Lessons Learned from Karnes and Dilley
This month, I had the opportunity to visit the Karnes and Dilley family detention centers in Texas alongside seven congressional colleagues. After that trip, it was clear to me, we simply cannot detain families humanely. Last week, we spoke to members of the media and the general public about what we saw. I’ve included some of my thoughts below
When I saw the Dilley Detention Center, I was shocked at how isolated and barren it was. The first thing I thought was that these look so much like the Japanese American internment camps of WWII. I saw the sterile barracks; the muddy, dirt pathways; the mass, institutionalized cafeterias; and the guards everywhere.
And I also remembered how the Japanese American internment camps were pitched to the American public, as though the federal government was doing this for the safety of Japanese Americans. In a like manner, I see that Dillley Detention Center is called a name that makes it sound like a spa: the “South Texas Family Residential Center.”
If this is such a wonderful family residential center, then why are its residents trying to commit suicide, and hundreds of women and children demonstrating for their freedom?
Just like we have to call the Japanese American internment camps for what they are, a prison for people who were not criminals, we have to call the Karnes and Dilley Detention Centers for what they are: prisons for people who are not criminals.
Those that have lived through it know better than anyone else that this is true
And I have to ask: why is the U.S. government spending $337 per a day at Dilley per a person and $161 a day at Karnes to lock up women and children, when there are less expensive alternatives available, such as alternative detention? Alternatives to detention range from only $0.17 to $17 a day.
Because of this trip, I was able to visit both the Karnes and Dilley detention centers. I was able to talk to the women and children who have been locked up and through their tears, hear their stories.
I heard from the woman from Honduras whose son and daughter were forced into the drug cartels. She was raped as well as her 15-year old daughter. She and her daughter escaped, but ended up in these detention facilities for months. And now, because it seems like there is no way out since a $10,000 bond was imposed on them, her daughter has had to be taken to the medical unit for wanting to commit suicide.
I heard from two sisters from Mexico and their children. They came because one of the sisters’ husbands was kidnapped for ransom by the drug cartels. They feared for the safety of their children and fled. They came to the U.S. for asylum and the asylum officers have declared them both to have credible fear. They and their children are being held in detention until they pay bond. However, one sister is being charged a $4,000 bond and the other an $8,000 bond, despite the fact that they came under the same circumstances. But not only are these bonds irrationally different, it might as well be $1 million for them because of the high costs that are completely unattainable to them.
And then at Dilley, I was astounded when we stepped out into the main yard to see hundreds of desperate women and children demonstrating and chanting for their freedom. They had used their pillow cases and bed sheets to make picket signs, because they had nothing else. In fact, I will never forget one five-year-old boy who held one such pillow case in front of him saying “I am not a criminal. Please give me my freedom.” As we got closer, they surrounded us, and each one of them had tears streaming down their faces as they pleaded for help.
I have been in a lot of demonstrations in my lifetime, and I have never seen anything like this, especially the courage of women and children to demonstrate in front of guards who have demonstrated that they will commit retribution against them. And I must say, I concluded, who are we as a country, when we lock up four and five-year-olds, and their mothers who have never had a criminal history? Hasn’t America learned from locking up Congressmember Mike Honda when he was a one-year-old toddler in the Japanese internment camps?
America is better than this. We must end family detention centers.
If you’d like to see our press conference and the pictures we took during our visit, I’ve attached the YouTube recording below.
The day after we returned from Karnes and Dilley, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson announced, “I have reached the conclusion that we must make substantial changes in our detention practices with respect to families with children. In short, once a family has established eligibility for asylum or other relief under our laws, long-term detention is an inefficient use of our resources and should be discontinued.”
But the fight isn’t over. Until the practice of family detention has ended entirely, there will be thousands of lives on the line. It’s time to #EndFamilyDetention
