US: Trauma in Family Immigration Detention | WPN World People News

Indefinite detention of asylum-seeking mothers and their children in the United States takes a severe psychological toll, Human Rights Watch said on 15 May, 2015. Mothers from 25 detained families, including 10 who had been locked up for 8 to 10 months, described to Human Rights Watch their family’s trauma, depression, and suicidal thoughts.

The Obama administration has until May 24, 2015, to propose a plan in response to a federal judge’s preliminary ruling that family detention violates a binding settlement on the rights of migrant children. US authorities should immediately release migrant families detained after entering the United States to seek asylum, Human Rights Watch said.

“The Obama administration has now kept traumatized children and their mothers locked up for nearly a year,” said Clara Long, US researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They have no idea when they will be released, and they are terrified to be deported back to places where they could be killed, raped, or otherwise harmed.”

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has responsibility for immigration detention centers, announced on May 13 that it would create new oversight mechanisms for family detention. It said that it would no longer make the argument in individual cases that it can detain families to deter future migrants and would review every 60 days the custody status of families detained more than three months.

The US started detaining large numbers of migrant mothers and their children in July 2014 as part of what Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson called an “aggressive deterrence strategy” aimed at Central American unauthorized border crossers, among them many asylum seekers.

More than 1,000 mothers and children are locked up in three facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania. The government is constructing space to detain another 2,000 people in families, most in a new facility in Dilley, Texas, which is expected to have capacity to hold 2,400 people in families upon its completion in late May 2015. This facility will be largest immigration detention center in the United States.

“The government should not be searching for new oversight mechanisms for family detention,” Long said. “What’s needed is for the government to simply end family detention.”

Though some asylum-seeking families are released on bond in a matter of weeks, others are either considered ineligible for bond because they have previously been deported or are unable to pay bonds that regularly top $7,500, lawyers working with the families said. Families are provided no information as to when their confinement might end. Human Rights Watch spoke with two women who have been detained with their children since July 2014, over 10 months ago.

Considering families ineligible for release because of a previous deportation does not take into account the validity of their claims for asylum, Human Rights Watch said. Previous Human Rights Watch research found that many of those deported in fast-track procedures had no reasonable opportunity to make an asylum claim.

In late April 2015, US District Court Judge Dolly Gee in California issued a preliminary ruling that the family detention system violates an 18-year-old settlement agreement obligating the US government to favor release of migrant children to their families, or, if not possible, to hold them in the least restrictive environment. She gave the government and lawyers for the detained children until May 24 to negotiate an agreement on compliance. In response, Justice Department lawyers have threatened to release the children while leaving their mothers detained.

International law prohibits detention of asylum seekers except as a measure of last resort and only for reasons such as concerns about danger to the public. Family detention is inconsistent with international standards, particularly the fundamental principle that the “best interest of the child” should control the government’s actions toward children. Instead of detaining families with children, the US should create community-based supervision or other alternatives to detention, where necessary, allowing families out of custody while immigration courts weigh their asylum claims.

“Indefinite detention takes an especially damaging psychological toll on those who had been forced to flee their homes,” Long said. “Children are asking their mothers, ‘When will we be able to leave?’ and these mothers have no reply.”

Source:Human Rights Watch