In my previous article, "An Immigration Failure: The Legal Crucible" I explored the crucible of legal challenges that unaccompanied, undocumented children face when they enter this country; however, there is another problem plaguing the United States' detention centers while a child is detained. An overcrowded population of more than 470,000 adult detainees is found throughout the country in detention centers. By combining the population of unaccompanied children and the population of adult detainees, the extent of overpopulation in the 111 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention centers is clear as they contain the combined population of over 500,000. With such a stress on resources, it is obvious that an infraction of human rights would occur for the vulnerable population of children.
Multiple reporters have investigated and published articles detailing the substandard care, treatment, and procedure provided to children in detention centers. One article exposed that a highly infectious disease, shigellosis, was allowed to spread among the children despite having the medical resources available to combat the infection. Rather than allow medical staff to treat the children afflicted by this disease, the ICE staff provided diapers to treat the symptoms of diarrhea and would reject all pleas by stating for the family to terminate their “case at any time and return to your country”. This account is in agreement with an article published by the New York Times covering the living conditions in the United States detention centers in which pneumonia, scabies, and lice are rampant. A study of children who experienced life in a detention center revealed that these children would suffer from weight-loss, gastro-intestinal problems, and suicidal thoughts. The environment of the detention center itself creates an atmosphere that is unsuitable for any child.
Even when children are switched from the custody of ICE to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) there have been multiple cases in which no care was taken during the procedure. The New York Times reports that HHS had placed more than a dozen children—it is unknown how many other cases are unreported—into the custody of human traffickers due to a failure to conduct an adequate background check . It is this failure to adhere to regulation and policy that has created an environment in which detained children risk health concerns and human rights violations. Improvement is absolutely necessary in these detention centers as children can not continue to fall prey to potential abusers.
This lack of accountability, coupled with the failure to provide adequate counsel, has fostered an immigration system in the United States that aims not only to deny children and adolescents fair due process but also to perpetuate inhumane conditions. The people of the United States have been conditioned to believe that the treatment of these unaccompanied, undocumented children is justifiable because they do not deserve to be here or receive assistance, but in condoning this mentality many critics of immigration reform forget to take into account the instigating factors which propel these children to travel the hazardous journey.
In order for an effective immigration system to be created in the United States, a system which displays the core principles of democracy, community leaders must move not only to ensure legislation is tailored to guarantee fair due process for all people and accountability in the wake of malpractice and abuse, but also to change the negative stigma associated with being an undocumented immigrant. Without changing the negative perspective and discriminatory ideology associated with immigrant reform, legislation will continue to be subject for change and humanitarian progress will fall to retrogression.
Written with hope for a better future,
Nuno
