Reuters
October 28, 2014
(Reuters)
- A group of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives has called
on President Barack Obama to suspend deportations of Central American
families until problems
are resolved at the newly opened detention facilities holding women and
children.
The
32 House Democrats, led by Representatives Zoe Lofgren of California
and John Conyers of Michigan, wrote Obama on Monday to voice concerns
about the legal process
at the detention centers and the conditions in those centers.
"We
believe it is critical that no detained families be removed (deported)
until we can ensure that we are not returning such families to face
persecution and torture
abroad," the letter said.
The
lawmakers also expressed doubt about Obama's plans to significantly
expand family detentions with the planned opening of a facility in
Dilley, Texas, that eventually
will hold up to 2,400 women and children.
This
expansion, the lawmakers wrote, should be put on hold "until serious
problems have been resolved" in existing detention centers.
Their
complaints came 10 days after high-ranking U.S. Senate Democrats called
on the Obama administration to reverse its policy of detaining families
from El Salvador,
Honduras and Guatemala, who earlier this year rushed over the
southwestern U.S. border with Mexico by the tens of thousands.
Many,
if not most, of the families are seeking asylum in the United States,
saying they are victims of violence their home countries cannot
effectively counter. Drug-related
gang violence is rife in the three countries, as is domestic violence.
As
the numbers of unaccompanied children and children traveling with
parents rose this summer, the Obama administration adopted a get-tough
policy aimed at discouraging
future immigrants from making the dangerous journey, often with
high-paid human traffickers who exploit them.
For
the first time since 2009, Obama authorized the detention of some of
these families with children who range in age from toddlers to
teenagers. Previously, nearly all
of them would have been released into monitored programs pending their
court hearings.
The
lawmakers said the government lacked authority to impose either no
bonds or high bonds to keep families in detention, which they said had
the effect of setting more
stringent restraints on women and children compared with all other
undocumented immigrants apprehended.
The
House Democrats recounted a story of a mother and child who were
detained at a Karnes, Texas, center even after the mother cleared a
preliminary asylum interview.
The
woman's child was suffering from brain cancer, the lawmakers wrote, and
the two were released "only after a pro bono attorney obtained further
documentation from a
medical expert that the child's condition was life threatening."
The
Democrats also cited a lack of workers with child care experience in
the detention centers. And they complained that immigrant mothers are
loathe to recount, in the
presence of their children, sexual assaults and domestic violence they
suffered. Failure to do so "could prevent the asylum seeker from
establishing the burden of proof" necessary to avoid deportation, they
wrote.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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