6/27/20

By Josh Rubin

Mixed emotions in response to Judge Gee finally setting a deadline for the release of children from the ICE family detention centers, Dilley and Karnes in Texas, and Berks in Pennsylvania.

Because her order only extends to the children, without another court stepping in there is danger that the promised release will not extend to parents of these children. If that happens, what we are talking about is family separation. And all of us are raw with the heartbreak that threatens.

More. The order does not extend to the unaccompanied children who are in places like the very places outside the gates of which we made our stands, watching as well as we could the children imprisoned within. I wonder what the judge would need to see there to enforce her order, enforce the 20-day limit of confinement for these young souls, the rule so long flouted.

More. The 25,000 adults in ICE custody, their torturous imprisonment now supplemented by the deadly fear of a disease that thrives in congregate settings, punishment for human migration.

More. The thousands upon thousands of desperate people rapidly expelled, children included, and now sanctioned by a Supreme Court that has newly decided that these humans are not entitled to human rights, a chance to ask for mercy at the margins of our territory, strangers at our gates. The end of asylum.

Photo: Allan Mestel