The Trump administration plans to hold more children and longer

The Trump administration m said On Thursday, he intends to withdraw from a court agreement that protects migrant children in detention centers under inhumane conditions and for more than 20 days.

If the government succeeds, the immigration and customs enforcement agencies will be able to manage more family detention centers without state licenses, a condition of the colony, and more children will be held in similar institutions. the prison during the immigration procedure can last up to one year.

The government plans to supervise new detention centers that can accommodate 12,000 additional immigrants and has drafted new regulations that it believes preserve the "relevant and substantial conditions" of the agreement. But experts say that the abandonment of the flores colony in 1997, the result a trial concerning the ill-treatment of migrant children will result in severe psychological and physical trauma for detained children.

The government says, "We do not really want to treat children with humanity," said Bridget Cambria, an immigration lawyer who has represented families in detention. "We want to subject them to the most severe rules."

The Flores Regulation states that government-run institutions that host children of immigrants must have the least restrictive conditions possible, including minimum standards of hygiene, medical care and recreation.

And while the government says the court order contains "legal loopholes" that prevent it from quickly returning illegal immigrants, immigration experts say it protects the most vulnerable children from traumatic effects. of detention.

For months, public outrage has been focused on how the government has recently separate Approximately 2,500 immigrant children from their parents as part of its zero tolerance policy. But lawyers say that officials are now using this government-created crisis to justify the equally horrific practice of family detention.

They say, "We will not separate families anymore. We will be more humane and keep them together, but in detention, "said Cambria. "It's not an alternative. This is another way of torturing children. "

Cambria said that while separating children from parents is traumatic, holding families together can also have devastating effects on children.

In the United States, there are only three detention centers for families and states will not issue permits to build more of these facilities because they violate child protection laws, according to Cambria. "Their life is becoming a detention schedule," she said of children locked up in family detention centers. "They do not act like children anymore. They act like prisoners … They record and receive a number and a badge. "

Cambria said that he spoke with detained children who tried to choke on the cords for their identity cards or who had dreamed of jumping out the windows to escape the conditions.

Julie Linton, spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics and Pediatrician, said children in family detention centers showed clear signs of trauma. They often refuse to eat or sleep and can either be withdrawn or suffer from separation anxiety. They often have problems with depression or post-traumatic stress, have trouble concentrating at school, and may develop high blood pressure or heart disease later in life.

Linton said the fact that children are detained with their parents does not reduce the trauma because their mothers and fathers are not able to protect them.

"You have broken the sanctity of the parent-child relationship," she said. "You have created an artificial environment where those who hold the parent are charged."

SAccording to the security guards, all decisions – for example when a child goes to bed, what he eats and when he can see a doctor – Cambria says that children often take it to their parents, and that They no longer see themselves as figures of authority. They often accuse their mothers and fathers of detention.

The lack of parental agency in family detention centers can also compromise the health of the child. A toddler recently died of a respiratory infection after being released from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas, and his mother filed a complaint alleging negligent medical care in the establishment.

Experts say that there is a good alternative to house arrest: allowing immigrants whose asylum claim is valid to stay with family members in the United States or in situations of their choice while they are in detention. start an immigration procedure. Michelle Brané, Director of Migrant Rights and Justice at the Women's Refugee Commission, said the government should assign immigrant case managers to assist in the legal process, a solution that is both more humane and more cost-effective than detention.

"The administration behaves as if there is currently a legal obligation to separate or detain families and that is the only choice," Brane said. "[It’s] dishonest and misleading to the public. "

According to Cambria, it is more difficult for detained children to obtain legal status because they can not easily access lawyers and their family members to help them prepare their asylum application. . She said that the government's desire to withdraw from the Flores colony proves that it is more interested in getting rid of immigrant children than in providing them with due process.

"It's really inhuman and a little outrageous," she said. "[To] let them adopt their own rules that are contrary to what Flores says reprehensible. And I think people will be scandalized. "