The US’s inhumane immigration system has come under growing scrutiny in recent days after President Donald Trump introduced his new policy of separating migrant children from their families, and when a sitting US senator attempted on Sunday to examine the conditions of one immigrant detention center in Texas—where “hundreds” of children are reportedly being held—facility staff refused to allow him inside and called the police.
“The attorney general’s team and the Office of Refugee Settlement, they don’t want anyone to know what’s going on behind these doors,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore) said after arriving at the Brownsville, Texas facility, which is run by the Southwest Key Program (SKP), a “non-profit” government contractor.
Merkley didn’t simply arrive at the facility unannounced. As the Oregon senator explains at the outset of his video of the attempted visit, he contacted federal officials and SKP to request access to the detention center, which is a former Walmart with completely blacked-out windows.
After Merkley repeatedly asked officials at the facility to allow him to speak with a supervisor who could give him a tour, local police arrived and questioned the senator about his attempted entry. When a supervisor did finally emerge, he wouldn’t answer Merkley’s questions or provide any information.
Watch:
Merkley’s effort to tour the secretive detention center comes after newly released documents revealed “pervasive abuse” of immigrants at such facilities during the Obama administration—treatment that has continued under the Trump administration.
“Children should never be ripped from their families and held in secretive detention centers,” Merkley wrote on Twitter late Sunday.
The senator’s effort to shed light on the living conditions of migrant children detained inside a taxpayer-funded detention facility was applauded by immigrant rights advocates, who demanded an end to the Trump administration’s “cruel, inhumane, and disgraceful policy of separating children and babies from their parents.”
Thank you @SenJeffMerkley for demanding answers and standing up to @realDonaldTrump and @SecNielsen’s cruel, inhumane, and disgraceful policy of separating children and babies from their parents. This must end. Now! #FamiliesBelongTogether https://t.co/v4CuA2tGoX
— National Immigration Law Center (@NILC_org) June 4, 2018
Grateful that @SenJeffMerkley is where he is right now, fighting for children and families and our humanity. https://t.co/fiKD71goK7
— Vanita Gupta (@vanitaguptaCR) June 4, 2018
“This administration be must be held accountable for its heartless and cruel policies of separating children from their families,” wrote Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “Thanks Sen. Jeff Merkley for working to expose this injustice.”
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy