TRUMP ADMINISTRATION RESUMES IMMIGRANT FAMILY DETENTIONS
Faisal Al-Juburi, chief external affairs officer for RAICES, said the families being held are not just those who have recently crossed the southern border.
“From what we know right now, there’s evidence of apprehensions from the northern border, from Canada. Also strong indications of interior enforcement, so families being swept up in some type of action across the United States and being brought into Karnes,” he said.
Others held in the facility, he said, had a credible fear interview 10 years ago, suggesting they have been in the U.S. for some time.
The families currently held in detention are originally from Colombia, Romania, Iran, Angola, Russia, Armenia, Turkey and Brazil.
Plans to resume the practice were condemned by immigrant advocates, who stressed the mental toll on children as well as their parents.
“For years we worked to expose the horrific conditions inside immigration jails, where vulnerable children and their parents suffered irreversible mental and physical health impacts, lasting trauma, medical neglect, and other horrifying documented abuses,” Robyn Barnard, senior director of refugee advocacy at Human Rights First, said in a statement.
