The Washington Post article discusses the creation of detention facilities for illegal immigrant families awaiting their asylum hearings, like the one in Texas and Berks County, PA.
In the past, mothers were separated from their children, husbands from their wives etc., These new detention facilities are presented as an alternative to placing the children out into temporary foster care, or putting the parents into bona fide immigration prisons.
Immigrant rights groups call these detention facilities little more than supped-up prison facilities and request alternatives, like paroling the detainees, placing them in special shelters while they await their immigration hearing. What do you think?
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
War against Euphoria
Hate Hope and Human Rights At least that's what the addicts describe it as. In 2020 alone, an estimated 9.5 million Americans, just A...
-
The United States has consistently tiptoed around Chinese human rights issues. An American politician may occasional issue a condemnation ...
-
The UN will celebrate its 60th birthday on October 24th. But as Meg L., suggests below, not many will be celebrating. Chris B, goes a step f...
3 comments:
I might say that as itself those facilities are wrong, because the whole inmigration laws are meant to be that way. That's what it's really wrong. People that seek asylum are treated as criminals. It's a very difficult issue, and the US is trying to use as little funds as they can. They have to cut expenses, so they make it difficult to inmigrants as a result.
I agree with Snipe's comment, since because the laws need re-working, so do the facilities which house the immigrants. My question is, should the US cut funds in other areas, and use the money to better house immigrants and families? It's tough for me to even begin to answer because I know how many people are poor and in need in this country, so who is to say that the immigrants coming in deserve it more than the Americans already needing it? Because our country has to pick and choose what to fund, immigrants suffer - and the hard part is, figuring out how to help them, how to make their problems and the importance of their being here known, and where to find the expenses to create better conditions for them.
One quote from this article particularly caught my attention: "As a country that supports family values, we should not be treating immigrant families who have not committed a crime like criminals, particularly children," said Ralston H. Deffenbaugh Jr., president of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Although I can try and understand where this person is coming from, it seems to me that he has a very different view of those who are detained in immigration facilities. After reading the Kassindja book, I got the feeling that a lot of people who are detained in such facilities are not criminals. It is well and good to say that this should not happen. However, it is happening. The question is: where do we go from here?
Post a Comment