The Flores Agreement

The Dump administration is violating the Flores Agreement, which states that children of immigrants should not be detained for more than twenty days. We have until November 6 to give feedback about the Flores Agreement.

You can send your letter via email or snail mail.

For email, the subject line must include: DHS Docket No. ICEB-2018-0002

The letter goes to:  ICE.Regulations@ice.dhs.gov

Or:

Debbie Seguin, Assistant Director, Office of Policy/ U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Department of Homeland Security/ 500 12th Street SW/ Washington, DC 20536

Below is the letter I’m sending (probably by both email and snail mail, actually):

Dear DHS AND HHS,

You need to honor the Flores Agreement. This is just common sense for anyone with a conscience. The agreement allows for twenty days of detainment for immigrant children, and only twenty days…which is twenty too many. Many of these refugee children have been detained considerably longer than that, which is illegal.

There is absolutely no excuse for treating desperate asylum seekers like criminals and separating their children from them, let alone continuing to keep their children separated from them, let alone keeping the children in cages.

Only under extremely desperate circumstances do people take their children and leave their country of origin to enter this country. They’re fleeing from, for instance, a domestic violence situation in which the entire town sides with their abuser against them, and their life and that of their children is in danger.

The refugees—including the children—are already traumatized. Tearing children from their parents and treating them like criminals is child abuse. While the children are detained, in some cases they are subject to psychological, physical, and even sexual abuse. These are many layers of abuse and trauma, and this country is contributing to much of it. Even during the Japanese internment camps, children remained with their parents.

And by the way, insisting that people write letters like this in English is just more racism and xenophobia.

Cordially,

Susan E. Wigget

Abolish ICE

My letter to the governor of the state where I live:

Dear Governor,

Refugee children must be reunited with their families and have access to pro-bono.

These children are undoubtedly already traumatized before they even reach the border into the country formerly known as the United States. When they reach the border, either their parents aren’t with them, or ICE (the Gestapo) border patrol force them to part with their parents. Children are in concentration camps in Texas. This treatment—being taken from their parents and locked up and not knowing where their parents are—will ensure that these children are traumatized for life.

The Dump administration is practicing gross abuse of human rights; the UN has declared this treatment of immigrants inhumane. People come to this country in search of asylum because life back home has become unendurable…and when they get here, they’re treated like criminals. This is unconscionable. This country is unworthy of the Statue of Liberty.

ICE is now right here in Oregon, and they have every intention of locking up immigrant parents in the Sheridan Detention Center. You have the power to refuse to allow this to happen.

Department of Injustice

I just mailed this off:

Dear Department of Injustice,

You need to resume being the Department of Justice…assuming you ever did represent justice which, wait, you haven’t, since this has always been an overtly racist and misogynistic country that makes life a lot harder for poor people and people of color. But I digress.

Children are not blackmail tools for detention. Children aren’t criminals and don’t belong in cages. The country formerly known as the United States is violating human rights to an extent that it hasn’t done since Japanese Americans were sent off to internment camps.