As National Spotlight Shines Bright On Quality Of Detention Facilities, A Mental Health Crisis Flies Under Radar
One estimate puts the number of detainees with mental illnesses between 3,000 and 6,000. “This is a system that, for a long time, has failed to understand, neglected, and even ignored the mental health needs of folks caught up in it,” said Elizabeth Jordan, director of the Immigration Detention Accountability Project at the Civil Rights Education and Enforcement Center. “But under this administration ... it has gotten so much worse.” In other news on the border crisis: sleep deprivation in young detainees, protesters at an Oklahoma Army base, and human-rights violations at a Florida detention center.
Politico:
Migrant Mental Health Crisis Spirals In ICE Detention Facilities
Federal inspectors visiting a California migrant detention center made a shocking discovery last year: Detainees had made nooses from bedsheets in 15 of 20 cells in the facility they visited. The inspection revealed the extent of a largely unseen mental health crisis within the growing population of migrants who are being held in detention centers in border states. President Donald Trump’s 2017 decision to reverse a policy that encouraged releasing vulnerable individuals while they await deportation hearings has left U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement unequipped to deal with conditions ranging from anxiety to schizophrenia. (Rayasam, 7/21)
Dallas Morning News:
Sleep Deprivation Could Do Long-Term Damage To Migrant Children
Pictures of detention centers at the U.S.-Mexico border are deeply troubling, including images of hordes of children sleeping on the floor, huddled together under nothing but Mylar blankets. What's also troubling, but often overlooked, is the fact that the children are required to sleep under glaring lights. These children are entering the country at a rate of thousands per month and are placing enormous stress on the limited resources in place to take care of them. (Troxel and Ligor, 7/20)
The Associated Press:
Protest Decries Plan To Detain Migrant Kids At Oklahoma Base
More than 100 demonstrators protested Saturday in withering heat outside an Oklahoma Army base against the Trump administration's plans to detain migrant children there. Japanese Americans and Native Americans are among those who took part in Saturday's march to Fort Sill and rally in front of one of its entrances, briefly blocking a city street. They chanted "Close the camps" and carried signs with messages including "Human Rights Matter," ''Love Trumps Hate," and "Liberty and Justice For All." (7/20)
Miami Herald:
Homestead Center Is Violating Human Rights, Amnesty Says
Citing what it calls a slew of human-rights violations, Amnesty International is calling on the U.S. government to shut down the Homestead detention center before children in Miami-Dade start school again next month. The global human-rights organization published a 41-page report Thursday on the Homestead facility — still the nation’s largest center for unaccompanied migrant children — after touring the shelter earlier this week. (Madan, 7/19)
Meanwhile, in related news —
The Washington Post:
Trump’s Presidency May Be Making Latinos Sick
Donald Trump’s presidency may be making some people sick, a growing number of studies suggest. Researchers have begun to identify correlations between Trump’s election and worsening cardiovascular health, sleep problems, anxiety and stress, especially among Latinos in the United States. A study published Friday using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the risk of premature birth was higher than expected among Latina women following Trump’s election. The new study is particularly powerful, experts say, because unlike ailments such as depression or stress that can be hard to quantify, births come with hard data. (Wan and Bever, 7/19)
CNN:
Trump's Election May Be Tied To Premature Births Among Latina Women
Birth outcomes have long been used in medical research as indicators of acute stress among populations of women, and preterm birth in particular is linked with maternal stress, the researchers noted in their study. "Because mothers and children are particularly vulnerable to psychosocial stress, our findings suggest that political campaigns, rhetoric and policies can contribute to increased levels of preterm birth," said Alison Gemmill, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore and first author of the study. (Howard, 7/19)
