Tell Alex Azar and Kirstjen Nielsen: Let the children go. Stop sharing sponsor data with ICE

The petition to Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen reads: "Stop helping Immigration and Customs Enforcement target and detain immigrants who apply to sponsor children in detention. End data sharing between the Office of Refugee Resettlement and ICE." Add your name:

Some believe that the greatness of a nation is determined by how it treats its children. By this measure, the United States is failing. There are still more than 14,000 immigrant children in DHS custody, and instead of placing them with willing sponsors, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is making sure many of them stay behind bars. Over the summer, HHS Secretary Alex Azar and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen enacted a data-sharing agreement that weaponized ORR.1 ORR now shares the biometric and background check data of any person who applies to sponsor a child with ICE, preventing many family members from stepping forward for fear of being hunted down and detained by Trump's deportation force. Sens. Gillibrand, Hirono, Booker, Merkley, Feinstein and Blumenthal are calling on Azar and Nielsen to end this cruel policy. Add your name now to help turn up the pressure. Tell Alex Azar and Kirstjen Nielsen: Let the children go. Stop sharing sponsor data with ICE. Click here to sign the petition. At the height of the family separation crisis over the summer, Azar enacted an ORR policy that forced potential immigrant sponsors and everyone in their household to go through an extreme vetting process and then shared the data it collected with ICE. As a result, ORR is now an extension of Trump's deportation force. Thousands of refugee children locked up in inhumane detention facilities are serving longer sentences because many people are too afraid to sponsor them. The average stay in detention for unaccompanied minors increased from 40 days in 2016 to 59 days in 2018.2 The total number of children DHS and ORR are detaining at once is at an all-time high.3 The effects of detention on children are devastating. The trauma of being ripped from family members and forced to live in overcrowded camps and prisons can have debilitating lifelong effects on a child's health and well-being. HHS says its focus is the health, safety and best interest of the child. Yet, the nation watched in horror as thousands of children suffered in isolation and inhumane conditions in the tent camps of Tornillo, Texas, without adequate access to legal services. ORR recently announced a minor change to its vetting policy, eliminating the requirement that household members of sponsors be fully vetted before a child is reunited with a parent or loved one.4 That is not enough. As long as ICE remains at the center of ORR’s reunification process, children will be in harm’s way. Add your name now to help us and our friends at the National Immigrant Justice Center shine a bright light on the dangerous collaboration between ORR and ICE, and demand that Azar and Nielsen end it now. Tell Alex Azar and Kirstjen Nielsen: Let the children go. Stop sharing sponsor data with ICE. Click the link below to sign the petition. https://act.credoaction.com/sign/children_orr_ice?t=7&akid=31033%2E3130208%2EVrHzN_ Nicole Regalado, CREDO Action Add your name: References: Victoria Bekiempis, "Refugee agency accused of helping deport relatives of migrant children," The Guardian, Nov. 28, 2018. Colleen Long, "The Trump Administration Reverses Its Policy on Migrant Children's Sponsors," TIME, Dec. 19, 2018. Ibid. Miriam Jordan, "Thousands of Migrant Children Could Be Released After Sponsor Policy Change," The New York Times, Dec. 18, 2018.

Sign Now: Demand Journalists Be Given Immediate Access to Detention Centers

Journalist Emilio Gutierrez-Soto, right, and his son Oscar during an interview with CBC's Adrienne Arsenault at the El Paso Processing Centre, a U.S. immigration detention facility

Over the past year, immigrant and civil rights groups have witnessed a dramatic increase of immigration enforcement and detention due to the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy along the border. This includes the practice of family separation, a policy that has left hundreds of children in child detention centers across the country.

Shelters that were at 30 percent capacity one year ago are now at 90 percent.[1]

According to a Health and Human Services official from the Obama administration:

“The closer they get to 100 percent, the less ability they will have to address anything unforeseen. Even if there’s not a sudden influx, they will be running out of capacity soon unless something changes.”

Thanks to dogged reporting by journalists along our southern border, we learned earlier this year about children and families being separated at the border. But that reporting was mainly from outside the detention centers, because the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement routinely denies or limits journalists access to child detention centers, arguing that they need to protect the privacy of children. But professional journalists are capable of reporting on children responsibly, and the government could easily negotiate with them on ways to do so.

Demand that journalists have access to detention centers so that the American people and the world can see the permanent harm the Trump administration’s policies are having on children and families in the name of our government.

Sign the petition today!

These shelters are not the solution but in order to hold the government accountable we need to have access to them.

- Daily Kos

Click here to send the following message.  (Add a personal comment for more impact. )

PETITIONING

Office of Refugee Resettlement

Our Message to Office of Refugee Resettlement:

Since May of 2017, the number of migrant children in custody has jumped from 2,400 to 12,800 as of September. The administration’s recent investment in “tent cities,” which provide harsh living conditions for children, is horrifying and unacceptable. The Office of Refugee Resettlement routinely denies or limits journalists access to child detention centers, arguing the need to protect the privacy of children. But professional journalists are capable of reporting on children responsibly. We demand that journalists be given immediate increased access to detention centers―to honor our constitutional right of freedom of the press and to ensure government transparency and accountability. Only through our free press will we begin to understand and be able to address the humanitarian crisis at our southern border.

Tell Congress stop privatizing incarceration of immigrant families and asylum seekers

Privatized detention and incarceration centers are hell on earth--and they are big business for private companies. Ending private detention is a way to start ending detention - period.

Between 2014 and 2018, the Office of Refugee Resettlement paid private companies $3.4 billion to house migrant children. Further, 44 percent of those companies face serious, well documented reports and allegations of child maltreatment.

In these centers children suffer from:

• Forced administration of psychotropic drugs
• Jail-like conditions with armed officers
• Physical abuse, sexual abuse and even death

Sign this petition to demand Congress end privatizing detention and incarceration now!

Another $2 billion is spent on adults facilities--more of which are being built to support Trump’s white nationalist immigration policy. These privatized detention centers are big money makers for the industry. And Trump has benefited from these industries, receiving monetary donations from industry CEOs. This is sickening and must end now.

 
Sign this petition to demand that Congress stop privatizing detention and incarceration centers that abuse thousands of immigrant children and families!

Message to Congress:

We demand that you end privatization of detention and incarceration of immigrant families and asylum seekers. These private contracts have led to documented cases of physical, psychological, and sexual abuses of children and families. Children have died in these facilities. End the suffering and injustices of these cruel companies. Stop privatizing detention of immigrant families now.

Participating Partners:

• Brave New Films
• CHIRLA
• Courage Campaign
• Daily Kos
• Franciscan Action Network
• People Demanding Action
• People's Action
• PFAW (People For the American Way)
• Progress America
• Rashida Tlaib for Congress
• United We Dream