US immigrant kids: Held in Tents Cities

Around 10,000 immigrant kids arrived alone in the U.S. and were held in tents. According to some media based in Washington, the Trump administration projects to build tents in different military posts with the purpose of locking them up in Texas.

Officers from the Department of Health and Human Service will visit soon the US army bases in Fort Bliss aiming for getting 5,000 of these kids there while the rest are supposed to be left in the other two military bases of the state.

According to journalist Franco Ordonez —El Nuevo Herald—, it occurs at the same time that shelters for children separated from their parents on the border with Mexico are 95% full.

The number of children in this situation increased in 20%. The US secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen and the Attorney General Jeff Sessions placed a zero tolerance policy that separates children from their parents.

Trump’s government justifies itself by claiming that the Congress allows federal authorities to free illegal immigrants who wait for their hearings.

The Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in a round table with the Head of State rallied against those measures that hinder the immediate deportation of those children.

He noted that “it can take months or even yearsonce they get into the federal immigration court system.”

Rosenstein added “In fact, approximately 6,000 unaccompanied children each year fail to appear when they’ve been summoned.”

As we know, tens of thousands of families and children that came alone were arrested since 2014, when Central American mothers arrived in Valle del Rio Grande in Texas, fleeing from violence and extreme poverty.

Leon Fresco, Deputy Attorney General under Barack Obama, said “dividing families is not only controversial, but excessively expensive.”

There were people who accused the government of Donald Trump of using children as pawns to score some political points.

Clara Long, American researcher of the Human Rights Watch, highlighted that “arresting children by immigration purposes is never positive for them and the possibility of having those children living on tent cities is horrible.”

When Washington criticizes the human right subject in the world, they do not mention issues like this one.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Diaz/CubaSi Translation Staff