Tag Archives: child incarceration

Federal Judge Allows ‘Untenable’ Plan to Send Juvenile Inmates to Angola Prison

“The move defies all common sense and best practices, and it will cause irrevocable damage to our youth and families,” said one children’s advocate.

By Julia Conley  Published 9-24-2022 by Common Dreams

The entrance of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola and nicknamed the “Alcatraz of the South” and “The Farm” Photo: msppmoore /Wikimedia Commons/CC

Critics of mass incarceration are condemning a ruling handed down late Friday by a federal judge in Louisiana, who admitted the state’s plan to send teenage inmates at a juvenile detention center to the notorious state penitentiary at Angola was “disturbing” even as she decided the plan could move forward.

Chief U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ruled that the Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) can send two dozen children under the age of 18 from Bridge City Center for Youth, located outside New Orleans, to the Louisiana State Penitentiary, denying a motion brought by several law firms and the ACLU to halt the plan. Continue reading

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As Biden Mulls Trip to Saudi Arabia, Rights Group Spotlights Death Sentence of Child Defendant

U.N. experts urge the kingdom to release Abdullah al-Howaiti and “abolish the imposition of the death penalty for children for all crimes.”

By Jessica Corbett  Published 5-30-2022 by Common Dreams

Abdullah al-Howaiti, a Saudi Arabian man sentenced to death, is shown at age 14. (Photo: Human Rights Watch)

Following reports that U.S. President Joe Biden may visit Saudi Arabia during his trip to the Middle East next month, a human rights group on Monday highlighted global calls to release Abdullah al-Howaiti, a young man twice sentenced to death by the country’s courts.

Reprieve pointed out in a statement that United Nations experts have urged the Saudi government to annul his sentence “because he did not receive a fair trial, as credible reports that he was tortured into making a false confession when he was 14 years old were not investigated.” Continue reading

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‘Impeach Trump for This’: Video Shows Final Hours of Teen’s Horrible Death in US Immigration Detention Center

Contrary to claims by Border Patrol, “they didn’t take him to the hospital. They didn’t release him. They didn’t even seem to check on him as he was dying on the floor of his cell.”

By Jon Queally, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 12-5-2019

Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez, a 16-year-old Guatemalan migrant, was seriously ill when immigration agents put him in a small South Texas holding cell with another sick boy on the afternoon of May 19. By the next morning, he was dead. (Photo: via Facebook)

Footage from an immigrant detention center in Texas obtained by Pro Publica and published online Thursday shows the final hours of 16-year-old Carlos Gregorio Hernandez Vasquez—who died from complications of the flu while in custody—but also strongly indicates the border patrol agents responsible for his care lied about what happened that night.

Carlos, according to the news outlet, Continue reading

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Trump’s Child Separation Policy “Absolutely” Violated International Law Says UN Expert

The way the Trump administration was “separating infants from their families only in order to deter irregular migration from Central America to the United States of America, for me, constitutes inhuman and degrading treatment.”

By Andrea Germanos, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 11-18-2019

Screenshot: ABC News

The Trump administration violated international law when it separated migrant children from their families, a United Nations expert said Monday.

That’s not all, said Manfred Nowak, the independent expert leading a global study on children deprived of liberty. With over 100,000 children still in migration-related detention, the United States leads the world with the highest number of children in migration-related custody in the world. Continue reading

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Call to Action by Journalists, Academics Urges Americans to Use ‘All Nonviolent Means Necessary’ to Shut Down Trump Detention Camps

“From abolitionism to Standing Rock, Americans have come together time and again to defy horrific injustice. Now, as the government tries to normalize concentration camps, it is time like never before to target those responsible.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-9-2019

“Inspired by the civil rights movement, ACT-UP, and early labor struggles, we must employ every nonviolent tactic at our disposal to oppose this institutionalized criminality,” states the call to action. (Image: NoMoreConcentrationCamps.org)

A group of nearly two dozen prominent journalists, academics, and activists Tuesday called on Americans across the nation to use “any nonviolent means necessary” to force the closure of President Donald Trump’s immigrant detention facilities.

“We are calling on all people of conscience to shut down the concentration camps on the U.S.-Mexico border,” reads the call to action, which was backed by renowned linguist and dissident Noam Chomsky, environmentalist and author Naomi Klein, Intercept co-founder Jeremy Scahill, and others. Continue reading

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Nationwide ‘Close the Camps’ Demonstrations Announced to Protest Horrific Conditions at Trump Detention Centers

“We need to fight for immigrant families and

stop Donald Trump’s racist policies, and we can only do it together.”

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-29-2019

As appalling details of the conditions at immigrant detention centers in the U.S. continue to pour in—with one doctor recently comparing them to “torture facilities“—a coalition of rights groups on Friday announced nationwide “Close the Camps” demonstrations for next week to protest the Trump administration’s treatment of migrant children.

“We’ve seen the images and heard the stories coming out of child detention centers,” said MoveOn.org, one of the groups helping to organize the events, which are set to take place Tuesday, July 2. Continue reading

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Trump Prepares to Open New ‘Captured Children’ Facility in Texas as Hundreds of Rights Groups Call for Decriminalizing Migration

Federal policies on immigration continue trending in a more punitive direction

By Eoin Higgins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 6-20-2019

Otay Detention Center, San Diego. Photo: BBC World Service/flickr

A facility to house over 1,000 undocumented children is set to open Monday in Carrizo Springs, Texas—just days after almost 250 groups called on Congress to decriminalize migration and chart a new course for the country’s border policies.

The Carrizo Springs concentration camp, which was initially built by Stratton Oilfield Systems as worker housing, will be run by Texas non-profit BCFS Health and Human Services for the federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). BCFS runs child detention centers for the federal government in Tornillo, Texas, roughly 489 miles from the Carrizo Springs facility. Continue reading

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‘Important’ Bill in Congress Would Bar Israel From Using U.S. Funds to Imprison, Abuse Palestinian Children

“Israel’s system of military juvenile detention is state-sponsored child abuse designed to intimidate and terrorize Palestinian children and their families.”

By Eoin Higgins, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 5-1-2019

Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian child. (Photo: Institute for Middle East Understanding, Twitter)

A new bill would bar Israel from using U.S. funding to detain Palestinian children.

Rep. Betsy McCollum (D-Minn.) introduced the legislation Tuesday.

McCollum said in a statement Wednesday that the Israeli military’s practice of kidnapping and abusing children was morally wrong. Continue reading

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Black Sites for Kids: Rights Advocates Outraged Over Child Immigrants Being Held at ‘Off-the-Books’ Detention Facilities

“Good lord.”

By Julia Conley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 3-19-2019

Immigrant rights advocates were horrified Tuesday by a new report which confirmed that the Trump administration is sending some immigrant children to clandestine facilities that are not known to their families and lawyers and are not equipped to provide care to vulnerable minors.

An investigation by Reveal on Monday showed that at least 16 young immigrants—as young as nine years old and in need of mental or behavioral health treatment—have been sent by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to “off-the-books” facilities outside the network of federally-funded detention centers. The administration is housing immigrant children with an even greater degree of secrecy than was previously known, in violation of U.S. law. Continue reading

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‘That This Even Has to Be Said Is Grotesque’: Judge Orders Trump Admin to Stop Drugging Migrant Children

“Children are suffering abusive treatment and cruel and inhumane conditions in government detention centers.”

By Jessica Corbett, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 7-31-2018

Photo: Episocopal Diocese of West Texas

U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee of Los Angeles ruled on Monday that a Texas detention center for unaccompanied migrant children and those forcibly separated from their families by the Trump administration must stop administering psychotropic drugs without parental consent.

“A federal court has now confirmed what we already knew: Children are suffering abusive treatment and cruel and inhumane conditions in government detention centers,” responded Jess Morales Rocketto of Families Belong Together, a coalition of groups opposing the administration’s family separation policy. “Children belong with their families, not scared, alone, and subject to abuse in prison-like conditions.” Continue reading

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