Shadow Immigration System

Are migrant children being detained in hotels by private contractors?

This story, released by NPR, is both terrifying and enraging. We knew the U.S. was inhumanely separating families and detaining children. What we didn’t fully know, however, was that ICE is using secret hotels to detain children before sending them back to their home countries —ensuring that they remain undetected by the immigration system and unseen by the potential advocates who would protect them. This secret approach also prevents children from having access to the special protections that would normally kick in to prevent them from being sent back to dangerous situations. Rather than being placed in appropriate shelters, they are instead held secretly for days — sometimes weeks — and eventually sent back to the very same dangers they fled.

Listen to the NPR audio (5 min).