A Dead Child on Christmas Eve
By John Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
27 December 18
An eight-year-old Guatemalan boy died in the custody of Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) late Christmas Eve. His death came only two weeks after the
death from dehydration of a seven-year-old Guatemalan girl also in the
custody of CBP. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is demanding an
investigation into what it calls CBP's "systemic failure" to protect the
health and welfare of children in CBP facilities. Apologies and promises of
reforms aren't going to cut it. Things have to change. But the problem is
actually worse than what the major news outlets are telling us.
Since the surge of unaccompanied minors arriving in the United States began
in 2014, according to ProPublica, migrant children have filed hundreds of
police reports documenting sexual assaults inside children's shelters, which
have received $4.5 billion in funding for housing and security services.
Most of those sexual assaults have been at the hands of guards and other CBP
employees. Federal investigators warn further that the Trump administration
has quietly waived fingerprint background checks of staff members and had
allowed "dangerously few" mental health counselors at a notorious tent camp
housing 2,800 children in Texas.
ProPublica wrote recently, "Just five days after he reached the United
States, a 15-year-old Honduran boy awoke in his Tucson, Arizona, immigrant
shelter . to find a youth care worker in his room, tickling his chest and
stomach. When he asked the man, who was 46, what he was doing, the man left.
But he returned two more times, rubbing the teen's penis through his
clothing and then trying to reach under his boxers. 'I know what you want. I
can give you anything you need,' said the worker, who was later convicted of
molestation."
Similarly, "In 2017, a 17-year-old from Honduras was recovering from surgery
at the shelter when he woke up to find a male staff member standing by his
bed. 'You have it very big,' the man said, referring to the teen's penis.
Days later, that same employee brushed the teen with his hand while he was
playing video games. When the staff member approached him again, the boy
locked himself in a bathroom."
Even worse, just a few months ago, a youth care worker at one Arizona
shelter was arrested for molesting eight boys over the course of a year. The
employee, Levian Pacheco, pleaded guilty to 11 sex offenses and had been
working without a full background check. During the course of the
investigation, he also admitted to being HIV-positive and to having forced
himself on the boys.
ProPublica says that the hundreds of police reports of sexual molestation of
migrant children come from at least 70 of the 100 detention facilities
around the country where the children are being held and involve children as
young as six. (The facilities are run by both Customs and Border Protection
and the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee
Resettlement.) One child psychiatrist interviewed by ProPublica said that
"If you're a predator, it's a gold mine. You have full access and you have
kids that have already had this history of being victimized."
The abuse of helpless, detained migrant children is not new, unfortunately.
But the Trump administration's harsh policy of separating children from
their parents and of detaining literally every child trying to enter the
country as an asylum seeker has increased pressure on the facilities, which
are hard-pressed to provide adequate staffing for children, many of whom are
already fleeing from personal trauma and who now find themselves in legal
and personal limbo.
Goodness knows that we have a lot of problems in this country. Goodness
knows that we have a president who is not engaged in policy except as it
affects his own wellbeing. But we're talking about children here. We're
talking about the safety and security of minors who are unable to fend for
themselves. Republicans certainly can be opposed to undocumented migration
and still not turn their backs on children. And Democrats can insist that
money be appropriated to ensure the safety and physical wellbeing of these
same children without being accused of being "weak on illegal immigration."
Forget the politics. We can't lose our humanity.
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John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former senior
investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John became the
sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration under the Espionage
Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23 months in prison as a
result of his attempts to oppose the Bush administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
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