DiscussMormonism.com

By Meagan Flynn
June 21

The government went to federal court this week to argue that it shouldn’t be required to give detained migrant children toothbrushes, soap, towels, showers or even half a night’s sleep inside Border Patrol detention facilities.

The position bewildered a panel of three judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Tuesday, who questioned whether government lawyers sincerely believed they could describe the temporary detention facilities as “safe and sanitary” if children weren’t provided adequate toiletries and sleeping conditions. One circuit judge said it struck him as “inconceivable."

“To me it’s more like it’s within everybody’s common understanding: If you don’t have a toothbrush, if you don’t have soap, if you don’t have a blanket, it’s not safe and sanitary,” Senior U.S. Circuit Judge A. Wallace Tashima told Justice Department lawyer Sarah Fabian. “Wouldn’t everybody agree to that? Would you agree to that?”

Fabian said she thought it was fair to say “those things may be” part of the definition of safe and sanitary.

“What are you saying, ‘may be?’” Tashima shot back. “You mean, there’s circumstances when a person doesn’t need to have a toothbrush, toothpaste and soap? For days?”

The government was in court to appeal a 2017 ruling finding that child migrants and their parents were detained in dirty, crowded, bitingly cold conditions inside U.S. Customs and Border Protection facilities along the southern border. Migrants are first taken to those facilities after they are apprehended at the border.

But although the conditions that were the subject of the 2017 ruling date back to the Obama administration, the testy court exchange comes as the Trump administration confronts an unprecedented migrant surge that has overwhelmed facilities and caused serious health and safety risks within them. At least six child migrants have died since September, mostly after falling ill at detention facilities in the Rio Grande Valley. In this case, the Trump administration has continued to fight the 2017 ruling that sought to remedy deplorable conditions within these same facilities, at times blaming Congress for not providing enough resources to address the crisis.

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee had found that migrants in Rio Grande Valley facilities were hungry, with some eating only “sandwiches of two pieces of dry bread and one slice of ham.” They were thirsty, with up to 20 migrants sharing the same cup to drink from the water cooler. They were embarrassed to use a toilet in front of 50 other people and they couldn’t take a shower or brush their teeth or even wash their hands with soap and dry them with a towel, the judge found. At night, they couldn’t sleep. The lights were left on, as they shivered beneath an aluminum blanket on the concrete floor, the judge found.

Gee ruled in June 2017 that these Obama-era conditions violated a 1997 settlement agreement requiring that immigrant children in the government’s custody be housed in “safe and sanitary” conditions, and that the government maintain “concern for the particular vulnerability of minors.”

But the Trump administration protested. The 1997 consent decree, known as the Flores Settlement Agreement, didn’t say anything about providing a “toothbrush,” “towels,” “dry clothing,” “soap,” or even “sleep,” the administration has argued.

Therefore, the government now reasons, they shouldn’t be found in violation of the “safe and sanitary” requirement for not providing those necessities.

ajax18 wrote:Why does the left keep calling them migrants. They are illegal immigrants! When they get to the border turn them around and send them back. That is all the taxpayer should be expected to do.

Jersey Girl wrote:I'm pretty sure that Border Patrol or the US Gov't can be charged with child abuse and neglect at this point. I don't know how one goes about doing that, but I'm sure the conditions that I've read about qualify as both abuse and neglect. If not child endangerment as well.

The toddlers (the articles didn't specify ages) have already been separated from their parents for god knows how long already. Developmentally, their attachment and bonding process has been interrupted.

I'm talking about government inflicted attachment disorders here. Bad psych stuff, folks. Really bad.

ajax18 wrote:Why does the left keep calling them migrants. They are illegal immigrants! When they get to the border turn them around and send them back. That is all the taxpayer should be expected to do.

The government went to federal court this week to argue that it shouldn’t be required to give detained migrant children toothbrushes, soap, towels, showers or even half a night’s sleep inside Border Patrol detention facilities.