LEESPORT, Pa. (AP) - At first glance, the Berks County Residential Center seems like a cross between a decent, no-frills hotel and an elementary school.
Children and teenagers trade jokes and play spirited games of pool. Works of art and homework hang from the walls of the classrooms, proudly portraying the progress of the center’s school students. Spanish-speaking teachers from the Berks County Intermediate Unit provide individualized instruction.
But the families living there never leave without supervision.
That’s because the Berks County Residential Center isn’t a mediocre hotel. It’s a relatively comfortable prison.
For years, it housed people with immigration detainers for only short periods of time as they sought financing for a bond, said Carol Anne Donohoe, a Berks County immigration attorney representing some of the families currently housed at the center.
But many of the immigrants housed there in the past two years, including children, have been held prisoner for more than 500 days.
“Never in the history of family detention has any family been detained as long as these families,” Donohoe said.
Legal purgatory
The families - mostly women and children - don’t fit stereotypes of unauthorized immigrants.
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“If three-year-old Diego were a criminal, we could get him out, but he’s not, he’s just an asylum seeker.”
Carol Anne Donohoe, Berks County attorney
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They aren’t Mexican citizens. They are fleeing civil war, drug rings and chaos in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.
The women haven’t committed any crimes, Donohoe said - unlike some other unauthorized immigrants who have legal avenues to be released.
“If three-year-old Diego were a criminal, we could get him out, but he’s not, he’s just an asylum seeker,” she said.
After the 29 families entered the United States in the fall of 2015, immigration officials interviewed them to determine whether they had a “credible fear” of returning home that would bar the United States from deporting them under international law, according to Lindsay Harris, an immigration expert and assistant professor of law at the University of the District of Columbia.
They failed the interview.
However, the women claimed their interview process was flawed and appealed to have their story heard by the American court system. An appeals court ruled they didn’t have that right, and the U.S. Supreme Court decided in April 2017 to not hear their case.
In the meantime - a period of more than 500 days - 14 of the families have been held at the Berks County Residential Center.
The families are only occasionally permitted to leave the facility, and even then it is only for short, highly supervised field trips. One family told the Reading Eagle last fall that the children were taken to the Taste of Hamburg-er Festival in Hamburg but weren’t allowed to purchase any hamburgers.
The Lebanon Daily News was unable to confirm on June 15 how many of the 14 families are still at the Berks County Residential Center. As of early May, however, 13 of the families were still housed there, according to multiple people familiar with the case.
No opportunity to post bail
In most cases, advocates said, unauthorized immigrants would be considered for release from prison with a bond as their case is pending - and for about half of the families that failed their “credible fear” hearings, that is exactly what happened.
However, 14 families remained detained without being given the opportunity to post a bond, said Bridget Cambria, a Berks County attorney representing some of the families.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, the families still housed there are statutorily ineligible for bond due to provisions of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. Spokesperson Adrian Smith said he could not specify the exact provision, because different cases involve different sections of the act and ICE cannot discuss specific cases due to privacy restrictions.
Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, said it’s clear the families aren’t a danger to society, and courts could use ankle bracelets or another method to ensure they don’t flee. Some women in the facility say they have relatives in the United States who would welcome them if released, according to the Reading Eagle.
“It’s shocking to me that they’ve kept them detained this whole time,” Harris said. “The women have been forthright about why they’re here.”
Keeping them at the center is also a burden on taxpayers - about $343 per person per day, according to a report by human rights organization Human Rights First.
Four of the families include children who have been granted Special Immigrant Juvenile Status and have a pending application for permanent residency, according to a letter a group of United States senators, including Pennsylvania Democrat Bob Casey, recently sent to the Department of Homeland Security. Three of the four children have even received employment application cards, the senators wrote. However, they were still housed with their mothers at the Berks County Residential Center as of early May.
A flight risk?
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“Children should not be used as human shields.”
Ira Mehlman, Federation for American Immigration Reform
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Not everyone believes the detention of the families is irrational or inhumane.
Given the Obama administration’s relatively loose approach to enforcing immigration law, ICE probably believed there was a good reason for not releasing those families, said Chris Chmielenski, director of content and activism for immigration-reduction organization Numbers USA.
“I really think somebody in the Obama administration must think that these families were a flight risk and had a low (chance) of attaining asylum status, and that was why they detained them,” he said.
Immigration officials may also be trying to send a message to other refugees considering seeking asylum in the United States that they won’t be given years of freedom as their case is pending.
A Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service report on the facility quoted an ICE news release as saying that when ICE releases immigrant families because they have children, it encourages other immigrants to “rent” children for the border crossing.
“(There was) the perception that if you came to the United States as a minor, or with minor children, we will let you in,” said Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform. He defended the use of confinement to disincentivize potential immigrant families.
“Children should not be used as human shields,” he said.
Chmielenski said he would believe the Trump administration would detain families as a disincentive, but he doubts that would have been the reason the families were detained during the Obama administration.
“They want to be kids”
Immigration officials provided the Lebanon Daily News with a tour of the facility that showcased its positive side: bright classrooms, a fun-looking outdoor playground, and private spaces for meeting with attorneys.
Advocates for the families say there is also a darker side. Aside from the teachers, many staff members don’t speak Spanish and it is therefore difficult for the women to communicate their concerns, Cambria said. Parents and their children aren’t allowed to sleep together at night, Donohoe said.
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“It’s shocking to me that they’ve kept them detained this whole time. The women have been forthright about why they’re here.”
Lindsay Harris, assistant professor of law at the University of the District of Columbia
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Perhaps the biggest concern is bed checks held every 15 minutes, in which staff shine bright lights into the bedrooms, making it difficult for people to sleep.
The night checks are required by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services “to ensure the safety and security of the residents and staff,” ICE officials said in an email.
But the debate over the quality of life at Berks County Residential Center may obscure a bigger-picture concern.
Human Rights First said the act of detaining children is itself harmful to their well-being, leading to increases in depression, anxiety and aggression.
“They want free movement, they want to be kids, and they can’t,” Cambria said.
Berks County wouldn’t comment for this story. On its website, it says it is trying to keep families together in cases where parents are required by ICE to be detained.
“The facility provides an effective humane alternative for alien families to maintain family unity as they await the outcome of their immigration hearings or return to their home countries,” the website states.
Deported in the night
Since the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, Donohoe said deportation proceedings haven’t been held in a way that respects “basic human decency.”
Thirteen of the 14 families, mostly from El Salvador, are still there, though for how long, their attorneys don’t know. Donohoe said that even though she and other attorneys are representing the families, they aren’t given any information about when they will be deported.
One family from Honduras was suddenly woken out of bed at 3:30 a.m. May 3 to be transported back to their home country, she said. That prompted Sen. Casey to begin an ultimately unsuccessful Twitter campaign to stop their deportation.
“We may never find out what happens to this child & his mother, but their fates should weigh on the conscious of this Administration,” Casey tweeted that evening, after the family was deported.
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Information from: Lebanon Daily News, https://www.ldnews.com
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