Thread: A 'double standard' for child detainees

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/spe ... 41878.html

March 19, 2007, 12:06PM
A 'double standard' for child detainees

By LISA FALKENBERG
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

CORPUS CHRISTI — Blue-jeaned boys chase a soccer ball in the sun. Girls hang out in their dorm, one crocheting an American flag wall-hanging, others grooving to music and gabbing about an upcoming spring break dance in the gym.

"Please, let us have boys there," one sassy teen pleads with administrator Hector Acevedo, who has just jokingly suggested it be an all-girl affair.

He smiles as the girls turn up a thumping Reggaetón beat on the radio and start shaking their stuff.

"Real American girls," Acevedo says, laughing.

"Claro!" one girl responds. Of course.

But these aren't American kids, no matter how much they desperately want to be. They're some of about 60 "unaccompanied minors," undocumented immigrant children largely from Central America being housed at the Bokenkamp Children's Center after making the journey from their homelands alone.

Federal law requires these children to be sent to foster care or homelike shelters like Bokenkamp while the government tries to locate family and courts weigh their immigration cases.

Life at Bokenkamp, with its bingo nights, dodge ball tournaments, trips to the beach and rigorous school days, is a stark contrast to conditions at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Center, a converted medium security prison in Central Texas being used to house about 400 immigrant parents and their children, from infants to teens.

Immigration advocates say the two facilities illustrate an inconsistency in the way the government treats immigrant children: If they come alone, they're usually sent to child-friendly shelters and protected by federal regulations requiring special treatment for children. They're in the custody of a social services agency, the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

If they come with parents, they can end up at Hutto, where they must wear uniforms, sleep in cells monitored by lasers, comply with a thrice-daily head count and reportedly go weeks without playing in the sun. They're in the custody of a law enforcement agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an arm of Homeland Security.

"The unaccompanied alien children at this point have it better," said Chris Nugent, Washington, D.C.-based senior counsel with the Community Services Team at Holland and Knight. "There is a double standard operating right now because ORR would never house families in a private prison, and ORR would be providing much more comprehensive care."

Similar concerns led the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigration advocates to sue the U.S. government earlier this month over Hutto.

In 10 lawsuits, the ACLU claimed Hutto violated virtually every provision of a 1997 settlement protecting immigrant minors. The so-called Flores accord guarantees such things as a child's right to wear his own clothes, appropriate medical and mental health care, privacy and family contact visits.

The settlement was tailored for minors who come alone because detaining families wasn't an issue at the time. Flores resulted from a class-action lawsuit accusing immigration officials of mistreating minors, many of whom were jailed in lockups with violent offenders.

Years after the settlement, as concerns persisted that immigration officials continued to jail children, Congress in 2003 transferred custody of unaccompanied minors to ORR, the social services agency also in charge of resettling refugee families who come legally.

ICE still learning
ORR Director Martha Newton said her agency is driven by "the best interest of the child."

"Regardless of anybody's position on immigration, these are children," Newton said. "And I want people to know, regardless of whether they're illegal or not, these children are going to be cared for while they're in our custody."

Newton wouldn't comment on ICE's policies, except to say, "They're a law enforcement agency. They're not a social services agency. But we work closely with them and we do share things that we see work with kids in our program."

Gary Mead, ICE's assistant director for detention and removal operations in Washington, has acknowledged the agency is still learning how best to care for families. The agency is consulting with advocacy organizations to draft standards for family care.

Intense media coverage has led to changes at Hutto, including the removal of razor wire on fencing and expansion of the school day from one hour to seven.

ICE has maintained that Hutto is a humane alternative to separating families from countries other than Mexico while they await outcome of their immigration cases. ICE began detaining families after abandoning the old "catch and release" system after 9/11 because the majority of immigrants weren't showing up to court hearings.

For now, places like Bokenkamp are reserved for youths who come alone. They come from countries like Honduras and Guatemala to escape poverty and abuse, to find long-lost mothers and fathers.

"The biggest reason is they want a better life for themselves, like all Americans, right?" said Acevedo, administrator at Bokenkamp, a former drug treatment center now run by Lutheran Social Services.

They come hungry, dirty and scared, having survived on canned beans or tuna fish for weeks, their feet aflame with sores from walking hundreds of miles through the desert.

Three days to six months
"They don't know a soul. They're so wide-eyed, they don't know who's who. They have that fear-of-God look," Acevedo said.

The youths stay anywhere from three days to six months. The national average is 45 days, Newton said. Except for asylum-seekers, most unaccompanied minors face slim chances of staying in the country permanently. About 20 percent are deported directly from Bokenkamp, Acevedo said, and most others are reunited with family while courts consider their immigration cases.

"We don't know how long they're going to be here, but we're going to treat them as though they'll be here for years," said Acevedo, who has overseen foster care and Boys Town facilities.

Around Bokenkamp, the gregarious 44-year-old former social worker with the big smile and salty dark hair is known as "Don Hector," and seems more like a popular principal or favorite uncle than an administrator.

Bokenkamp youths get a full day of school. Children who may not have seen a computer are exposed to lessons on designing resumes and cover letters. They have access to an outdoor pool and greenhouse.

In her cheery classroom, English teacher Erica Garza invents games to teach vocabulary and requires journaling.

"The kids really appreciate everything we do for them and they're eager to learn," Garza said.

Good behavior and grades earn "points," which can be spent in a store stocked with donated stuffed animals, jewelry, cosmetics, bathing suits and stationery.

Living conditions constitute one of the most glaring contrasts to Hutto.

While Hutto kids dwell in stark prison cells with metal beds and bare walls that can't be decorated, youths at Bokenkamp sleep in dormlike spaces, complete with wooden beds, colorful quilts handmade by local church ladies and walls lined with drawings, posters and framed certificates recognizing academic achievement.

As required under Flores, children have access to individual counseling and group sessions where they learn about sex abuse, trafficking and how to deal with culture shock.

"Some adjust better than others," said Dolly Garza, a counselor whose bright lipstick and bouquet of blond curls match her bubbly personality. "The confinement gets to them and that's when we have to go in and talk to them, kind of nurture them."

For 17-year-old Brenda, who escaped an abusive family life in Guatemala, Bokenkamp is more like a home than a detention facility. The pretty teen, with long Botticelli-style hair, paisley blouse and black-beaded jewelry, said the last three months have been the happiest of her life.

"I'm very grateful for the treatment I receive," she said in Spanish. "Not only do they educate us, they develop relationships with us. I never had the opportunity to study in my country. Now I do the best I can because I only had up to sixth grade and sixth grade in Guatemala means nothing."

Her room is lined with framed certificates for academic achievement in horticulture, civics and electronics.

Attached
Jorge, 15, from Honduras, holds a special place in Acevedo's heart. He constantly teases the boy about the wavy black locks inching down his neck and over his ears.

"I keep telling him he needs a haircut," Acevedo said as he and Jorge visit at a picnic table.

Jorge, who ventured into the United States more than a month ago to find his mother in San Francisco, loves learning English at Bokenkamp, but, really, "everything is my favorite."

"I feel safe here. I know no one is going to hit me. I get medicine when I need it," he said, adding that he hopes the education "will help me be somebody in my life."

Although he dearly wants to see his mother, he'll be sad to leave Bokenkamp. He tells Acevedo, "You treat me like I am your son."

The administrator's eyes grow misty when he thinks about his kids ending up in a penal-like environment.

"How sickening, how sad. Nobody should be treated like that," said Acevedo.

lisa.falkenberg@chron.com

Jorge, who ventured into the United States more than a month ago to find his mother in San Francisco

This basically quashes the debate about minors being left on either side of the border---when Illegals come here, they abandon their children, and no one says a thing.

But watch out when they get caught in the U.S., and have their children here. The cries of "negligence", and "forced abandonment" are hurled at the immigration enforcers when the parents are jailed.

Add to that the whining sing-song of the do-gooder illegal "support groups" about the "poor children", and you have the making of one of those lovely television ads, with dirty children, eyes as big as lumps of coal, used as a backdrop to "give from your heart"!

There is no pleasing the ACLU! A couple weeks ago they were whinning about family separation and now they are whinning because law enforcement is keeping the family together. Anyone ever get the feeling the ACLU really doesn't care about the right or wrong of things, but that they just want to be disruptive and anti-American?

Yup---thus I have coined a new term;

The ACLU will now be known as the Anti-Christian Liars Union.

American children are this Nation's most valuable asset. They represent the bright future of our country and hold our hope for a better Nation. Our children are also the most vulnerable members of society. Protecting them against the fear of crime and from becoming victims of crime must be a national priority.

The first thing I think of when I read stories like A 'double standard' for child detainees is who is to blame in the first place? (The home country and the parents), that’s where it all falls, every crime, every fallen child, and every foster child. There is two much baby making just to do it, or just for the fun of the three second thrill.

Now, if we take out the fact that some foster kids have no choice, because of death of mom and dad, or they are victims of some sex crime, and no place to go but into the system, we are only left with what the parents have done to cause the problems.
Most of those problems started long before last set of parents, it can go back as far as three generations.
Don’t get me wrong here; some kids have no choice because of some other unforeseen tragedy.
This illegal immigrant child left behind problem is not a United States problem;
These kids don’t belong to us, and should be shipped back to the home country.
The government from which they came needs to take care of them.
That’s who the ACLU needs to waste the time trying to sue, not the USA not the American government

What I mean by all this, unless parents from these central American countries are every taught the right way to have and raise a family, we are going to be supporting children in more then one way wither it be foster care, or criminal care, its going fall on the USA if theses kids end up here.
The longer they spend in the system the worse the problem will become.

We in America have always taken a soft side to children no mater what the problem. This must stop.
If we close the boarder and deport the criminal Alien parents, these problems will slowly go away.

If we never let the families criminally enter in the first place, the courts and foster care could be dealing better with Americas children, the ones that need them, then our tax dollars can be spent on our own problems.

We have to grow cold blooded. Let the ACLU suck out any blood they want.
The courts are just going to have to learn to shut them down, shut them up, and ship them out, before the ACLU can even file the first piece of paper.

CORPUS CHRISTI — Blue-jeaned boys chase a soccer ball in the sun. Girls hang out in their dorm, one crocheting an American flag wall-hanging, others grooving to music and gabbing about an upcoming spring break dance in the gym.

It really is all sunshine and puppy dogs isn't it.
There are no law breakers here. Just innocent bright eyed children who want to grow up to be president someday and create the cure for cancer.

Mean Mean spirited Americans. How DARE you try and enforce the laws of your country? GAG

This story could easily read...
Ms-13 tattooed boys wearing gang colors and pregnant teen girls who dropped out of school in the 8th grade sit in a room discussing La Raza and how they plan to make lots of children to outnumber the Americans and take their homeland back while rolling blunts.
These reporters are despicable! Have they no heart for the children of America?
Do our children deserve to go to crowded gang laden schools?
Do our children deserve to be exposed to dangerous diseases even
though their parents dutifully made sure they had all known vaccines?
Should our children be victims of gang violence?
Should they suffer molestation by perverts who then sneak back across
the border never to be heard from again?
Should our children suffer without the things they need because their
parents have been low waged out of the work force?
Should our children die at the hands of a drunken illegal driver or attend
the funeral of their fathers who were returning home from work and were
smashed by a van full of fleeing illegals?
Should our children lose thier birthright because our government refused
to enfore that law and let an invasion occur that diminished our way of life
until we had nothing left but a third world version of ourselves?
Do our children deserve to be forgotten by the press in this country?

Originally Posted by ProudAmericanFamily

CORPUS CHRISTI — Blue-jeaned boys chase a soccer ball in the sun. Girls hang out in their dorm, one crocheting an American flag wall-hanging, others grooving to music and gabbing about an upcoming spring break dance in the gym.

It really is all sunshine and puppy dogs isn't it.
There are no law breakers here. Just innocent bright eyed children who want to grow up to be president someday and create the cure for cancer.

Mean Mean spirited Americans. How DARE you try and enforce the laws of your country? GAG

This story could easily read...
Ms-13 tattooed boys wearing gang colors and pregnant teen girls who dropped out of school in the 8th grade sit in a room discussing La Raza and how they plan to make lots of children to outnumber the Americans and take their homeland back while rolling blunts.
These reporters are despicable! Have they no heart for the children of America?
Do our children deserve to go to crowded gang laden schools?
Do our children deserve to be exposed to dangerous diseases even
though their parents dutifully made sure they had all known vaccines?
Should our children be victims of gang violence?
Should they suffer molestation by perverts who then sneak back across
the border never to be heard from again?
Should our children suffer without the things they need because their
parents have been low waged out of the work force?
Should our children die at the hands of a drunken illegal driver or attend
the funeral of their fathers who were returning home from work and were
smashed by a van full of fleeing illegals?
Should our children lose thier birthright because our government refused
to enfore that law and let an invasion occur that diminished our way of life
until we had nothing left but a third world version of ourselves?
Do our children deserve to be forgotten by the press in this country?

This just gave me the feeling I was looking for today as i go and talk with my town counsel men,women and mayor
Thank you

Your welcome.
Now go give them heck!!!

He said when one girls said bring more boys..."Real American girls."

I find that insulting! To me it's implying that all American girls are all boy crazy!