Illegal immigrant kids were mistreated under Obama (where was the outrage!?)

Illegal immigrant kids were mistreated under Obama (where was the outrage!?)

June 21, 2018

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Under former President Barack Obama, illegal immigrants as young as 14 housed at a juvenile detention center in Virginia say they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells.
So where was the mainstream media outrage then?
The abuse claims against the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia, are detailed in federal court filings from 2015 that include a half-dozen sworn statements from Latino teens jailed there for months or years. Multiple detainees say the guards stripped them of their clothes and strapped them to chairs with bags placed over their heads.
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“Whenever they used to restrain me and put me in the chair, they would handcuff me,” said a Honduran illegal alien who was sent to the facility when he was 15 years old. “Strapped me down all the way, from your feet all the way to your chest, you couldn’t really move. … They have total control over you. They also put a bag over your head. It has little holes; you can see through it. But you feel suffocated with the bag on.”
Most children held in the Shenandoah facility who were the focus of the abuse lawsuit were caught crossing the border illegally alone under Obama. They were not the children who have been separated from their families under the Trump administration’s recent policy and are now in the government’s care.
No wonder they haven’t gotten any attention by the media.
Robert Carey, who served as director of Refugee Resettlement under the Obama administration, said Tuesday he never once heard about the complaints at the Shenandoah center while he was in office. Had he known, Carey said, he “would have been all over that trying to figure out what needed to be done, including termination of contracts.”
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The Shenandoah lockup is one of only three juvenile detention facilities in the United States under Obama given federal contracts to provide “secure placement” for children who had problems at less-restrictive housing. The Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility in California has faced litigation over immigrant children labeled as gang members. In Alexandria, Virginia, a multi-jurisdiction commission overseeing the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center has said it will end its federal contract to house young illegal immigration detainees when it expires in September.
The Shenandoah detention center was built by a coalition of seven nearby towns and counties to lock up local kids charged with serious crimes.
Under Obama, about half the 58 beds are occupied by both male and female immigrants between the ages of 12 and 17 facing deportation proceedings or awaiting rulings on asylum claims. Though incarcerated in a facility similar to a prison, the children detained on administrative immigration charges have not yet been convicted of any crime.
This could all be avoided, critics say, if there was a secure border wall preventing mass illegal migrations.
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The Associated Press contributed to this article