Latest Report Confirms Migrant Children Subjected To Cruel & Unusual Abuse (VIDEO)

0
848

The grim treatment of immigrants to the United States does not begin and end with the Trump administration’s separation of undocumented children and teens from their families. A new report confirms that, at a Virginia detention center for immigrants, young people were subjected to treatment including being strapped to chairs with mesh bags placed over their heads.

It’s like the set-up for a hostage movie, but this isn’t Hollywood. It’s real life. The problem, though, is that — adding severe insult to injury, to put it one way — Virginia’s department of juvenile justice concluded that the treatment of immigrant minors did not cross the state’s legal threshold for abuse or neglect.

Chelsea Clinton commented:

‘If placing mesh bags over the heads of children strapped to chairs doesn’t meet the standard of abuse, new standards are needed.’

chelsea Latest Report Confirms Migrant Children Subjected To Cruel & Unusual Abuse (VIDEO) Donald Trump Immigration Politics Top Stories

The state’s laws outline five legally recognized types of abuse, including physical abuse, physical neglect, medical neglect, mental abuse or neglect, and sexual abuse. How state authorities concluded that tying young teenagers to chairs and placing mesh bags over their heads doesn’t fall into one of those categories isn’t immediately clear.

Although they confirmed that detainees were subjected to such treatment, state investigators did not actually interview any of the teenagers who said they’d been abused at the center. None of those whose allegations originally kickstarted the current scrutiny are actually still in Virginia, according to the Associated Press. Some have been deported and others have been transferred.

Yet, even still, state investigators found it fitting to carry on with their investigation and declare it concluded.

Virginia’s Governor Ralph Northam ordered the review as allegations of abuse at the center surfaced in a report from the Associated Press earlier this year. Investigators concluded that even though, to them, no abuse had taken place at the center, they could improve operations through such means as closer attention to possible mental health issues and more bilingual staff.

How is it that bilingual staff could be a solution to young people being tied to chairs, beaten, stripped, and placed in solitary confinement, among other atrocities? Do English-only staff members at the facility resort to tying kids up if they’re riled up about something and — if they only speak Spanish — can’t communicate what that something actually is?

The full report from the state’s investigators does not seem to be immediately publicly available. The Associated Press obtained a copy.

In response to the report, Washington Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs lawyer Hannah Lieberman asserted that a legal case against the facility in question would continue. She’s representing the teenagers who originally alleged the abuse (and are no longer in Virginia). For the record, incidents described by the teens occurred both under the national leadership of Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

The ordeal is not the first to have alleged misconduct at immigrant detention centers at its core. Earlier this year, The Intercept obtained 1,224 complaints alleging sexual abuse while in the custody of U.S. immigration authorities. The complaints stretch back over a period of some seven years, and there is little reason to believe that broad reforms have brought about change any time recently.

Featured Image via YouTube screenshot