CBP’s Own Website Provides Insight Into Its Agents’ Corruption and Misconduct

 

Corruption within U.S. Custom and Border Protection’s workforce often has been hidden behind bureaucratic red tape. But what was once shrouded in mystery is now plainly available—on CBP’s own website.

CBP has developed a “Transparency and Accountability” page designed to share information about CBP-related deaths, use of force incidents, and other incidents resulting in serious injuries. The agency’s website also includes information about methods for reporting CBP misconduct to oversight offices like CBP’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) and the Office of the Inspector General. It also houses links to policies, including those that govern OPR’s oversight functions as well as CBP policies regarding immigrants in its custody. One policy, for instance, addresses CBP’s policies and protocols related to children born in CBP custody or at a CBP facility.

The page also includes information about OPR investigations. The OPR plays an oversight and accountability role within CBP and is charged with investigating allegations of corruption and misconduct.

More information https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5870-CBP-Transparency-and-Accountability.html

US policy toward haitian immigrants is part of a long, troubled history

 

Shocking images have emerged of Border Patrol officers on horseback charging toward Haitian immigrants in and around the border town of Del Rio, Texas. Thousands of Haitians have come to our southern border as conditions in their home country continue to deteriorate following a devastating earthquake in August and the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in July. Though the Biden administration acknowledged the horrific conditions in Haiti as it extended Temporary Protected Status to Haitians in May 2021, it has decided to remove thousands of Haitians from our southern border.

The administration’s treatment of Haitian migrants has received extensive criticism. Yet its actions are a continuation of a long history of mistreating Haitian migrants.

More information https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a5251-Haitians-is-part-of-a-long-and-turbulent-history.html

Julián Castro Critica Las “Desquiciadas” Políticas De Inmigración De Donald Trump

El candidato demócrata a la presidencia de EE.UU. Julián Castro escoltó el lunes a una docena de solicitantes de asilo al paso fronterizo entre Estados Unidos y México situado en la ciudad de Brownsville, en el estado de Texas, en un intento por desafiar la llamada política de “Permanecer en México” del presidente Trump.

El grupo incluía a una mujer salvadoreña con discapacidad y a sus familiares, así como a nueve personas pertenecientes a la comunidad LGBTQ de Cuba, Guatemala y Honduras. Muchos de ellos han indicado que fueron amenazados y agredidos durante el periodo de tiempo que se han visto forzados a esperar en la ciudad fronteriza mexicana de Matamoros hasta que se procese su solicitud de asilo.

A los solicitantes de asilo que acompañaba Castro se les negó la entrada a Estados Unidos.

En Twitter, Castro escribió “Por ley, se supone que estos migrantes están exentos de la política de Permanecer en México, pero @CBP [la Agencia de Aduanas y Protección Fronteriza] ha decidido ignorar su debido proceso. Indignante”.

Compartimos la entrevista en inglés a Julian Castro, quien habló con https://www.democracynow.org desde la ciudad de San Antonio, en el estado de Texas, donde fue alcalde desde 2009 a 2014
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: We turn now to Democratic presidential candidate and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro. On Monday, he escorted a dozen asylum seekers to the U.S. port of entry at Brownsville, Texas, in a challenge to President Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. The group included a disabled Salvadoran woman and her relatives, as well as nine LGBTQ people from Cuba, Guatemala and Honduras. Many of them report they’ve been threatened and assaulted while they’ve been forced to wait in the Mexican border city of Matamoros. The asylum seekers were refused entry into the United States.
AMY GOODMAN: On Twitter, Julián Castro wrote, quote, “By law, these migrants are supposed to be exempt from the Remain in Mexico policy—but @CBP [Customs and Border Protection] had decided to ignore their due process. Outrageous.”

Julián Castro joins us now from San Antonio, the city where he served as mayor from 2009 to 2014, now attempting to become the first Latino president of the United States.

Secretary Castro, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you tell us exactly what you did this week?
JULIÁN CASTRO: Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for having me.

So, I was invited by the Texas Civil Rights Project, that works with migrants who are seeking asylum and who have been caught up in the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy — technically called the Migrant Protection Protocol policy — which has them claim asylum here, and then sends them to wait in Mexico while their asylum claim is adjudicated. I had been asked to visit Matamoros, on the other side of Brownsville, Texas, because you have about a thousand people who are there, who — most of whom are seeking asylum, waiting for their court dates, that are caught up in this “Remain in Mexico” policy.

And we wanted to highlight especially the claims of members of the LGBTQ community and also one person who is disabled. She’s deaf. We were highlighting them specifically because under the terms of the “Remain in Mexico” policy itself, somebody with a physical issue or mental health trauma is supposed to be exempted. In other words, they’re supposed to be allowed to remain in the United States while their claim is adjudicated, instead of being sent back to Mexico. These members of the LGBTQ community, they have been persecuted. They’ve been subjected to violence. They’ve been threatened. They’re suffering trauma and, some of them, PTSD. And so, we believe that they should qualify for that exemption because of the mental health trauma they’re going through. And the person who is deaf has a physical disability, a physical issue. She never should have been put in that program in the first place.

And let me just say, you know, when I went over there, as I mentioned, there are over a thousand people. They’re all living in tents. They told me, to a person, that they don’t have clean water to drink, that a lot of the kids there are sick. I saw children as young as 12 days old, a baby that was 12 days old. They’re living basically in a field that’s right near the river, the Rio Grande river, and right next to the border station. So, these are people who are in desperate circumstances, living in unsanitary conditions, in squalor, not knowing what’s going to happen to them, and pleading for help.

We took these 12 individuals to present to the Border Patrol agents, CBP. And they were eventually interviewed, and then they were all sent back. They were all denied any kind of relief under the exemption in the MPP policy.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Secretary Castro, I wanted to ask you, because, obviously, Mexico has to participate in this “Remain in Mexico” policy. And I don’t know if you saw the op-ed piece that Jorge Ramos, the co-anchor of the national Univision News had in The New York Times this week, where he said Mexico may not be paying for the wall, the Trump wall, but Mexico has effectively become the wall and is participating in this attempt of President Trump to prevent more people from coming into the country. I’m wondering about your sense of the Mexican policy under President López Obrador?
JULIÁN CASTRO: Yeah, I did not see that op-ed, but I think that Jorge puts it very well there, that — you know, that this was something that Mexico agreed to. And to me, that was surprising, given the history of López Obrador and what I thought he would stand for and do once he was in office.

The other thing that’s been a concern is that, you know, of course, for the municipality, for Matamoros and for the state government there, they do have a responsibility to help make sure that these individuals are safe, that they’re living in sanitary conditions. I was told by one person on the other side of the border that the city is trying to do something, but trying to get folks to move to a different part of the community, of the city, where they’re trying to — they’ve tried to establish more sanitary conditions and better living conditions. I don’t know whether that’s accurate or not — it may well be accurate — but that there’s a hesitancy among the migrants there because of the lack of safety in other parts of the community. And, you know, they feel like they want to be there, of course, near the Border Patrol station, when they have their hearing, or there’s just this sense of being close to the United States. And so they’ve been hesitant to go to that other place that may have been established by the city for them to be at.
AMY GOODMAN: So what are you demanding of the president right now?
JULIÁN CASTRO: Well, he should end this policy. If I were elected president, I would immediately end this “Remain in Mexico” policy. It flies in the face of the United States policy of allowing people who are making a claim of asylum to remain in the United States while their claim is adjudicated.

So we need to do a couple things. Number one, we need to end this policy and allow people to remain in the safety of the United States. Secondly, and just as importantly, we actually need to create an independent immigration court system, that’s independent from the Department of Justice, with enough judges and support staff to hear these asylum claims and get people an answer in a timely manner. Some people will get asylum. We also know that some people will not. But people should not be waiting years to get an answer on their asylum claim.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about The New York Times report recently reporting President Trump privately pushed for shooting migrants and for creating a, quote, “water-filled trench, stocked with snakes or alligators,” along the U.S.-Mexico border; the Times also detailing how Trump has privately proposed other radical measures to curtail immigration, including closing the entire U.S.-Mexico border and building an electrified border wall topped with spikes to pierce human flesh; the Times revealing Trump has repeatedly raised the idea of shooting migrants during staff meetings; the paper reporting, “After publicly suggesting that soldiers shoot migrants if they threw rocks, the president backed off when his staff told him that was illegal. But later in a meeting, aides recalled, he suggested that they shoot migrants in the legs to slow them down. That’s not allowed either, they told him.” The Times article is based on the new book, Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration, by the Times reporters Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis. Julián Castro, if you could respond?
JULIÁN CASTRO: I mean, that’s the product of a deranged mind right there. What else can we say about that, except that’s an individual with a deranged mind and, obviously, a lot of hate toward these migrants? And, you know, this is the caliber of person that’s sitting in the Oval Office right now. It’s just one more example of why he should not be president of the United States, somebody who is not only hateful, but who is so divorced from reality that he would, on multiple occasions, bring up the idea of shooting people. It makes no sense.

I hope that more and more Americans are paying attention to the depravity of this president and the cruelty that he’s inflicted on people that are simply seeking a better life. And that’s consistent with people from different places all over the world that have come seeking a better life, who have come from desperate circumstances throughout the generations. And so, this is nothing new in our country’s history or the history of the world.

And my hope is that this president is going to be held to account for what he’s done in terms of violating his oath of office and abusing his power, that he will be impeached, that he will be removed from office. If he is not impeached and removed, he’s going to be defeated on November 3rd, 2020, and that this nightmare, with respect to how he’s treating migrants, will be over.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Secretary Castro, I wanted to ask you also, because the president often talks about how he’s opposed to people coming into the country illegally, but the reality is that his policies in terms of even legal immigration are dramatically different from past policy. I think the Census Bureau is reporting we had the lowest number of legal immigrants admitted into the country, just a couple hundred thousand compared to an average of about a million a year in many past years, the reduction in refugee admissions, the clampdown on asylum requests. Could you talk about his policy toward legal immigration?
JULIÁN CASTRO: Yeah. You know, sometimes it makes some folks feel good when they can say, “Well, you know, I’m not really against, or the president is not really against immigration; he’s against undocumented immigrants, or so-called illegal immigrants.” But as you point out, clearly, this is an assault on all immigrants, undocumented and documented. This public charge rule that they’ve proposed, that would essentially chill legal immigrants from participating in American life, the cutbacks to the number of refugees that we’ll accept, also this asylum policy that has been tightened, this “Remain in Mexico” policy, that would deal with potential asylees — in all of these ways, the president has sought to curtail legal immigration. So, at the bottom of this is truly a vision of America that looks like Donald Trump. That’s what he wants. That’s what he’s trying to create. And so, people should not fool themselves.

What I believe is that our diversity in this country makes us strong, that we can harness the potential of immigrants, and that, for generations, immigrants, both documented and undocumented, have made this country stronger, have powered our economy, have helped ensure that we continue to move forward as a nation. And that’s going to continue to be the case in the future. And I believe that we should increase the number of people that we’re taking in as refugees and asylees, and that we should put undocumented immigrants who are here in the United States on a pathway to citizenship, as long as they have not committed a serious crime here in the United States. That’s what I would do as president.

 Fuente: https://share.america.gov

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4526-Julian-Castro-critica-politicas-de-inmigracion.html

 

 

Investigation Demanded As Medical Care For Detained Immigrant Children Worsens

By Katy Murdza www.immigrationimpact.com

Border Patrol agents placed a detained 9-year-old girl with a kidney disease at high risk of a urinary tract infection by not allowing her to shower or change her underwear for five days. Agents also denied a 3-year-old medical care after she vomited 10 times in an hour. Agents failed to schedule a doctor’s appointment for a 2-year-old with diarrhea so severe his desperate mother had to change his diaper every 15 minutes. Other Border Patrol agents told a family that no detained children will see a doctor unless they have a fever.

Now, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—Border Patrol’s parent agency—is being held accountable for these and other accounts of inadequate medical care for children held in its custody. The American Immigration Council and American Immigration Lawyers Association filed an administrative complaint on Wednesday with the FBI and two oversight branches of the Department of Homeland Security calling attention to these incidents.

The complaint includes excerpts from firsthand accounts of 200 asylum-seeking mothers about the inadequate care they received while held in CBP facilities. Each mother was later transferred with her child from CBP custody to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, where their statements were collected.

Taken together, the testimonies show the consistent denial of medical care and unsafe conditions at CBP facilities:

• 67% of mothers stated that their child was not seen at all by a medical provider while in CBP custody, beyond a check for lice.
• 58% of the women who requested medical care for their child reported that they received no medical attention.
• 48% reported being detained with their child for longer than three days, in violation of CBP’s own guidelines.

Parents frequently report sleeping on cement floors for days with 24-hour light and noise. They often say their children’s health deteriorated in CBP custody without access to medical care, while they were forced to remain cold and wet with only thin mylar blankets.

CBP has repeatedly failed to follow even the very low standards that currently regulate its detention conditions.

The 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement requires that any facility holding children be “safe and sanitary,” but 22 years later, the government routinely violates its terms.

In 2017, Federal Judge Dolly Gee determined that the government was violating the agreement by failing to provide children adequate food, water, and basic hygiene items. In August 2019, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld this decision.

In July 2019, DHS’ Office of the Inspector General issued a management alert about “dangerous overcrowding” in the Rio Grande Valley Processing centers. The report revealed inadequate access to showers, changes of clothing, and hot meals. 31% of the children in the inspected facilities were there longer than 72 hours.

The consequence of being held in these substandard conditions can be devastating for children. At least seven immigrant children have died in government custody since last year.

According to Dr. Julie Linton, co-chair of the immigrant health special interest group at the American Academy of Pediatrics:

“Children are not like adults. They get sick more quickly and each hour of delay can be associated with serious complications, especially in cases of infectious diseases. Delays can lead to death.”

As the complaint demands, CBP must improve conditions and medical care in processing facilities. CBP agents who interact with children need to have child welfare experience. They should be trained to screen for medical issues and refer children to medical experts. Finally, all children should be released as quickly as possible, with an absolute maximum of 72 hours in CBP custody.

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4453-Detained-Immigrant-Children-Worsens.html

Statement of Donald Kerwin, Executive Director of the Center for Migration Studies, on the US Border and Border Wall

The President Trump addressed the nation from the Oval Office, asserting that there exists a crisis on our southern border which necessitates the construction of a border wall. 

Despite the president’s claims that a crisis exists on the border, the facts demonstrate otherwise. The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) has released several reports which show that border crossings have dropped significantly over the past several years. 

A 2016 CMS report showed that net migration from Mexico between 2010 and 2016 dropped 11 percent. The undocumented population from Mexico dropped by an additional 400,000 from 2016 to 2017. Migration from other parts of Latin America, save the Northern Triangle, also dropped significantly. The report’s overall conclusion was that the number of undocumented in the nation had dropped to 10.8 million, a new low. The report can be found at https://cmsny.org/publications/warren-undocumented-2016/ 

CMS also issued a report which found that the number of persons who have overstayed their visas between 2008 and 2014 had exceeded the number of border crossers. In 2014, overstays represented two-thirds of those who joined the undocumented population. The report can be found at https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-visa-overstays-border-wall/ 

A recent study by several immigrant rights organizations, entitled Death, Damage, and Failure: Past, Present, and Future Impacts of Walls on the US-Mexico Border, details the damage caused to border communities by already existing walls and fencing along the border, and how the extension of a wall would cause economic, environmental, and human harm moving forward. 

The human tragedy at our border, where thousands of children and families are fleeing persecution and violence from the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, is where this administration and Congress should focus its attention. 

A series of measures designed to deter these vulnerable populations from fleeing their countries, including family separation, mandatory detention, zero tolerance, and denial of entry at the border are undermining their legal and human rights, guaranteed under both domestic and international law. They are handing themselves over to Border Patrol agents in search of protection, not trying to enter the country illegally. The Administration and Congress should act to end these inhumane policies and provide protection to vulnerable women and children. 

The real crisis exists in the Northern Triangle of Central America, where organized crime threatens residents with impunity and there exists a lack of stability and opportunity. Instead of appropriating nearly $5.7 billion for an ineffective and damaging wall, Congress and President Trump should use some portion of this funding to address the push factors causing flight from the region. Addressing root causes of flight is the most humane and effective solution to outward migration. 

Instead of shutting down the government over a wall, President Trump and Congress also should enact a legislative package which provides permanent status to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients, immigrant populations who have built equities in our nation. CMS has issued studies on the contributions of each of these populations, which can be found at https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-potential-beneficiaries-of-daca-dapa/ and https://cmsny.org/publications/jmhs-tps-elsalvador-honduras-haiti/. 

Our nation deserves an immigration system which protects human rights and human dignity while upholding the rule of law. This requires immigration reform which honors our values and traditions as a nation of immigrants. Building walls only divides us as a country and does not address the sources of global migration. 

 

Fuente: www.cmsny.org/ 

https://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4074-border-crossings-have-dropped-over-the-past-several-years.html

Estados Unidos Deportó A Más De 460 Padres Inmigrantes

En Estados Unidos, el gobierno de Donald Trump podría haber deportado a unos 463 padres de menores separados por los funcionarios de inmigración en la frontera, incluso cuando sus hijos permanecen bajo custodia de Estados Unidos. 

Un juez federal le ordenó al gobierno de Trump que reuniera a todos los niños y padres inmigrantes separados antes del 26 de julio, es decir, el próximo jueves. Pero nuevos documentos del gobierno revelan que casi 500 de estos padres ya no se encuentran en el país. 

En total, al menos 1.700 niños continúan bajo custodia de Estados Unidos, a la espera de reunirse con sus padres. 

Fuente: https://www.democracynow.org - Noticias Telemundo 
http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3857-estados-unidos-deporto-padres-inmigrantes.html

Laura Gottesdiener de Democracy Now! se sentó a conversar con una madre salvadoreña llamada Belqui Yessenia Castillo Cortez, que se reencontró con su hijo de tres años de edad, Michael, la semana pasada, tras haber sido separados por los funcionarios de inmigración en la frontera en Texas. 

Los documentos federales muestran que madre e hijo llegaron al puerto legal de ingreso en la ciudad de Río Grande el 28 de mayo de 2018 para solicitar asilo en Estados Unidos. Las autoridades de inmigración los detuvieron, luego los separaron y a Belqui la mandaron al Centro de Detención Port Isabel en Texas, mientras que su hijo de tres años de edad fue llevado en avión a la ciudad de Nueva York. Allí estuvo alojado en un lugar administrado por una agencia de servicios humanos llamada Abbott House. “Su comportamiento es realmente agresivo”, afirma la mujer. “No era así antes… Es violento, más que nada”. 

Compartimos parte de la entrevista que hiciera democracynow a Belqui Yessenia Castillo

 

gfgddfgd

AMY GOODMAN: We end today’s show looking at the emotional and psychological impact of family separation. On Wednesday, Democracy Now!’s Laura Gottesdiener sat down with a Salvadoran mother named Belqui Yessenia Castillo Cortez. She reunited with her 3-year-old son Michael last week, after they were separated by immigration officials at the border in Texas. Federal documents show the mother and son arrived at the legal port of entry in Rio Grande City on May 28th to apply for asylum in the U.S. Immigration authorities detained them, then separated them, sending Belqui to the Port Isabel Detention Center in Texas, while her 3-year-old son was flown all the way here to New York and held in a facility run by a human services agency called Abbott House. Laura began by asking Belqui what it was like to be reunited with her son on July 11th. 

BELQUI YESSENIA CASTILLO CORTEZ: [translated] Suddenly they called me. And, oh, it was so beautiful, because it had been 41 days without my son, and I felt like I couldn’t any longer. The reunion with my son was something—well, it was emotional, but also sad, because he didn’t react the way his mother—the way I imagined he would have reacted. He just turned and looked at me. He didn’t cry. He just looked into my eyes. He looked at me and never broke his gaze. No, it wasn’t easy. It was beautiful to reunite with him. But to be confronted with this, no. A week has passed, exactly. At the beginning, it was the same. He didn’t seem to love me very much. But now, thank God, it’s changing a bit. Now he knows our family. Now he has remembered, because—well, maybe it’s more like he never forgot. It was just the feelings that he had, because he felt abandoned. 

LAURA GOTTESDIENER: And are there any changes in his attitude or his behavior or personality? 

BELQUI YESSENIA CASTILLO CORTEZ: [translated] Yes, there are differences. His behavior is really aggressive. He doesn’t listen to me at all. Yes, I am having this problem, because since we arrived, he’s been acting this way. And he wasn’t like this before. I went with him in buses the whole way. And imagine coming from El Salvador to the United States by bus. He would have had to—I would have had to return with a child like this. But, then, he traveled really calmly. I brought him from there to here, and everything was fine, because, in truth, he wasn’t like this before. Because to travel six hours, eight hours, on a bus with a child as he’s acting now, I imagine I would have had to return to my country. But, no, he held out 'til the 28th of May, and now he's acting very differently. 

LAURA GOTTESDIENER: What differences do you see? You said he was acting a bit aggressively. How does this manifest? 

BELQUI YESSENIA CASTILLO CORTEZ: [translated] Yes. He doesn’t listen. He’s violent, more than anything else, with me. Ever since he was released to me, he doesn’t listen to me anymore. Sometimes he hits me. The day we reunited, the reunion, it was like he felt hurt that I had left him. Something like that. I felt like he had something that he wanted to tell me, but at his age he just couldn’t express it, because he just stayed looking at me with a face, with a gaze, that told me everything. 

LAURA GOTTESDIENER: Why did you come here? Why did you decide to come? 

BELQUI YESSENIA CASTILLO CORTEZ: [translated] Because I’m in danger in my country. I’m in danger because of the gangs, because of the discrimination, the threats. The same person who raped me in January 2014 is the person who left me pregnant with my child. I was discriminated against in my country for being a lesbian. They beat me, even some of my friends, when I was in 16. And the father, if I can call him that, he raped me for the same reason, for being a lesbian, and with the aim of making me pregnant. 

I want a future, I want to begin a future with a person I love, to marry. I also want that. I want to be happy with my child and my family. I also want protection and the support I don’t have in my country. This is why I came, for a happy future, because up until now, it hasn’t. I have never had any freedom, not even with the girlfriends I’ve had, absolutely nothing. It’s as if we’re not there. We’ve always been hidden. It hasn’t been freedom or happiness, not at all. 

AMY GOODMAN: That was Belqui Yessenia Castillo Cortez, separated from her 3-year-old boy Michael for 41 days. She just reunited with him. She was speaking with Democracy Now!'s Laura Gottesdiener. The video produced by Anna Barsan and Cinthya Santos. Special thanks to Ali Toxtli. In 3-year-old Michael's discharge papers from Abbott House here in New York, a clinician described the child as having a “laidback personality and a quiet disposition” who interacts “positively and kindly with peers.” But she also wrote, “He has had some difficulty adapting to the program. During admission he would cry continuously and ask for his biological mother, Belqui.” 

Analizamos los impactos psicológicos que la separación familiar tiene en los menores, con Nancy Burke. Burke es psicoanalista y vicepresidente de la organización Psychotherapy Action Network que colaboró con la publicación de un folleto destinado a ayudar a los padres migrantes separados de sus hijos. 

Además es miembro del plantel de profesores del Centro para el Psicoanálisis de Chicago y la Escuela Geinberg de Medicina de Northwestern University. Burke afirma que el trauma que los niños están experimentando en los centros de detención “los congela en el tiempo” y les anula la capacidad de expresars, a continuación parte de la entrevista de democracynow con la psicoanalista

ksldkfs

AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more on the psychological impacts family separation has on young children, we’re joined by Dr. Nancy Burke. Dr. Nancy Burke is a psychoanalyst and a co-chair of the Psychotherapy Action Network, which has helped to publish a pamphlet aimed at helping immigrant parents separated from their children understand their different children who return. She’s on the faculty of the Chicago Center for Psychoanalysis and the Feinberg School of Medicine with Northwestern University. 

Dr. Burke, welcome to Democracy Now! As we’re looking at this story, the little boy, Michael, her little boy that she’s just reunited with, over a month away from him, is biting apart a Nerf football. And through the hour—it was an extended interview—he bit the whole thing apart. Talk about the effect on these children. 

NANCY BURKE: [inaudible] say is that normal reactions—I don’t like to use the word “normal,” but I’m going to use it in this case, because I want to emphasize that normal reactions to abnormal circumstances look abnormal. So, if you saw a child in a playgroup chewing on a Nerf ball, biting it to pieces, you would be very confused about that. But we can appreciate that children, who don’t have language and they don’t have a way to express their needs and they don’t have a way to express what’s frightening to them, would act out in their bodies. And that’s something that we know over and over again. It’s something that parents hopefully haven’t had to see so much of. 

And we thought that was our role, to be able to tell parents these are normal reactions to very abnormal circumstances. And this is really—reunification with children who have been through the circumstance is really—it’s either an opportunity or a real nodal point, that can be extremely difficult after all of the hope and all of the final relief in the reunification. So, you know, we wanted to be able to impart that knowledge to parents so that they have some sense of what to expect and how to react. 

AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about this brochure. It’s not geared to the general public. You’re doing it for the separated parents, who, so excited if they finally accomplish this feat of finding their children, separated by the Trump administration, that they find such different children. 

NANCY BURKE: Absolutely. And they don’t expect it. If you are in that circumstance, all of your interest, all of your hope is going to be focused on reunification. And that seems like an end to the story in itself and a happy ending, and all the more shocking than when it isn’t. And so, we wanted to be able to use our knowledge, the things that we sit with in our office every day when we talk to people who have been traumatized, people who are adults who have been traumatized as children. We know some things about what to expect and what the sequelae of trauma are, and how long-lasting they are, how they show up. And we wanted to be able to offer that, because, first of all, we just wanted to be able to prepare parents, who really aren’t prepared psychologically. They’re really prepared to be reunited, and they’re prepared to—you know, for that one moment. And they don’t really brace themselves—how could they?—for the long, long period of recovery afterwards. 

AMY GOODMAN: And what about these children that have been drugged? You have heard these previous reports we brought you, kids who were shot up with—it’s not even clear what drugs, when they cry for their mothers or for their fathers. 

NANCY BURKE: This is a really just devastating and terrible thing, because one of the things that we know is that children who are traumatized don’t have access to their feelings, and therefore can’t put them in words, can’t structure them, can’t use relationships in order to be able to make them manageable. And what this does is, essentially, it gives children a lack of access to be able to express themselves. So, in essence, it freezes them in time, and it does so in a way that’s very frightening. They suddenly don’t even know themselves. And their parents can’t know them, either. So, we’re very concerned about these reports. 

AMY GOODMAN: We have less than a minute, but the long-term impact of this trauma and what resources do these parents have? I mean, Belqui, who we just played her story, is wearing an ankle monitor. You know, it’s put on by the U.S. government. She is tracked everywhere. But what resources do they have to help their children? 

NANCY BURKE: You know, when we gave this pamphlet, really, it’s a symbol that there are other resources out there, and there are organizations of concern. It really will take a village, a very long time. We did leave a space on the pamphlet for information about local organizations. We highlighted United Way, Freedom for Immigrants. We highlighted Informed Immigrant. And we wanted people to know that there were organizations. But on our pamphlet, we were really happy to be able to add something from Fred Rogers, who’s helped so many American children over the years over TV, because one of the things that he says over and over again is, “When you’re in trouble, find a helper.” And we want to encourage people to reach out. One thing we know is that trauma tends to silence people, and it tends to not be spoken of. And so, we just wanted the pamphlet to be a catalyst, so that things that weren’t thought to be spoken of could really be spoken of with people who can help. 

AMY GOODMAN: Nancy Burke, we want to thank you so much for being with us, psychoanalyst, co-chair of the Psychotherapy Action Network. We will link to the pamphlet you published, aimed at helping immigrant parents separated from their children. 

Fuente: https://www.democracynow.org 

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3855-traumas-en-menores-separados-de-sus-padres.html

It Is Legal to Seek Asylum

Written by Royce Murray

As thousands of asylum-seeking parents were separated from their children in recent months, the Trump administration actively portrayed them as law breakers who must be prosecuted and punished for coming to the United States. Left out of the narrative is one well-established fact: it is legal to seek asylum.

The Immigration and Nationality Act, which governs our nation’s immigration law, makes clear that anyone arriving at the U.S. border or within the United States is permitted to apply for protection. U.S. law embraces both international and domestic legal obligations not to return any person to a place where they face persecution on account of one of several protected grounds.

Most everyone can apply for asylum, and where narrow exceptions apply, those individuals can apply for other forms of protection including withholding of removal or relief for those at risk of torture.

For those able to reach the U.S. border, many have been unlawfully turned away by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officials who have told migrants that ports of entry are closed or that the U.S. no longer welcomes asylum seekers, at least from certain countries, among other justifications. Faced with no alternatives, many asylum seekers present themselves to Border Patrol between the ports of entry in order to seek protection. Following the Attorney General’s “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting everyone apprehended between the ports of entry, many asylum-seeking parents were separated from their children for months so they could be prosecuted for entry-related crimes before being given a chance to ask for protection.

Confusion is triggered, however, by the existence of federal criminal offenses for unlawful entry (a misdemeanor) or unlawful reentry to the United States after having been deported or ordered removed (a felony). While there are many concerns with entry-related prosecutions, it is particularly problematic when asylum seekers are prosecuted while trying to seek protection.

People fleeing life or death situations cannot often wait in their home countries to secure a visa or even use their true identity documents to depart their country and travel onward. Moreover, there is no way to apply for asylum from outside of the United States; overseas refugee processing is only available to select populations in specific locations and in very small numbers. Only 1,500 refugees may be admitted from all of Latin America and the Caribbean in fiscal year 2018; a mere 126 refugees from that region had been admitted as of June 2018.

To be clear, asylum seekers have a right to apply for asylum, not to be granted asylum. Once an individual tells a DHS official after being stopped at the border that they are afraid, asylum seekers must be processed and referred to asylum officers who assess an asylum seeker’s claims. Enforcement officers, such as CBP officers or Border Patrol agents, are not allowed to make these determinations.

The Refugee Convention also makes clear that countries are precluded from penalizing individuals requesting protection from persecution or torture in their country of origin. Indeed, in 2015 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General noted that the prosecution of those “who express fear of persecution or return to their home countries” was “inconsistent with and may violate U.S. treaty obligations.”

The United States must stop its criminalization of asylum seekers. Rather than treating them as law breakers, our country must adhere to its legal obligations to afford protections to those in harm’s way.

 

Source: www. immigrationimpact.com  

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3852-It-Is-Legal-to-Seek-Asylum.html

Residents on Both Sides of the Border Try to Help Asylum Seekers Illegally Turned Away by U.S. Gov’t

Under President Trump’s new “zero tolerance” policy, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has called for people seeking asylum to follow the law and go to official ports of entry to request help. But asylum seekers at international bridges across the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas have been blocked by Border Patrol agents who say they are unable to process them. 

In some cases, asylum seekers—including women and young children—have been told to wait for days and even weeks on international bridges over the border, often in extreme heat. Residents on both sides of the border have responded by bringing food, water and clothing to people as they wait to be processed. Democracy Now! producer Renée Feltz followed some of them as they delivered aid, and interviewed Jennifer Harbury, a human rights lawyer who has lived in the Rio Grande Valley for over 40 years, about the significance of the United States rejecting legal requests by asylum seekers, detaining them at length, and in some cases deporting them after separating them from their children. 

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Under President Trump’s new “zero tolerance” policy, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has called for people seeking asylum to follow the law and go to official ports of entry to request help. But asylum seekers at international bridges across the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas have been blocked by Border Patrol agents who say they are unable to process them. In same cases, asylum seekers, including women and young children, have been told to wait for days, and even weeks, on international bridges over the border, often in extreme heat. 

AMY GOODMAN: Residents on both sides of the border have responded by bringing food and water and clothing to people as they wait to be processed. Democracy Now!’s Renée Feltz followed them as they dropped off donations Sunday at one of the busiest ports of entry in the Rio Grande Valley. 

NAYELLY BARRIOS: My name is Nayelly Barrios. We are on the bridge that connects Reynosa to Hidalgo, Mexico to the U.S. We are right in the middle point of the bridge, right over the river, the Rio Grande river. Behind me are—I believe it’s three Border Patrol agents, asking for individuals’—to glance at individuals’ documentation. They’re not scanning them or anything. They don’t have any of that machinery out here. They just have—they’re just checking to see that they have the documents. Border Patrol agents usually do not stand at that point. 

So, I was born in Reynosa, and I’ve lived in the U.S. most of my life. I’m a U.S. citizen now. I first heard about the individuals that were stranded on Sunday. And the main reason is, I just thought, “Imagine if I were there, myself, stranded on a bridge, day and night, with very few resources, just whatever I brought on me, you know, while I made the trip.” 

So, this one time, on Wednesday, we were getting ready to head out. We had been on the bridge for an hour and a half, distributing, talking to the people, asking them specifically what some of them might need, and we write it down. And there was this—we were about to head out, and one of the ladies who helps out there—she lives in Reynosa—and she told us, “Go look at that—go talk to that woman that’s standing.” She was about six yards away from the main group of asylum seekers, and she was just standing there with a little girl. And she looked really sad and confused and lost. And so, you know, we went to go ask her, “Are you here to seek asylum?” Because they’re not letting people cross, we just wanted to explain to her that it was best for her, instead of standing there, to go join the group. And she was not—she was not responsive. She was just looking at us like “I don’t want to talk to you.” I had never seen such a terrified look on someone. It was like she was defenseless and just terrified and—

UNIDENTIFIED: Holding onto her daughter. 

NAYELLY BARRIOS: She was holding onto her kid, yes. And the kid looked about 6, maybe 7. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Yeah. 

NAYELLY BARRIOS: She was looking around like—

UNIDENTIFIED: “Can I trust you?” 

NAYELLY BARRIOS: Yes. She didn’t know if she could trust us. She did not want to open up. And I told her, “You look tired. You must be very tired.” I told her—all in Spanish, of course. I told her, “I don’t know what you must have been through, but you can rest over here. We’ve got some food. We’ve got water, clothes for your kid, as well. Come join the group, until it’s your turn. And we’ll explain to you, you know, what’s been happening here.” And so, it took a while, and then I like gently put my arm on her—on her shoulder, like to try and guide her, like to tell her like it’s fine. So then she started letting her guard down a little bit. And as she started following me to where the group was, she started crying. It’s like she finally let her guard down and—

UNIDENTIFIED: Felt relief. 

NAYELLY BARRIOS: I think she felt—I feel like it was relief, yeah. 

UNIDENTIFIED: Mm-hmm, looked like it. 

NAYELLY BARRIOS: And then, once I got her to the group, and the—one of the other volunteers that was there, from Reynosa, the woman that I was mentioning, she started talking to her. And then the girl just—well, the woman, she looked so young, with her little girl—just started crying, like more all-out crying. Yeah, I feel like it was relief that she started feeling, that, “Finally, I’m not by myself. Somebody’s taking me in,” and maybe also a little bit scared that “Why wasn’t it that easy for me to just go in and ask for asylum? Why am I having to wait in this line with all these people?” She probably really wasn’t expecting that. 

AMY GOODMAN: That was Nayelly Barrios at the port of entry, or international bridge, that connects Reynosa, Mexico, where she was born, to McAllen, Texas, where she lives nearby as a U.S. citizen. 

And now we’re going to turn to another person Renée Feltz interviewed while in South Texas, Jennifer Harbury, a human rights lawyer who has lived in the Rio Grande Valley for over 40 years. Her husband, Efraín Bámaca Velásquez, was a Mayan comandante and guerrilla who was disappeared after he was captured by the Guatemalan army in the 1980s. She later found there was U.S. involvement in the cover-up about her husband’s murder and torture. 

JENNIFER HARBURY: My name is Jennifer Harbury. I’m a human rights attorney and also a human rights activist, and have been for many years. I think most of you know I was involved in Guatemala during the dirty wars and during the genocidal campaign in the '80s and lost my husband there. I've stayed very close to friends all across Central America, and I understand why they’re fleeing northwards. It’s very clear, and it’s very tragic. And to see people being turned away here or punished for asking for asylum really breaks my heart. My father was 11 when he arrived at Ellis Island fleeing Hitler. I don’t want to think what would have happened if those children had been torn away from their parents at that point in time. They were terrified. They were alone. They were totally dependent on their parents. It’s just—it’s a very ugly chapter of U.S. history right now. 

Let’s say it’s a three-pronged attack on refugees—not on cartel people. Cartel people have millions and millions of dollars. If they want to get into the United States, they can buy the passport. They can buy the police officer. They can buy a boat and an airplane. They don’t need to send scrawny, terrified refugees to swim the river and nearly drown, you know, to do their dirty work for them. They don’t need to do that. They’re way past it. So, the war that we’ve declared is on the victims of the cartels: the moms with babies, the 15-year-olds that are running from trafficking, the boy that could either work with the cartels or die and whose parents were killed in retaliation when he fled—those kinds of people. We’re supposed to be helping them. 

Under U.S. law, you are permitted to come to the U.S. port of entry—that’s the checkpoint at the border—and say, “I’m in danger in my home country. I need to apply for political asylum.” You then get sent for a credible fear interview to see if that story is reasonable or not. And if it is, you get sent to detention to await your trial on your asylum process. Until recently, anybody in that category, if they had lots of U.S. citizen relatives and plenty of ID and stuff, they were released on parole, just as someone that faces a criminal charge would be released on bond. It’s normal, and it’s in ICE’s own policy. They have to obey that. 

But as of last year, first they started out by trying to push everyone away from the border, which is totally illegal. The legal way to apply for asylum is to go to the border. Then they tried to sort of break their spirit by keeping them in prison-like conditions for a year and a half or two years. And those conditions in the detention centers are horrific. 

What started even more recently, though, is, if people decide, “Maybe I don’t want to go that route. I’ll swim the river,” it’s extremely dangerous. You have to pay a huge fee for crossing the river, to the cartels. And if they don’t like you or think you’d be a good trafficking person, you could go down. Children drown all the time crossing the river, and adults and children die all the time crossing the desert here, trying to get out of southern Texas. If none of that happens, they’re probably going to get caught. It’s hard to run with kids. And what you’ve been seeing in the paper is happening: They take your children away, prosecute you for trying to save your kid’s life, and send you home without your kid. 

Now, they’re telling them to sit on the bridge. It’s a hundred degrees out. There was a young 15-year-old girl, who was 7 months pregnant, out there for three days and three nights. Many small children are on the bridge for up to 10 days at a time at the Reynosa entry. Just going north a little ways, to Miguel Alemán-Roma bridge, it’s more remote, and we didn’t realize people were there. I went to speak with them a few days ago. They had been out there for 16 days in 100-degree heat, camping out. And there was a 3-month-old baby there, who was becoming ill. A kindly Mexican nurse had come forward to assist the child. That’s what’s keeping all of these people alive on the bridge, is all of us. 

Can they go back to Reynosa to use the bathrooms or get dinner or sleep in a little motel? No. Immigrants right now are the number-one target for the cartels in Reynosa. So, anyone deported or anyone obviously coming north, if they see you coming back across the bridge with babies, you will be kidnapped. They have figured out that it’s a great, booming business, in fact, to grab anyone being sent back. And the reason is they know that they will have someone up north who cares about them. They may be totally destitute, but they’ll go find the $10,000. 

Now what we’re seeing is they make them sit on the bridge in the hopes that they’ll just voluntarily go back. But, the last few days, they’ve started telling people, “You’re not allowed on the bridge at all. Go back.” Sending any refugee back to a place of danger, it’s a violation of international law, which I’m sure President Trump doesn’t care about at all. But it’s also a violation of U.S. law, and it has been for many years. We’re breaking the law. We’re ignoring the cartels. And we’re punishing the hell out of the victims. How that makes us great, I couldn’t tell you. 

AMY GOODMAN: That was Jennifer Harbury, human rights lawyer, who’s lived in the Rio Grande Valley for over 40 years, interviewed by Democracy Now!'s Renée Feltz. When we come back, we'll look at Trump administration’s reported plans to build tent cities on military bases near the U.S.-Mexico border to accommodate the increasing numbers of migrant children being held. Stay with us. 

 

 

Publication Date: June 18 de 2018
Source: https://www.democracynow.org