‘LET US OUT’: ICE DETENTION OF CHILDREN SPARKS PROTESTS
AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering, Javier Hidalgo, if you can describe the conditions inside, as we hear this painful cry of children and parents, “Let us out! Let us out!”
JAVIER HIDALGO: Imagine you were in a jail. And imagine it was a jail that was probably conditioned worse than any jail that our criminal justice system would put someone in. Now, imagine you’re in there with your child, watching your child deteriorate day after day. And it’s a jail that no one else — no one in there has actually done anything wrong, right?
Because no criminals are in immigrant detention. They can’t be. They would be in our criminal justice system. And every day, the guards there are saying, “Well, if you want this to end, just give up your case.” And so, imagine that condition. Imagine being there with a breastfeeding child under the age of 1, and the water that they give you to mix with formula smells so bad that your child won’t take it down. That’s the type of conditions. Lack of medical care is constant.
And let me just say, my context for this is our organization has been working providing legal services to families in family detention since Obama opened them in 2014 in some form. We’ve been documenting these harms. These harms aren’t new. It’s almost as — it’s a tool that just keeps getting recycled and used.
But the conditions are just horrific, and it’s unimaginable. Lack of adequate food. We often hear about food with bugs or worms in it, half-frozen food being given, guards yelling at parents if their kids are making too much noise or they’re asking for an extra apple …
