Democrats blast Trump’s migrant detention centers as inhumane

By Makini Brice

Read: Kristi Noem Is Banned From 20% of South Dakota.

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats sharpened their attacks on Republican President Donald Trump’shandling of the migrant crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border on Wednesday, charging that immigrants held there were being denied basic human rights and urging the Border Patrol’s leadership be fired.

U.S. lawmakers and civil rights activists who have visited migrant detention centers along the border have described nightmarish conditions marked by overcrowding and inadequate access to food, water and other basic needs.

The Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general on Tuesday published graphic photos of migrant-holding centers in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley crammed with twice as many people as they were meant to hold.

“How can anybody look at these photos and think this isn’t a human rights abuse?” U.S. Senator Kamala Harris of California, a candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, wrote in a Twitter post on Wednesday.

U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro said following a visit to the border this week that detainees there had been not been allowed to bathe for two weeks and had been deprived of medication and locked in areas with broken water faucets.

“It’s clear that their human rights were being neglected,” the Texas Democrat told reporters in a conference call.

FACEBOOK POSTS

Trump, who has made cracking down on illegal immigration a key part of his first-term agenda, said the crisis at the border could be fixed if migrants only came into the United States legally.

“Our Border Patrol people are not hospital workers, doctors or nurses,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Great job by Border Patrol, above and beyond. Many of these illegals (sic) aliens are living far better now than where they … came from, and in far safer conditions.”

Scrutiny of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency intensified this week after reports that current and former agents had posted offensive anti-immigrant comments and targeted lawmakers on a private Facebook group.

Acting Department of Homeland Security chief Kevin McAleenan on Wednesday ordered an investigation, calling the comments “disturbing.” McAleenan said any employee found to have “compromised the public’s trust in our law enforcement mission” would be held accountable.

The Facebook posts, first reported by ProPublica, included jokes about immigrants dying and sexually explicit content about U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who was highly critical of the detention facilities after a tour this week.

Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called for the acting head of the CBP and other top leaders at the agency to be fired.

“The horrid conditions CBP has subjected children and families to at the border are nothing short of inhumane and downright inexcusable,” Schumer said.

‘INCENTIVIZES SMUGGLERS’

The White House on Wednesday sharply criticized a ruling by a federal judge in Seattle who blocked an administration move to keep thousands of asylum seekers in custody while they pursued their cases.

“The district court’s injunction is at war with the rule of law,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement. “The decision only incentivizes smugglers and traffickers, which will lead to the further overwhelming of our immigration system by illegal aliens.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and other immigrant rights groups sued the government in April after Attorney General William Barr concluded that asylum seekers who entered the country illegally were not eligible for bond.

Tuesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said migrants cannot be denied a bond hearing while they fight their asylum cases and blocked the implementation of a policy that was due to take affect July 15.

Congress has blocked Trump’s efforts to get funding to build a wall on the southern border, and he was forced last year to backtrack after his “zero tolerance” policy of allowing migrant children to be separated from their parents provoked widespread outrage.

But the record surge of mostly Central American families at the U.S. southwestern border has begun to ease after tougher enforcement efforts in Mexico, according to Mexican and U.S. officials.

BORDER ARRESTS FALL

Mexico’s government, citing unpublished U.S. data, said border arrests fell 30% in June from the previous month after a migration crackdown as part of a deal with the United States to avoid possible trade tariffs.

The Mexican government said it was busing home Central American migrants from Ciudad Juarez who had been forced to wait in Mexico for their asylum claims to be processed under a U.S. policy known as “Remain in Mexico.”

After migrant arrests reached a 13-year monthly high in May, immigration has arguably become the biggest issue for Trump and the Democratic presidential contenders vying for the nomination.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey would “virtually eliminate immigration detention” if he wins the White House, his campaign said on Tuesday.

Democratic presidential hopeful Julian Castro, Joaquin Castro’s brother, last week proposed decriminalizing border crossings as a step toward freeing up federal resources and eliminating thousands of immigration cases clogging criminal courts.

Trump, meanwhile, looked to stir up support for his policies, promising immigration raids after the July 4 U.S. Independence Day holiday to arrest migrants with deportation orders.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon, Diego Ore and David Alire Garcia in Mexico City, Jonathan Allen in New York and David Alexander, Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Eric Beech and Makini Brice in Washington and Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Writing by Paul Simao and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Bill Tarrant, Bill Trott and Jonathan Oatis)