they should do it more rationally and responsibly"?

Who should? And what should they do?

[Hortensis]

13. Read other articles. I even posted one. Those people are pushing for more.

Of course. Understandable. Children always need more.

But where will these people and their cause be if Republicans take back control of the senate in 2022? Implying the the Biden administration is callously abusing children -- the very same message Fox et al and hostile leftists push (confuse the electorate, discourage them from voting, Democrats aren't really any better than Republicans) -- is a lot worse than just overzealous, it's counterproductive.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

14. "But where will these people and their cause be if Republicans take back control of the senate in

2022?"

Same place we are now, really: Demanding better of people who are convinced that decarcerating the management of unaccompanied minors -- for which we have models and processes, and capacity if it had the same budget as DHS -- is less important than winning The Next Election.

[TuskMoar]

9. Seems to Me

That there has to be a transition period. We have all these kids in cages and, as horrific as that is, we have inherited this problem and now we to have facilities to take care of these kids until (and if) we find their parents. This seems such a tragedy and a nearly intractable problem. But, I can clearly see the need for new and updated facilities.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

10. Transition period to...?

[BGBD]

15. Everyone is missing the point

The problem with the Trump era policy wasn't that kids were kept in custody. It's that families were separated as part of a policy to deter border crossings. There is a huge difference in not allowing kids to be alone and taking kids away from their parents as punishment.

[budkin]

16. What. The Actual. F CK!?

This is NOT ok.