I join members of the Jewish community across the country in demanding that all detention camps be closed immediately!
We know from our history what happens when a government targets, dehumanizes and strips an entire group of people of their civil rights. We refuse to wait and see what happens next.
I recently traveled to the Homestead Child Detention Camp in Florida with a Jewish delegation from the Valley, and I was appalled by the sight of our country holding youth in prison-like conditions — youth who are fleeing violence and seeking asylum in the U.S.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol do not need more money to detain people. Our government needs to recognize that we are violating U.S. and international law by incarcerating asylum-seekers. In the case of children, we are also violating the Flores Settlement, which limits the time a child migrant can be detained to 20 days.
Currently, many of the children in the for-profit Homestead Detention Camp have been incarcerated for many months. I am upset that my U.S. Rep. Richard Neal recently voted in support of the Senate version of a bill to increase funding to ICE and CBP, which did not include an insistence that the money be used to ensure decent conditions and legal support for detained children.
Most of the children and youth detained in Homestead have family in the U.S. who they desperately want to join. I urge all readers to contact your congresspeople to demand that the camps be closed. Never again Para Nadie.
Alice Levine
Easthampton