The Horrid History of Convict Leasing

In 1865 the 13th amendment abolished slavery except as punishment for someone convicted of a crime . The crimes that people were convicted of were ridiculous (being recently “freed” from slavery, but arrested and convicted for not yet having found employment). So convict leasing as a form of slavery continued. And basically still exists. If you don’t understand this point in history, I highly recommend educating yourself. It is critical to understanding the present moment and recognizing how much of this country was literally built by enslaved Africans and African Americans. This recent finding in the article below also further illustrates the lengths those with power have gone to in order to hide and obscure the truth of this practice and the treatment of people.

From the article: Bodies believed to be those of 95 black forced-labor prisoners from Jim Crow era unearthed in Sugar Land

” The convict-leasing system proliferated across the south in the late 19th century and into the 20th, overwhelmingly targeting black Americans picked up for offenses such as vagrancy, flirting with white women or petty theft, as historian Douglas A. Blackmon reported in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Slavery by Another Name.” The prisoners were then leased by the state to private businessmen and forced to work on plantations, in coal mines and railroads, or on other state projects — such as building the entire Texas Capitol building from scratch.

When the state leased convicts out to private contractors, they had no financial interest in the health or welfare of the people working for them,” said W. Caleb McDaniel, a history professor at Rice University in Houston. “And so the convict-leasing system saw extremely high levels of mortality and sickness under convict lessees. If the prisoner died, they would simply go back to the state and say, ‘You owe us another prisoner.’ ”

From sunup to sundown, convicts who were leased by the state to plantation owners toiled in the fields chopping sugar cane sometimes until they “dropped dead in their tracks,” as the State Convention of Colored Men of Texas complained in 1883.

Reginald Moore, started researching Sugar Land’s slavery and convict-leasing history after spending time working as a prison guard at one of Texas’s oldest prisons, and his curiosity intensified. He had a hunch. Based on what he learned, he believed that the bodies of former slaves and black prisoners were still buried in Sugar Land’s backyard.

For 19 years, he searched for their bodies, stopping just short of sticking a shovel in the dirt himself.

At the former Imperial State Prison Farm site, archaeologists have unearthed an entire plot of precise rectangular graves for 95 souls, each buried two to five feet beneath the soil in nearly disintegrated pinewood caskets. The 19th-century cemetery was unmarked, with no vestige of its existence visible from the surface.

But more crucially, he said, it vindicates the prisoners whose backbreaking work helped rebuild the state of Texas in the ruins of the post-Civil War era without so much as a proper burial to acknowledge their contributions.

“This is a completely rare site. It’s going to change how we think about Texas history and how we think about ourselves and how we built this state, how all of us built this state.”

Responses to White Privilege

White folks, we either want to deny that we have privilege or we want to deny that we enjoy having the privileges. It is an extreme luxury to move through the world with relative safety, general benefit of the doubt, often given a leg up and a foot in, and the list goes on and on. Why are we so resistant to facing the truth? Feeling guilty for having privilege or trying to pretend that you don’t like having privilege still contributes to the perpetuation of this reality.

~ Reflections from this month’s Racial Equity Institute.

Processing: Who Does the Heavy Lifting

We sit in the chairs to get educated.

Attentive. Being a good student. Listening for what we can learn.
Giving up a whole day of our busy lives — because we know this is important.

Truths revealed. Layers of our privilege glaring before us, for us to see.
Asked again and again — where is your empathy?
Perhaps some words land in a particular way,
And we allow our hearts to break.
Shame, sorrow, rage, confusion.
We feel the tremble in our own bodies.
How can this be? This is not right.

And then what?
We go back to our homes. Back to our lives.
Perhaps we think about — What can I do? What will I do?
Perhaps we make commitments, tell others to hold us accountable.
We process what we’ve heard.
Perhaps the intensity of listening and actually hearing is too much and we run away,
escape into the comfort of our familiar, into the ease of our peace.

Meanwhile. For those for whom these realities are their every breathing moment reality —
Where is the rest? Where is the escape? Where is the return to “my life”? Who fills in when they need a pause?

The hustle continues. Trying to provide safe spaces for youth continues. Alternatives to the streets, the guns, the violence. Alternatives to the classrooms and the spaces for leisure, where adult and peer eyes look at these teenagers and young people and believe they are lesser, up to no good, not as smart, not on a path to a bright future, believe that their parents don’t care. Hustling to create alternatives to narrow views of what their future could be. Alternatives to always having to live in the hustle.

These leaders are providing opportunities for young people to experience the joys and pleasures that life can offer. The youth have an opportunity to feel someone who is glowing with pride and appreciation for their existence, for the unique humans that they are. The youth feel the hearts of those who believe in them, who sacrifice everything they have towards the hope of their brighter future. Youth get to experience opportunities to learn relevant life skills, to grow networks of people who want to lift one another up. They provide space for laughing. Dancing. Playing. Smiling.

And then the late night hours, morning news… 12-year-old killed, 18-year-old suffering from gunshot wounds. Futures pierced with the bullets of a moment’s reality. Hope for tomorrow disrupted by the corruption of today.

And again — who is present to deal with the trauma as it is unfolding. Who feels the response-ability, the obligation to be part of the solution. And who sits civilly. In our chairs. Listening. Emotion-filled, but paralyzed in our bodies. How long have we been sitting in our chairs, at our desk, running errands, staying busy… and yet…

Today, July 1st, 2018, in Asheville, North Carolina — People of Color are absolutely disproportionately carrying the weight of leading actual change in this city. They are absolutely doing the majority of the heavy lifting to bring about more safety, fairness, justice and morality in our city. They are doing the physical and emotional labor of caring for one another in a city that is ready and willing to leave people to suffer and even die rather than actually change. They are creating spaces where we — liberal white women, progressive white men, social change oriented white folks — sit civilly, listen, and perhaps even feel. Sometimes we see that we are needed and we step in with them. Usually, if we get involved, we hang around the edges or yell loudly in inappropriate places. There are too few of us who get our hands dirty, follow their lead, and use our own deep listening and discernment to recognize what is helpful and what is more harmful.

Is today the day that one more person sees that our own life and freedom and peace and comfort is actually bound to the life and freedom and peace and comfort of others? Is today the day that more of us feel the obligation to be a part of the solutions instead of sitting by silently, or only speaking up on facebook or twitter or showing up at a rally once every few months?

It is summer time. Violent crime is on the rise in this city. Police officers can harass and beat residents on camera and still be found as innocent. Community leaders are busting their asses to try and create different realities, to try and find solutions, while being the ones leading the efforts to implement those solutions AND educate the rest of us about why what they are doing is essential and necessary. Meanwhile, they work fulltime jobs and care for their own immediate and extended families.

Are we ready to get organized as a city and make significant changes that cultivate greater care and support for one another and assertively address the oppressive and discriminatory systems that are in place?

Those who are vulnerable because of the racist, classist, and oppressive systems that this country is built up need all of us to be involved. Those of us that are privileged, detached from our capacities to empathize and connect with a greater whole and humanity, our well-being requires our involvement too.

The local is the regional is the national is the global. We can build strong networks of mutual support, resilience, and evolutionary action. There is a unique role that we each have to play. This is a massive puzzle, a huge ecosystem, and each of us have something different to contribute — what’s yours to do? What’s yours to contribute?

For me, in this moment, I had to write. The urgency to want to act and yet not clear what will best serve finds an outlet in words. And with these words is prayer, my own effort to extend my hand in a gesture of “please join me”, a prayer that perhaps one person reading will feel a new spark in their heart that says  — “Yes. I’m ready now. Let’s get to work. I will be part of the change.” And prayers for peace to those that are suffering, courage and protection for those that are leading towards different realities, and prayers for the web of our connections to strengthen so that we may be collectively more effective.

And to keep it vulnerable and transparent, today I also sit with my own personal conflict — my emotions are swept by this reality and so I’m not as available to loved ones today in the ways that I had planned to be. I’m preparing for 6 days away with family, and yet I feel that organizing and activation is so needed right now. I’m nervous about the time away when I’ll feel this need to pretend to enjoy this particular holiday season that makes me cringe… and yet the loved ones gathering mean the world to me. And I’m sitting with my white woman tendencies that feel an urgency to act — like I should be doing more now.

Breathing. Prayer. One step at a time. And LISTENING DEEPLY — to the spiritual guidance that I receive and to the guidance from those I am in community with. This is why I invest in growing strong and trusting relationships.

Thank you for reading.

It’s Time to Genuinely Protect ALL Children

On this Father’s Day, I am thinking about the societal role of father’s as protectors. I’m profoundly grateful for all the men who show up to protect, love and nurture young people and I’m grateful to all the mothers, grandmothers, sisters, brothers, and aunties who fill that role when the fathers aren’t able. I’m also feeling how self-centered and self-absorbed many white families are, how often the parenting of children is mostly just one’s own children and how easy it has been, across history in this country, to protect one’s own children and be silent and inactive as other people’s children are given no protection from hatred, violence, and injustice.

Today… like so many other days… my heart is with all the children who are being harmed, violated, tortured, and traumatized, those who have no real protection. Feeling this is hard.

When I saw the video of inside the Walmart detention center and they spoke about how the children are being taught lessons about America, underneath the large mural of Trump, I kept thinking about the many indigenous youth that were stripped from their families and abusively forced to assimilate to white society. Here we are in 2018. Doing the EXACT SAME THING. When I hear about the tent cities being constructed to warehouse these children without their families, I feel the Japanese internment camps. Here we are again, 2018. This is America.

As I hear that 2000 children have been forcibly removed from their families in 6 weeks, I also feel the 10,000 children that are in ADULT prisons in the United States RIGHT NOW and the 3000 youth that have LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE sentences. We have 13 states that have no minimum age for trying a child as an adult. This is America. All children are not valued. They never have been.

On this day, June 17th, 47 years ago in 1971, President Nixon declared the “war on drugs” which increased the prison population by 700%. The millions of children that have been and continue to be terrorized and traumatized by the incarceration of people of color, the incarceration of their family members, is inhumane. This is America. These children’s lives were never valued.

So I continue to wonder and strategize, to feel so many feelings and stay in the pain and motivation — What will it take for us as Americans, and particularly us white women, to finally see the horrors that are imposed upon children of color, families of color, white children living in poverty, and say “no more”? We have opted for hundreds of years to perhaps feel in our hearts that something isn’t right, but to choose to “keep things safe for our own children and families” which means — pretending that lynching is okay, pretending that we don’t see the diffrent quality of education being offered to children of color than to white children, convincing ourselves that there is nothing that we can do or believing that we are too busy and too tired trying to raise our own families to do anything, pretending that the juvinal justice system and the criminal justice system is actually serving justice and protecting people of color, pretending or avoiding the fact that immigrant children have been abducted from their parents, or their parents forcefully removed from them, for years. Pretending or avoiding the realities that Native young girls are being raped and violated. And not being concerned that many white boys are suffering from a fierce complex that causes them to brutalize and terrorize other people, feeling superior to other people.

I know that I have not personally done anything harmful to these millions of children that are being tortured and abused around the world, actions inspired by Capitalistic, White Supremacy, Patriarchical motives that are often justified by Christian beliefs. However, I do feel that the blood is on my hands. I wake up with this feeling daily. If I am not actively working to face the cruelty that has been present since the beginning of my country and doing what I can to change the reality here, my conscience does not rest.

It will take us coming together and acting in many different ways to address once and for all the horror of who we are as a country. All of us are required, those of humane conscience, the hearts of gold, the people who are genuinely all about freedom, equality, and LOVE. No one can opt out if we genuinely want to create a more humane world. And there are as many ways to participate as there are people, there is no one right strategy. If you’re still reading this, PLEASE don’t hear my words as saying — “you have to act in the ways I act.” That’s not it. But you do have to act — and find the ways that are right for you, for your family, for your abilities, for your current emotional state.

This is not an easy journey. May as many people as possible find the courage to step in, for real. May we be supported by one another as we do so. May we be motivated by, accountable to, and guided by love. May we truly feel our interconnectedness.

And if you feel inspired to do something and you don’t know what to do — one key step is to educate yourself about history. Use google. Understand the patterns that are repeating themselves right now.

Do you feel this obligation calling to you?

What is needed to consciously host and work through tensions of race, power and privilege while honoring unity and diversity?

Last week I gathered with 40 practitioners of participatory hosting and facilitation around the above question. Some were like me, stepping into this space with aspects of this inquiry alive in our every day, every breath, burning scars and lighting up paths as we follow our devotion and respond to the world that is, and call to life worlds that could be. Others arrived holding the value of the question, but not necessarily feeling it burning as their own. Open to learning. Willing to support. Seeing the importance. Participating from the edges. But not necessarily their call.

And so it was asked — “What needs to shift in you for you to recognize that this IS your call?” ~ Maurice Stevens

Let me be clear, it was only white people who were on the edges.

For five days we wandered around this question, dove into it, felt the fire and discomfort at its hearth, retreated to the edges, asked and acted on “what can we do?”, shared stories, and sat with the inquiry with a spectrum of responses — awe, curiosity, timidness, courage, fear, pain, shame, anger, exhaustion, righteousness, warriorship, and so much more.

My reflections and learning will continue to reveal themselves. However, a question that is fiercely alive in me as I return home, emboldened from witnessing people in its struggle is — What needs to shift in you for you to recognize that fair and just treatment of other human beings is an obligation, a response-ability, that is calling to you?

My own learning edge is to hold with grace my own judgement about the fact that so many of us still need to be invited into this call, convinced of its importance, handled carefully as we wrestle with our ignorance and shame, pushed and nudged to pay attention to the impact on people’s lives and the history that laid the foundation for this moment we are currently living. I have been this person.

I am learning to accept the facts… make statements… name what I see… don’t try and teach… acknowledge where people are at or coming from… and do so with a clear grounding in myself — grounded in my prayers for wholeness, equality and justice, grounded in the reverence I have for the life and goodness in each human being, grounded in connection with the other, grounded in love, and grounded in my core, so as to not take reactions personally.

White Supremacy culture and white privilege are real. I will continue to see it and name it in myself and in others. This might feel painful and uncomfortable if you are not yet able to see what is being named. That’s okay. Please know that my intentions, the intentions of others who feel the burning of this call, is usually towards our collective liberation. The personal pains are because we want you on this journey with us. We feel the strength in our collective commitment.

We are stronger together. We are wiser together. We are in this together. Whether we like it or not.

What Is Happening to Children at the Border and in the Hands of ICE Agents

This morning, the first spacious morning in awhile, I wake with the urgent feeling. I must invest time and energy in understanding what is happening to migrant children and families right now. My feeling is that this moment is like that of early Nazi Germany. Being Jewish, I was taught about the Holocaust at an early age. I’ve often wondered about the days and years leading up to concentration camps. How did it happen? How did so many people sit by and let such horror happen. So today… I will learn more about what I am sitting by and allowing to happen.

My 12-year old friend asked me this morning what I was doing. I said, researching awful things. He couldn’t understand why I would choose to do that. If my heart becomes aware, I feel a responsibility to humanity to face the truth of what is happening and listen deeply for guidance about how I am to respond. I will keep sharing what I’m learning.

Research

May 25, 2018 — There is a new policy being enacted this year to separate children from their families at the border. Some may be arriving to seek legal asylum, some trying to cross the border, but these are young children arriving with family members. MSNBC Chris Hayes reports on this with expert guests. VIDEO HERE. This process includes babies and very young children. In the past, there were children who crossed the border on their own. However, the current policy is for the U.S. government to separate the children from their families, causing significant trauma for these young children who are already in a state of trauma as many are fleeing violence seeking safety (asylum) in the U.S.

August 2017 -ACLU Report https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/ice-and-border-patrol-abuses/ice-plans-start-destroying-records-immigrant

“ICE has asked for permission to begin routinely destroying 11 kinds of records, including those related to sexual assaults, solitary confinement and even deaths of people in its custody. Other records subject to destruction include alternatives to detention programs, regular detention monitoring reports, logs about the people detained in ICE facilities, and communications from the public reporting detention abuses. ICE proposed various timelines for the destruction of these records ranging from 20 years for sexual assault and death records to three years for reports about solitary confinement.”

“Keeping these documents available is necessary for the public to understand and fully evaluate the operation of a system that is notorious for inhumane and unconstitutional conditions affecting hundreds of thousands of people every year.”

“Recent reports by advocacy groups document sexual assaults in detention without adequate investigation or remedy, sub-standard medical care, the overuse of solitary confinement as well as threats and physical assault by custody staff. Since October 2016, there have been 10 deaths in immigration detention. Many of the records used in these reports and analyses would not have been made available without sustained public pressure to force ICE to maintain and divulge this information.”

An April 26, 2018 report from Children and Families U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to Subcommittee on Investigations Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs United States Senate

UAC = unaccompanied alien children
ORR = Office of Refugee Resettlement

2017 – 40,810 children were referred to ORR from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

2018 (through March) – 21,574 children referrals.

March 2017, ORR had 755 referrals; while in March 2018, ORR had 4,204 referrals.

Facilities

  • At this time, we have no temporary facilities open at Department of Defense locations. The last one closed in February 2017.
  • As of March 2018, we are operating one temporary influx facility at a Department of Labor site.
  • ORR now has its largest permanent shelter capacity at over 9,800 beds, and we continue to maintain the majority of our shelter capacity along the southern border.
  • In FY 2017, children typically stayed in ORR custody for 51 days and so far in FY 2018 (through March) average length of stay has been 56 days.

Teenagers

  • 83 percent of referrals in FY 2017
  • 87 percent in FY 2018.

“Children who migrate to the U.S. are particularly vulnerable to being exploited by human traffickers en route and at their destination.”

From Custody to Sponsors

2017 – ORR released 93 percent of children to a sponsor.

  • 49 percent to parents
  • 41 percent to close relatives
  • 10 percent to other-than-close relatives or non-relatives.

2018 – ORR have released 90 percent of children to individual sponsors

  • 41 percent were parents
  • 47 percent were close relatives
  • 11 percent were other-than-close relatives or non-relatives

“The report outlines ways that ORR has decreased the ability of potential sponsors to use fraudulent documents during the sponsor assessment process. Which must mean that there was a high degree of fraudulent documents being used by sponsors to acquire children.”

Losing track of at least 1,475 children

“From October to December 2017, ORR attempted to reach 7,635 UAC and their sponsors. Of this number, ORR reached and received agreement to participate in the safety and well-being call from approximately 86 percent of sponsors. From these calls, ORR learned that 6,075 UAC remained with their sponsors. Twenty-eight UAC had run away, five had been removed from the United States, and 52 had relocated to live with a non-sponsor. ORR was unable to determine with certainty the whereabouts of 1,475 UAC.”

Department of Health and Human Services & Office of Refugee Resettlement currently not responsible for children taken into custody and then released to sponsors.  

“It has been HHS’s long-standing interpretation of the law that ORR is not legally responsible for children after they are released from ORR care. However, considering the importance of the post-release period, we are taking a fresh look at that question as a matter of both legal interpretation and appropriate policy.  Specifically, we are exploring the question of ORR’s responsibilities in relation to children who are released to sponsors, and whether the level of responsibility would differ depending on the child’s relationship to his or her sponsor. Based on what we have learned so far, if ORR were to remain legally obligated for the welfare of UAC after their release to a sponsor, or took on additional protective measures even if not legally obligated, those procedures would require a significant expansion of the current program structure and an increase in resources, and possibly additional legal authorities to further clarify ORR’s role.”

May 15, 2018 Hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee

“Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen testifying May 15 before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee where she said evades what the policies are for causing the least amount of trauma for children and admits that more must be done to protect children taken at the border.”

“I couldn’t agree with your concerns more,” Nielsen said. “We owe it to these children to protect them.”

According to the article, HHS operates more than 100 shelters across the nation for children seized at the border.

  • Video of the hearing: http://launch.newsinc.com/share.html?trackingGroup=93075&siteSection=inform_oembed&videoId=33812458
  • Article: https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/nation/2018/05/16/homeland-security-chief-defends-policy-separates-families-entering-u-s/614505002/

May 23, 2018 – Claudia Patricia Gomez Gonzalez,  a 20 year-old woman from Guatemala was shot & killed by US Border Patrol. NYTimes and CNN report on this. Evidently the story from officials has changed sinced the incident.

“Guatemala condemns violent acts and any other use of excessive force by the Border Patrol. We urge authorities to respect the rights of our citizens, especially their right to live, regardless of their immigration status,” theGuatemala’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

May 25, 2018 – excerpts from the article: What Separating Migrant Families at the Border Actually Looks Like

“The Trump administration is now going even further than the Obama administration in its attempts to deter asylum seekers, as it seeks to terrify mothers from coming here with their children. The prosecutions have already started flooding border courts, and this “zero-tolerance” policy has only just begun. Meanwhile the refugee crisis of Central America’s Northern Triangle countries continues apace—16 times the number of people from the region were displaced in 2017 as were in 2011, the the UN refugee agency noted in a recent report. The families have a legal right to seek asylum here—and as devastating as the consequences may be, they will not stop coming. The terror they leave behind is much worse.”

“In early May, Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, said he will take a stricture stance on illegal crossings of the Southern U.S. border, prosecuting 100% of people crossing, and making it an official policy to separate children from their parents. Already, 658 kids in the first 13 days of the programhave been ripped from their families, Customs and Border Protection disclosed in a Senate subcommittee hearing on May 23. (Video of the hearing below)”

“This policy is intended to punish the adults by criminally prosecuting them for entering the country, thereby deterring others from making the journey north. But it does incalculable damage to the children at an already traumatic moment in their lives, often stripping them from their mothers when their mothers are all they have.”

“There’s a real trend towards trying to put all asylum seekers in the same category as gang members even when all this young mother was seeking was to protect these young boys by bringing them to the US.” ~ director of University of Texas’s Immigration Law Clinic

“Time and time again, the women say they only brought their children here to save their lives.”

“Mothers convicted of illegal entry can be sentenced to up to six months in jail and be dealt up to $10,000 in fines, while the youths are shipped off to Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters around the country—and ORR and the US Marshals Service, which prosecutes the mothers, do not communicate, Jennifer Podkul, policy director for Kids in Need of Defense, told me.”

“Even once the parents are out of jail and transferred to immigrant detention centers, they remain divided from their kids—meaning some parents are deported before their children even know it, said Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants Rights Project.”

“Already the ORR shelters equipped to house unaccompanied minors—which until now have been children traveling without a parent—are 91 percent full. To quickly make more room, the Trump administration now plans to put kids on military bases—which the Obama administration did in the past with unaccompanied teens. But this setup is only meant for kids 13 and older for temporary emergency stays. And while the vast majority—83 percent last year—of unaccompanied minors entering the country have been older than 13, children traveling with parents tend to be far younger, often babies.”

“These children may have to wait for their parents to get out of detention, or they may seek another adult sponsor already in the US to claim them. But those adults are now more fearful to come forward, since the Trump administration just two weeks ago announced a proposal to collect information on potential sponsors’ immigration status, information that could be used for enforcement purposes. As Carey told me, “It appears we’re setting up a long-term incarceration system for children.”

“While each family makes up a single asylum case when that family is kept together, when parents and children are in different locations different courts handle them.”

“This spells trouble for a legal system already overwhelmed by a backlog of nearly 700,000 cases—and since immigrants don’t have the right to free legal help, we’re likely to see more young children representing themselves in immigration court.”

Video of the  Senate hearing to the Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration. NOTE- the presiding Senator is Senator Tillis from North Carolina:
https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/tvpra-and-exploited-loopholes-affecting-unaccompanied-alien-children

May 2018 ACLU Report
Looking at 2009-2014

“Children crossing the United States’ southern border are primarily from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras. Many migrant children from these countries are fleeing gang violence, social unrest, and endemic poverty.”

“Despite binding federal laws and agency policies to protect children at our borders, inadequate enforcement and oversight mechanisms have left this vulnerable group unprotected and without access to justice. A new report by the University of Chicago International Human Rights Clinic reviews one subset of the records—and documents shocking child abuse.”

“U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has the authority to detain migrant children for a limited period of time to determine whether the child should be transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) or qualifies for immediate removal from the United States.”

“By law, unaccompanied migrant children may only be held in CBP custody for 72 hours and are entitled to various basic protections, including: dignified and respectful treatment; safe, secure and clean facilities; adequate food and drinking water; and proper medical care. Federal law further requires personnel working in federal facilities to report possible child abuse to law enforcement, child protective services, or the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”

“CBP officials have often ignored these legal obligations.”

“The records obtained reflect rampant abuse. Children describe excessive force: being stomped on, punched, kicked, run over with vehicles, tased, and forced to maintain stress positions by CBP officials. Minors also report verbal abuse: being called a “dog,” “piece of crap,” “son of a bitch,” and “prostitute,” and being told they “contaminate this country.” In complaints, children describe being deprived of edible food and potable water and held in freezing and unsanitary cells with inadequate bedding and no access to personal hygiene items. Children report being threatened with rape and death, being told to remove their clothing before they are subjected to questioning, and being touched inappropriately by CBP officials.”

“Children’s complaints of abuse have been ignored and mishandled, allowing CBP officials to act with impunity. DHS does not appear to have reported alleged child abuse out to the FBI. The records provide no indication that DHS has taken any remedial or disciplinary measures to hold any individual accountable for these abuses.”

One Pager: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kx3zey3b6s5hmbu/CBP_1-Pager_final.pdf?dl=0

Full Report:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/lplnnufjbwci0xn/CBP%20Report%20ACLU_IHRC%205.23%20FINAL.pdf?dl=0

Appendix:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vsf7io4tb1tawsp/2018%2005%2022%20APPENDIX_MERGED%20Final.pdf?dl=0

Social Terror, Social Manipulation

Before enslavement Africans were called

  • “Every time Trump says “MS-13,” he wants you to think “Latino.” He wants you to think “immigrant.”Then he wants you to think back to “criminal.” Then he SAYS the word “animal,” until, in your mind, criminal-immigrant-animal become like one word. One idea.Folks, this is obvious.” ~Drew Dellinger

What to do?

  • Do your own research, be an informed consumer of media — Look at the dates of articles that you read and share. Read the whole article before sharing it. Click on the links to the sources that the article references. If there aren’t any sources, question it. If the links are broken, question it. If it’s an old article, investigate more to see if it is current. Realize that this issue is not new. The new aspect is the current administration’s policy to separate families at the border, causing more trauma and terror. However, misconduct, high numbers of deportations, and such was a problem during the Obama administration also. We as a country face many humanitarian crises that are getting worse with the current administration, but are not new. Catch up if you are not aware of this.
  • Take action (contact legislature) and raise awareness about the separation of children from their families at the border. (Do NOT focus on the missing children. While best beauroctratic practices are to keep track of people, we do not want the current enforcement agencies to be tracking down these missing children as many are likely intentionally hiding from the authorities. And the methods being used to track them down are perpetuating terror and discriminatory deportation.) Focus on the fact that children, very young children, are being separated from their parents when there is no reason that threatens the well-being of the child. This causes extreme trauma to these young children. Tell the representatives to intervene to insure that these people have legal rights, that they are allowed bond while they move through the court system, that they are not locked up in detention centers for indefinite amounts of time.
    • Comments from 2 lawyers about what to and NOT to focus on
    • How to contact your elected officials
    • Asheville, Buncombe County, and North Carolina
      • Contact U.S Congressman Mark Meadows and Senator Thom Tillis — express your concern about the national policies for separating children from their families. You can also make a local ask that they pressure ICE to allow the people from Buncombe and Henderson County to be allowed out of the detention centers on bond. Don’t make them stay locked up as they wait for trial, allow them be released on bond.
      • If you are a business owner or work for a business, sign this petition. These legislatures consider themselves pro-business and thus are more likely to listen to the demands of business owners. Petition (source CIMA and Ami Worthen)
  • Ruby Sales is organizing caravans across America that will start out in different cities of America and will end up at a designated space. If you are moved to stand, please email me at info@ spirithouseproject.org or call 718 601 0235 — “We can no longer remain silent or we become collaborators in a new system of captivity, sexual violations, psychological terror and deliberate acts by ICE to separate them from their parents. These White travesties echo acts by White Americans during enslavement when they captured Black children and sold them from their families. Now once again the evil that bred these actions during enslavement never died and lives today in the pathology of White supremacy.I woke up this morning knowing that we cannot remain silent as this government presides over and engineers a predatory system that separates Black and Brown immigrant children at the border from their families even selling them into the hands of White sex traffickers!”
  • More suggestions from Liz Gumbinner  (I have not vetted all of this)
    • Gain a better understanding of the law at  the Informed Immigrant website and see a list of legal support services who could use your help.
    • Support the ActBlue Charities initiative to Support Kids at the Border. Funds raised will be split among multiple charities.
    • Support charities and organizations dedicated to helping children –  The Young Center for Immigrant and Children’s Rights focuses on the rights, safety, and best interests of unaccompanied immigrant children. United We Dream is the first and largest immigrant youth-led organization in the country. KIND: Kids in Need of Defense is effective in supporting children’s protection and upholding their right to due process and fundamental fairness. The Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project supports detailed adults and unaccompanied children who have been detained in Arizona, often illegally. Asylum Advocacy works to prevent the deportation of refugees fleeing violence and war, who have come here seeking legal asylum, provides emergency legal services, and a lot more. Lutheran Immigration Services has been helping resettle refugees and reunite families since 1939. The UN Refugees Agency isn’t specific to US refugee and immigrant issues, but they support victims fleeing from conflict in myriad ways. (h/t Amanda Litman on Twitter who continues to share a crowdsourced list of organizations that are helping.) The National Immigrant Justice Association of the Heartland Alliance ensures human rights protections and access to justice, including legal services, for all immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers.
    • Donate to the ACLU which is actively fighting these injustices in court. You can also sign their petition to Kevin McAleenan, Commissioner of Customs and US Border Protection to demand a stop to the physical, sexual, and verbal abuse of immigrant children.
    • Vote. Vote vote vote vote vote. Vote for candidates in November who will take a stand for human decency in every possible way, and especially around this issue.
    • Write about it. Use your social platforms. Use your website (that’s what I’m doing, right here). Every voice amplifying this makes a difference.
    • Attend or host a rally on June 14. Wherearethechildren.org is starting to coordinate local marches for stolen children — if you don’t feel comfortable leaving an address on the form, which is light with details, just keep your eye out for developments on hashtags  and