SEPTEMBER 13, 2019
11:30 AM – 1:00 PM
5100 Southwest Freeway, Houston, TX 77056
Join us for this firsthand account of what Willamette Law professor and international children’s rights expert Warren Binford discovered when she and her colleagues walked into the Clint Border Patrol Facility on a routine monitoring visit outside of El Paso, Texas, in June 2019. Over the course of four days and through interviews involving approximately 70 children, the team came to realize that hundreds of children were being unlawfully warehoused by the U.S. government in a state of filth, hunger, sickness, and sadness, without any meaningful adult care. Some children reported being assaulted by the Border Patrol while many reported being forced to sleep on concrete floors, including infants and toddlers, in overcrowded jail cells, a loading dock, and a windowless warehouse. Binford explains what had changed in their observations about the government’s treatment of the children in its care that compelled them to go to the media for the first time in 22 years of Flores monitoring visits. Binford lays out the legal framework that applies to migrant children in custody, highlighting both the legal violations, as well as the loopholes that need to be closed to ensure the humane treatment of children, and — importantly — how the average U.S. citizen can take action. Binford’s discussion includes powerful direct quotations from the children’s sworn declarations to ensure that their voices and stories are heard and amplified by the American public.
Binford is scheduled to participate in US House and Senate briefings in D.C. on September 11 & 12. She arrives in Houston Thursday evening September 12 for the Democratic Presidential Debates and will participate in forums with experts, elected officials, and activists on September 13 to amplify the voices of the children who are being abused and traumatized by the U.S government and private contractors working under their authority. HCDLA is working with Children at Risk and many other organizations to demand an immediate end to the horrifying, intentional, and flagrant human rights violations.
Comentarios