Mistreating Detained Immigrants: ‘Is This Who We Are Now?'

New York Times

6 hours ago

To the Editor:
Re 'In Immigrant Detentions, Filth and Despair Fester' (front page, June 29):
I'm curious to know: Apart from enforcers of the current political regime in Washington, are there American citizens who celebrate the fact that unidentified thugs, dressed in black tactical gear, are grabbing our neighbors from their homes or workplaces and tossing them into vehicles to imprison them in crowded detention centers? What has become of us?
As a culture, we Americans pretend to value freedom, we boast of being hard-working and ambitious, and we display bumper stickers advising lovingkindness. How is it that now we are encouraged by right-wing politicians to celebrate the vicious separation of families, the arrests of individuals who have lived in our cities and towns for decades and who are children and parents and grandparents? So many of them work hard to make a living, provide a service and belong to our community​.
Is this who we are now? And if that's not who we are, are we prepared to watch from the sidelines without demanding that our senators and representatives call out and prohibit these police-state outrages? What happened to our cherished rule of law, due process and common humanity?
Have we become so cruel or hopeless or cynical that we keep our heads down and hope that the gaze of the authorities — feeding on fear and intimidation — will pass over us and enforce our silence in the face of their hateful and illegal actions? We may avoid their attention, but history will understand that silence as complicity.
Brad ParksSanta Barbara, Calif.
To the Editor:
This article spotlighted the appalling conditions in immigrant detention centers throughout the country. What compounds this tragedy is that children, including babies and toddlers, are also being subjected to these inhumane conditions.
As co-counsel representing children in federal immigration custody through the 1997 federal court agreement known as the Flores settlement, which sets basic standards for their care and limits how long they can be detained, our team has for years witnessed firsthand the trauma inflicted upon children in such detention centers.
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