Philly must stand strong against detaining immigrant youth | Opinion

While migrant children suffering in detention centers on the southern border are desperate for an intervention, we also need to take action to protect children detained in the interior – even in our own backyards. Philadelphia’s Commonwealth Court is correct in ruling to block placing migrant youth in VisionQuest’s for-profit facility in Philadelphia. This should be a precedent for cities across the country to refuse to be complicit in the detention of immigrant youth in America.

Last month a Common Pleas Court initially granted VisionQuest permission to open the North Philadelphia center, ruling it would cause, “no adverse impact on or jeopardy of health, safety, or welfare of ... the children placed in the shelter.”

We know differently. As a former residential counselor at the Center For Family Services (CFFS) immigrant shelters in South Jersey and a pediatrician who provided medical care to their detained children, we know that harm is inevitable when detaining children and Philadelphia must persist in blocking VisionQuest from opening. After witnessing the trauma of detention, we are conscientious objectors. Philadelphia should be too.

Due to an epidemic of violence and extreme poverty in Central America, more children are escaping the dangers of their home countries. Unaccompanied minors risk their lives seeking asylum, a legal right under current U.S. and international law. After crossing the border to reunite with parents, family members or other sponsors in the U.S., the children are transferred to the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) until their sponsors receive government approval.

ORR refers to their least restrictive detention centers as shelters, but with many run by organizations with little federal or state oversight, these “shelters” are often dangerous places.

Though children in ORR detention have better accommodations than the freezing, cement floored cages of lashielaras and las perreras at the border, they are often subjected to psychological torment.

A family-oriented setting is only an illusion in the ORR shelters run by CFFS in South Jersey where little value is placed on child welfare. Strict, regimented schedules include needing permission to access food or drink water and signing a form to use the bathroom. Psychological manipulation has become routine. To maintain control, staff often respond to any resistance from youth with a false threat that their behavior will delay reunification with their family. It is common for the children to feel like they are being jailed.

Despite nearly $11 million in federal grants and a mandate to provide mental health services, CFFS recently went over six months without any licensed therapists on staff. They continue to use workers without medical backgrounds as medical coordinators, despite documented gaps in medical care.

Exemplifying disregard for child welfare was CFFS’s attempt to get blanket medical clearances to physically restrain children, including babies. CFFS staff orientations include trainings on physical restraint and self-defense, as if preparing to guard dangerous prisoners instead of protecting traumatized children.

Adding to concern about detention’s effects on children’s health and development is the government’s plan to cut funding for education, recreation, and legal aid. Stripping shelters of care and enrichment will leave children in a prison that looks like a house.

From rampant sexual assault to medical neglect, children in ORR shelters have been victimized by our immigration policy. Now VisionQuest wants to open a new site in Philadelphia. Alarmingly, VisionQuest has an extensive history of abusing children that should disqualify it from all youth programming, especially exceedingly vulnerable children seeking asylum.

With the tragic deaths of multiple children at the border, their squalid conditions are inhumane and demand immediate attention and resources.

We need to rescue children from these conditions. But transferring them to ORR shelters is not the solution. We urge the public not to overlook the harm involved in detaining children within our communities. The United Nations Refugee Agency supports ending the detention of asylum-seeking youth stating, “The practice of putting children in immigration detention is in violation of the [Convention of the Rights of the Child].”

These children have families and homes waiting to welcome them. A national overhaul with alternative care options, such as expedited placement with sponsors and continued welfare checks until placement approval, is needed to better protect our unaccompanied minors. or

Immigrant children are not commodities. The multi-million dollar contracts with ORR should not come at the cost of the welfare of children seeking asylum. We serve as witnesses to the trauma children endure in immigration detention and protest its extension to Philadelphia and its environs.

Philadelphia is a sanctuary city, welcoming immigrants with freedom and liberty. As we await the court’s final decision, we must continue to protest the opening of VisionQuest and refuse to detain immigrant children in our community.

Elana Levites-Agababa is a pediatrician at a health center in Camden, NJ who treated immigrant children at the Center For Family Services ORR shelters. Evelyn Caffo is a case manager at a Philadelphia social services agency and former senior residential counselor at the Center