Child Detainees Battle System Alone-Face Harsh Conditions With Little Hope

[kpete]

Child Detainees Battle System Alone
Friday 27 June 2008

by: Maya Schenwar, t r u t h o u t | Report


Children who enter the US parentless may undergo a series of harsh trials even before they reach the courtroom to seek asylum. (Photo: Time)

Detained children often face harsh conditions while struggling against a legal system over which they have little hope of triumphing.

Undocumented children entering the US alone must confront barriers that extend far beyond the border. If apprehended, they're met with a sometimes-brutal detention period, followed by a trial under a legal system that treats them the same as apprehended adults, according to children's rights advocates and recent reports by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General's Office (OIG) and the Government Accountability Office.

OIG estimates that more than 10,000 unaccompanied and undocumented children will be detained this year, not counting children who are immediately deported upon contact with Homeland Security. Most travel from Mexico or Central America. Kids migrate alone for some of the same reasons that adults do: to reunite with family or to escape persecution. Many have experienced child-specific threats, like assault by youth gangs and recruitment for special roles in organized crime, according to Sarnata Reynolds, director of the Refugee Program at Amnesty International USA. A smaller percentage, driven by devastating poverty, come to find work.

Children apprehended at the border are taken to Border Patrol stations, frequently remaining in concrete cell blocks for days on end and sometimes being transferred repeatedly to different stations before being handed over to the Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to Michelle Brane, director of the Detention and Asylum Program at the Women's Commission, who has extensively investigated the treatment of unaccompanied children. Children are then placed in more permanent facilities to wait for their court dates.


more at:
http://www.truthout.org/article/child-detainees-battle-system-alone

[barbtries]

1. it makes me feel so terrible

to be associated with the government that treats people like this. children no less. we have fallen so far. a sad and important story; i hope it has legs.