Officials from the Federal Government would have met up on Monday with two immigrant mothers who’ve been at the forefront of a hunger strike at a family detention camp in Texas.
According to leading advocates who were closely working with the detained families officials from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office were expected to talk to the mothers about their clam that they and their children were detained at the facility’s medical clinic to punish them for the hunger protest.
According to a Refugee and Immigrant Center 3 women were removed to the medical clinic on Monday, the first day of the hunger strike. Of these 2 women were held overnight with their children, and the others were warned they could lose custody of their children if they participated in the strike.
The hunger strike has drawn attention to the rarely checked portion of the network of facilities run by the government’s Immigration agency, which is a part of the Department of Homeland Security.
More than 40 women were participating in the hunger strike. Some of the women claim to have been held for as long as 10 months; most of them have begun refusing food in order to protest the lengthy detention of their children. The women stated that they had come to the country to seek refuge and instead they were being treated as delinquents.
ICE officials are investigating the case.
As a federal judge in the state of Texas has done away with President Obama’s measures to stop 4 million or more immigrants from being sent back to their countries of origin, many families who are unauthorized immigrants are beginning to feel restless. This has stemmed from the President’s efforts of offering temporary legal status to fall beyond their reach and this has proved to be highly frustrating.
If President Obama’s executive actions see the light of day then about 1/3rd of the immigrants living in America would be able to attain temporary protection – this would materialize because they were either brought to the U S when they were children or even because their own children attained legal status in the country.
But there have been so many knee-jerk actions on the immigration reforms over the years that it has so happened that the thousands of immigrants who are already authorized to receive protection have turned pessimistic and have seemed to have caved in – they have given up and are no longer applying for work permits or Social Security numbers that they were entitled to under the President’s 1st executive order in the year 2012. The constant, niggling uncertainty and fears of being deported is what is keeping them away. Moreover, due to the constant battling with reforms immigrants seem to have lost trust in the administration, plus, the nearly 500$ in fees makes it very costly to apply. Patience, in the illegal immigrant community, seems to be wearing thin.
It is unfortunate that after fleeing from their countries of origin, children who enter the United States of America as illegal immigrants face a very unsure process of justice in US immigration courts. They are more likely to be successful if they have access to a lawyer and a court nearby. A recent survey revealed that 88 per cent of those children who did not have access to a lawyer were deported back home. This is a humanitarian crisis, which people say has again raised its ugly face in the country. Coming as a major test for the Obama government which had promised fairness and equality of justice in the treatment of child migrants the crisis seems to have been made even more difficult with the current problem of expediting deportation proceedings.
Since last summer though, a lot of progress has been made in locating attorneys for children immigrants, but a large number of cases are still pending. Thousands of such children are already being caught in the aftermath, and many children are being forced to live under the perpetual threat of removal. President Obama’s decision, however, has had a lasting impact; many of the children have found themselves in government hands and safekeeping. That seems to be the silver lining in the dark clouds of deportation risks.
As the administration in the United States confronts various issues that plague President Obama’s immigration policies the country’s immigration court system is bogged down due to battling delays that have been extended, because of the deluge of unaccompanied minors that thronged the country last summer.
These cases have been taken up as top priority and will be heard immediately. Due to this development other cases that were already long pending have been put away on the top shelf and will be delayed even further. These cases might even go up to 2019 before they see the light of day.
A President of a Judges Group stated that the entire judicial system was operating in crisis mode for years, and with the onslaught of new cases the situation has only gone from bad to worse. Those who wish to get the issue resolved state that more immigration judges should be hired to expedite the process and get things going. They state that delays like this could prove hazardous for immigration cases in the country. There was no light at the end of the tunnel, they feel.
