Tender Age Shelters

[JimmyJames 12271]

It wasn’t directed at you. You’re not a trumpkin.

[Anastasis 23474]

Just now, JimmyJames said:

It wasn’t directed at you. You’re not a trumpkin.

Thanks for clarifying. Please excuse my confusion, between the various angles of collaborating boot licker and fascist normalizer. 

[Loch Ness Monster 3533]

Trump is evil.

[Catdaddyhorn 3445]

11 hours ago, Patricio Swayze said:

 

One guy in my office offered this nugget of genius: stop breaking the law and they won’t be separated.

Not surprised as this is a guy that referred to Obama as a monkey and has no problem dropping a nigger or nigress without a care.

 

I'm guessing this is the same guy calling black people animals from another thread back on shaggy. 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigrant children 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.

The abuse claims against the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia, are detailed in federal court filings 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.

"Whenever they used to restrain me and put me in the chair, they would handcuff me," said a Honduran immigrant 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."

In addition to the children's first-hand, translated accounts in court filings, a former child-development specialist who worked inside the facility independently told The Associated Press this week that she saw kids there with bruises and broken bones they blamed on guards. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to publicly discuss the children's cases.

In court filings, lawyers for the detention facility have denied all allegations of physical abuse.

Many of the children were sent there after U.S. immigration authorities accused them of belonging to violent gangs, including MS-13. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited gang activity as justification for his crackdown on illegal immigration.

Trump said Wednesday that "our Border Patrol agents and our ICE agents have done one great job" cracking down on MS-13 gang members. "We're throwing them out by the thousands," he said.

But a top manager at the Shenandoah center said during a recent congressional hearing that the children did not appear to be gang members and were suffering from mental health issues resulting from trauma that happened in their home countries — problems the detention facility is ill-equipped to treat.

Rest in spoilers

The youth were being screened as gang-involved individuals. And then when they came into our care, and they were assessed by our clinical and case management staff ... they weren't necessarily identified as gang-involved individuals," said Kelsey Wong, a program director at the facility. She testified April 26 before a Senate subcommittee reviewing the treatment of immigrant children apprehended by the Homeland Security Department.

Most children held in the Shenandoah facility who were the focus of the abuse lawsuit were caught crossing the border illegally alone. 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. But the facility there operates under the same program run by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. It was not immediately clear whether any separated children have been sent to Shenandoah Valley since the Trump administration in April announced its "zero tolerance" policy toward immigrant families, after the lawsuit was filed.

The Shenandoah lockup is one of only three juvenile detention facilities in the United States with 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 mischaracterized as gang members.  In Alexandria, Virginia, a board overseeing the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center voted this week to end its contract to house federal immigration detainees, bowing to public pressure.

The Shenandoah detention center was built by a coalition of seven nearby towns and counties to lock up local kids charged with serious crimes. Since 2007, 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.

Virginia ranks among the worst states in the nation for wait times in federal immigration courts, with an average of 806 days before a ruling. Nationally, only about half of juveniles facing deportation are represented by a lawyer, according to Justice Department data.

On average, 92 immigrant children each year cycle through Shenandoah, most of them from Mexico and Central America.

Wong said many of the 30 or so children housed there on any given day have mental health needs that would be better served in a residential treatment unit. But such facilities are often unwilling to accept children with significant behavioral issues, she said.

Wong and other managers at the Shenandoah center, including Executive Director Timothy J. Smith, did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment this week. A city manager on the local commission that oversees the facility referred questions to an official at the Refugee Resettlement agency, who did not respond to a phone message.

Financial statements reviewed by AP shows the local government commission that operates the center received nearly $4.2 million in federal funds last year to house the immigrant children — enough to cover about two-thirds of the total operating expenses.

The lawsuit filed against Shenandoah alleges that young Latino immigrants held there "are subjected to unconstitutional conditions that shock the conscience, including violence by staff, abusive and excessive use of seclusion and restraints, and the denial of necessary mental health care."

The complaint filed by the nonprofit Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs recounts the story of an unnamed 17-year-old Mexican citizen apprehended at the southern border. The teen fled an abusive father and violence fueled by drug cartels to seek asylum in the United States in 2015.

After stops at facilities in Texas and New York, he was transferred to Shenandoah in April 2016 and diagnosed during an initial screening by a psychologist with three mental disorders, including depression. Besides weekly sessions speaking with a counselor, the lawsuit alleges the teen has received no further mental health treatment, such as medications that might help regulate his moods and behavior.

The lawsuit recounts multiple alleged violent incidents between Latino children and staff at the Shenandoah center. It describes the guards as mostly white, non-Spanish speakers who are undertrained in dealing with individuals with mental illness. The suit alleges staff members routinely taunt the Latino youths with racially charged epithets, including "wetback," ''onion head" and "pendejo," which roughly translates to dumbass in Spanish.

A 16-year-old who said he had lived in Texas with his mother since he was an infant ended up at Shenandoah in September after a police officer pulled over a car he was riding in and asked for ID, which he couldn't provide. As one of the few Latino kids who is fluent in English, the teen would translate for other detainees the taunts and names the staff members were calling them. He said that angered the guards, resulting in his losing such modest privileges as attending art classes.

"If you are behaving bad, resisting the staff when they try to remove you from the program, they will take everything in your room away — your mattress, blanket, everything," he said. "They will also take your clothes. Then they will leave you locked in there for a while. This has happened to me, and I know it has happened to other kids, too."

The immigrant detainees said they were largely segregated from the mostly white juveniles being held on criminal charges, but they could see that the other housing units had amenities that included plush chairs and video gaming consoles not available in the Spartan pods housing the Latinos.

In their sworn statements, the teens reported spending the bulk of their days locked alone in their cells, with a few hours set aside for classroom instruction, recreation and meals. Some said they had never been allowed outdoors, while the U.S.-born children were afforded a spacious recreation yard.

The Latino children reported being fed sparse and often cold meals that left them hungry, though meals of American fast food were occasionally provided. Records show Shenandoah receives nearly $82,000 a year from the Agriculture Department to feed the immigration detainees.

The lawsuit said the poor conditions, frequent physical searches and verbal abuse by staff often escalated into confrontations, as the frustrated children acted out. The staff regularly responded "by physically assaulting the youth, applying an excessive amount of force that goes far beyond what is needed to establish or regain control."

In the case of the Mexican 17-year-old, the lawsuit said a staff member who suspected him of possessing contraband threw him to the ground and forcibly tore off his clothes for an impromptu strip search. Though no forbidden items were found, the teenager was transferred to "Alpha Pod," described in the lawsuit as a unit within the facility designated for children who engage in bad behavior.

The lawsuit said Latino children were frequently punished by being restrained for hours in chairs, with handcuffs and cloth shackles on their legs. Often, the lawsuit alleged, the children were beaten by staff while bound.

As a result of such "malicious and sadistic applications of force," the immigrant youths have "sustained significant injuries, both physical and psychological," the lawsuit said.

After an altercation during which the lawsuit alleged the Mexican teenager bit a staff member during a beating, he was restrained in handcuffs and shackles for 10 days, resulting in bruises and cuts. Other teens interviewed as part of the court case also reported being punished for minor infractions with stints in solitary confinement, during which some of the children said they were left nude and shivering in cold concrete cells.

Academic studies of prison inmates kept in solitary confinement have found they often experience high anxiety that can cause panic attacks, paranoia and disordered thinking that may trigger angry outbursts. For those with mental health issues, the effects can be exacerbated, often worsening the very behaviors the staff is attempting to discourage.

A Guatemalan youth sent to the center when he was 14 years old said he was often locked in his tiny cell for up to 23 hours a day. After resisting the guards, he said he was also restrained for long periods.

"When they couldn't get one of the kids to calm down, the guards would put us in a chair — a safety chair, I don't know what they call it — but they would just put us in there all day," the teen said in a sworn statement. "This happened to me, and I saw it happen to others, too. It was excessive."

A 15-year-old from Mexico held at Shenandoah for nine months also recounted being restrained with a bag over his head.

"They handcuffed me and put a white bag of some kind over my head," he said, according to his sworn statement. "They took off all of my clothes and put me into a restraint chair, where they attached my hands and feet to the chair. They also put a strap across my chest. They left me naked and attached to that chair for two and a half days, including at night."

After being subjected to such treatment, the 17-year-old Mexican youth said he tried to kill himself in August, only to be punished with further isolation. On other occasions, he said, he has responded to feelings of desperation and hopelessness by cutting his wrists with a piece of glass and banging his head against the wall or floor.

"One time I cut myself after I had gotten into a fight with staff," the teen recounted. "I filled the room with blood. This happened on a Friday, but it wasn't until Monday that they gave me a bandage or medicine for the pain."

The lawsuit alleges other immigrant youths held at Shenandoah have also engaged in cutting and other self-harming behaviors, including ingesting shampoo and attempting to choke themselves.

A hearing in the case is set for July 3 before a federal judge in the Western District of Virginia.

Lawyers on both sides in the lawsuit either did not respond to messages or declined to comment, citing strict confidentiality requirements in the case involving children.

The child development specialist who previously worked with teens at Shenandoah told AP that many there developed severe psychological problems after experiencing abuse from guards.

"The majority of the kids we worked with when we went to visit them were emotionally and verbally abused. I had a kid whose foot was broken by a guard," she said. "They would get put in isolation for months for things like picking up a pencil when a guard had said not to move. Some of them started hearing voices that were telling them to hurt people or hurt themselves, and I knew when they had gotten to Shenandoah they were not having any violent thoughts."

She said she never witnessed staff abuse teens first-hand, but that teens would complain to her of injuries from being tackled by guards and reveal bruises. The specialist encouraged them to file a formal complaint.

Though lawyers for Shenandoah responded with court filings denying all wrongdoing, information contained in a separate 2016 lawsuit appears to support some of the information contained in the recent abuse complaints.

In a wrongful termination lawsuit filed against the Shenandoah center, a former staff member said he worked in unit called "Alpha Pod" where immigrant minors were held, "including those with psychological and mental issues and those who tend to fight more frequently."

The guard, Trenton Farris, who denied claims that he punched two children, sued the justice center alleging he was wrongly targeted for firing because he is black. Farris said most staff members at the facility are white, and that two white staff members involved in the incident over which he was fired went unpunished.

Lawyers for the center denied the former guard's claims, and the case was settled in January.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

I'm guessing this is the same guy calling black people animals from another thread back on shaggy. 

Yes, probably. I think I have told stories about two different coworkers. But there are or were about 3-4 that I have constant contact with that do this sort of thing.

I would love (hate) to hear this old crazy fuck’s take on this current issue, but he was let go a couple of years ago. This was the guy that saw no problems with private prisons, also called Obama a monkey, was a Bible literalist and told us about how he buried a sack full of live kittens as a child. But he was a good Christian!!!

[kevwun 15790]

So many lawsuits are going to come out of this, it's going to dwarf all the money the government has been bilked out of by Trump Inc.

[Austin Orange 98]

So, an American husband and wife break into business and are arrested, but have a family at home.  Is this the thread I complain about separating them from their kids while they serve time in jail?

Or is there another one for that?

[Chad Fuck 17684]

1 minute ago, Austin Orange said:

So, an American husband and wife break into business and are arrested, but have a family at home.  Is this the thread I complain about separating them from their kids while they serve time in jail?

Or is there another one for that?

Go to the thread for the aggy idiots who don't understand the difference between a misdemeanor and a felony.  And also, human dignity.  

This has been explained a thousand times here.

[kevwun 15790]

There kid gets placed with family or in the foster care system locally.  The child isn't shipped across the country while the identity of his/her parents is lost from time to time.

Edited June 21, 2018 by kevwun

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

So, an American husband and wife break into business and are arrested, but have a family at home.  Is this the thread I complain about separating them from their kids while they serve time in jail?
Or is there another one for that?

Goddamn you are an idiot.

[Brisketexan 105151]

1 minute ago, Patricio Swayze said:

Goddamn you are an idiot.

Every response other than this one was a waste of time.

[Mojo Hand 4580]

This topic has been great for figuring out who the Trump-cult morons are on the new board.

[Hornius Emeritus 12464]

42 minutes ago, Austin Orange said:

So, an American husband and wife break into business and are arrested, but have a family at home.  Is this the thread I complain about separating them from their kids while they serve time in jail?

Or is there another one for that?

 

Holy shit ... did you seriously just draw this analogy?

 

Edit: Reading further, I see others had the same response as I did.

This is what passes for thought among Trump defenders.

Edited June 21, 2018 by Hornius Emeritus

[Brisketexan 105151]

Just now, Hornius Emeritus said:

 

Holy shit ... did you seriously just draw this analogy?

The mind of a Trump voter, dude.  Take it in.  And close your mouth, it's rude -- I know it's jaw-dropping, but still.

[ScottishHorn 172]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.vox.com/platform/amp/2018/6/20/17484546/executive-order-family-separation-flores-settlement-agreement-immigration

[ScottishHorn 172]

It's strange watching people freak out over detention centers that were created under the Obama administration 

[Js1 85353]

It's strange watching dumbasses keep regurgitating the same talking point that has already been debunked.

Wait no, it's not. I saw the crowd at Trump's rally. The combined IQ of that room was probably 27.

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

It's strange watching people freak out over detention centers that were created under the Obama administration 

It’s strange to see that people who have the cognitive ability to post on a message board but can’t grasp what is happening and what the differences are.

[Brisketexan 105151]

1 minute ago, Patricio Swayze said:

 

It’s strange to see that people who have the cognitive ability to post on a message board but can’t grasp what is happening and what the differences are.

 

It's not strange at all.  It's humorously predictable.  There's not much funnier than folks who aren't clever but think they are try to punch above their weight.

[ScottishHorn 172]

4 minutes ago, Patricio Swayze said:

 

It’s strange to see that people who have the cognitive ability to post on a message board but can’t grasp what is happening and what the differences are.

 

What are the differences 

[Patricio Swayze 17058]

What are the differences 

This shit has been discussed many times in the two threads on the subject. I am not going to regurgitate them for you. Go do your own reading.

[ScottishHorn 172]

I've read lots of opinion but no facts or substance

[ScottishHorn 172]

15 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

Funny because she is part of the Congress that created this mess

[MaybeACoordinator 8349]

Hate to even joke about this but "Tender Age Shelter" sounds like a 1980s Skinemax flick. 

[ScottishHorn 172]

21 minutes ago, Js1 said:

It's strange watching dumbasses keep regurgitating the same talking point that has already been debunked.

Wait no, it's not. I saw the crowd at Trump's rally. The combined IQ of that room was probably 27.

It's not debunked.

[Pancho 44826]

Scottish with his Fox News talking points word for word.

[Captainant 27678]

3 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Immigrant children 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.

The abuse claims against the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia, are detailed in federal court filings 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.

"Whenever they used to restrain me and put me in the chair, they would handcuff me," said a Honduran immigrant 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."

In addition to the children's first-hand, translated accounts in court filings, a former child-development specialist who worked inside the facility independently told The Associated Press this week that she saw kids there with bruises and broken bones they blamed on guards. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to publicly discuss the children's cases.

In court filings, lawyers for the detention facility have denied all allegations of physical abuse.

Many of the children were sent there after U.S. immigration authorities accused them of belonging to violent gangs, including MS-13. President Donald Trump has repeatedly cited gang activity as justification for his crackdown on illegal immigration.

Trump said Wednesday that "our Border Patrol agents and our ICE agents have done one great job" cracking down on MS-13 gang members. "We're throwing them out by the thousands," he said.

But a top manager at the Shenandoah center said during a recent congressional hearing that the children did not appear to be gang members and were suffering from mental health issues resulting from trauma that happened in their home countries — problems the detention facility is ill-equipped to treat.

Rest in spoilers

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

The youth were being screened as gang-involved individuals. And then when they came into our care, and they were assessed by our clinical and case management staff ... they weren't necessarily identified as gang-involved individuals," said Kelsey Wong, a program director at the facility. She testified April 26 before a Senate subcommittee reviewing the treatment of immigrant children apprehended by the Homeland Security Department.

Most children held in the Shenandoah facility who were the focus of the abuse lawsuit were caught crossing the border illegally alone. 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. But the facility there operates under the same program run by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement. It was not immediately clear whether any separated children have been sent to Shenandoah Valley since the Trump administration in April announced its "zero tolerance" policy toward immigrant families, after the lawsuit was filed.

The Shenandoah lockup is one of only three juvenile detention facilities in the United States with 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 mischaracterized as gang members.  In Alexandria, Virginia, a board overseeing the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center voted this week to end its contract to house federal immigration detainees, bowing to public pressure.

The Shenandoah detention center was built by a coalition of seven nearby towns and counties to lock up local kids charged with serious crimes. Since 2007, 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.

Virginia ranks among the worst states in the nation for wait times in federal immigration courts, with an average of 806 days before a ruling. Nationally, only about half of juveniles facing deportation are represented by a lawyer, according to Justice Department data.

On average, 92 immigrant children each year cycle through Shenandoah, most of them from Mexico and Central America.

Wong said many of the 30 or so children housed there on any given day have mental health needs that would be better served in a residential treatment unit. But such facilities are often unwilling to accept children with significant behavioral issues, she said.

Wong and other managers at the Shenandoah center, including Executive Director Timothy J. Smith, did not respond to phone and email messages seeking comment this week. A city manager on the local commission that oversees the facility referred questions to an official at the Refugee Resettlement agency, who did not respond to a phone message.

Financial statements reviewed by AP shows the local government commission that operates the center received nearly $4.2 million in federal funds last year to house the immigrant children — enough to cover about two-thirds of the total operating expenses.

The lawsuit filed against Shenandoah alleges that young Latino immigrants held there "are subjected to unconstitutional conditions that shock the conscience, including violence by staff, abusive and excessive use of seclusion and restraints, and the denial of necessary mental health care."

The complaint filed by the nonprofit Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs recounts the story of an unnamed 17-year-old Mexican citizen apprehended at the southern border. The teen fled an abusive father and violence fueled by drug cartels to seek asylum in the United States in 2015.

After stops at facilities in Texas and New York, he was transferred to Shenandoah in April 2016 and diagnosed during an initial screening by a psychologist with three mental disorders, including depression. Besides weekly sessions speaking with a counselor, the lawsuit alleges the teen has received no further mental health treatment, such as medications that might help regulate his moods and behavior.

The lawsuit recounts multiple alleged violent incidents between Latino children and staff at the Shenandoah center. It describes the guards as mostly white, non-Spanish speakers who are undertrained in dealing with individuals with mental illness. The suit alleges staff members routinely taunt the Latino youths with racially charged epithets, including "wetback," ''onion head" and "pendejo," which roughly translates to dumbass in Spanish.

A 16-year-old who said he had lived in Texas with his mother since he was an infant ended up at Shenandoah in September after a police officer pulled over a car he was riding in and asked for ID, which he couldn't provide. As one of the few Latino kids who is fluent in English, the teen would translate for other detainees the taunts and names the staff members were calling them. He said that angered the guards, resulting in his losing such modest privileges as attending art classes.

"If you are behaving bad, resisting the staff when they try to remove you from the program, they will take everything in your room away — your mattress, blanket, everything," he said. "They will also take your clothes. Then they will leave you locked in there for a while. This has happened to me, and I know it has happened to other kids, too."

The immigrant detainees said they were largely segregated from the mostly white juveniles being held on criminal charges, but they could see that the other housing units had amenities that included plush chairs and video gaming consoles not available in the Spartan pods housing the Latinos.

In their sworn statements, the teens reported spending the bulk of their days locked alone in their cells, with a few hours set aside for classroom instruction, recreation and meals. Some said they had never been allowed outdoors, while the U.S.-born children were afforded a spacious recreation yard.

The Latino children reported being fed sparse and often cold meals that left them hungry, though meals of American fast food were occasionally provided. Records show Shenandoah receives nearly $82,000 a year from the Agriculture Department to feed the immigration detainees.

The lawsuit said the poor conditions, frequent physical searches and verbal abuse by staff often escalated into confrontations, as the frustrated children acted out. The staff regularly responded "by physically assaulting the youth, applying an excessive amount of force that goes far beyond what is needed to establish or regain control."

In the case of the Mexican 17-year-old, the lawsuit said a staff member who suspected him of possessing contraband threw him to the ground and forcibly tore off his clothes for an impromptu strip search. Though no forbidden items were found, the teenager was transferred to "Alpha Pod," described in the lawsuit as a unit within the facility designated for children who engage in bad behavior.

The lawsuit said Latino children were frequently punished by being restrained for hours in chairs, with handcuffs and cloth shackles on their legs. Often, the lawsuit alleged, the children were beaten by staff while bound.

As a result of such "malicious and sadistic applications of force," the immigrant youths have "sustained significant injuries, both physical and psychological," the lawsuit said.

After an altercation during which the lawsuit alleged the Mexican teenager bit a staff member during a beating, he was restrained in handcuffs and shackles for 10 days, resulting in bruises and cuts. Other teens interviewed as part of the court case also reported being punished for minor infractions with stints in solitary confinement, during which some of the children said they were left nude and shivering in cold concrete cells.

Academic studies of prison inmates kept in solitary confinement have found they often experience high anxiety that can cause panic attacks, paranoia and disordered thinking that may trigger angry outbursts. For those with mental health issues, the effects can be exacerbated, often worsening the very behaviors the staff is attempting to discourage.

A Guatemalan youth sent to the center when he was 14 years old said he was often locked in his tiny cell for up to 23 hours a day. After resisting the guards, he said he was also restrained for long periods.

"When they couldn't get one of the kids to calm down, the guards would put us in a chair — a safety chair, I don't know what they call it — but they would just put us in there all day," the teen said in a sworn statement. "This happened to me, and I saw it happen to others, too. It was excessive."

A 15-year-old from Mexico held at Shenandoah for nine months also recounted being restrained with a bag over his head.

"They handcuffed me and put a white bag of some kind over my head," he said, according to his sworn statement. "They took off all of my clothes and put me into a restraint chair, where they attached my hands and feet to the chair. They also put a strap across my chest. They left me naked and attached to that chair for two and a half days, including at night."

After being subjected to such treatment, the 17-year-old Mexican youth said he tried to kill himself in August, only to be punished with further isolation. On other occasions, he said, he has responded to feelings of desperation and hopelessness by cutting his wrists with a piece of glass and banging his head against the wall or floor.

"One time I cut myself after I had gotten into a fight with staff," the teen recounted. "I filled the room with blood. This happened on a Friday, but it wasn't until Monday that they gave me a bandage or medicine for the pain."

The lawsuit alleges other immigrant youths held at Shenandoah have also engaged in cutting and other self-harming behaviors, including ingesting shampoo and attempting to choke themselves.

A hearing in the case is set for July 3 before a federal judge in the Western District of Virginia.

Lawyers on both sides in the lawsuit either did not respond to messages or declined to comment, citing strict confidentiality requirements in the case involving children.

The child development specialist who previously worked with teens at Shenandoah told AP that many there developed severe psychological problems after experiencing abuse from guards.

"The majority of the kids we worked with when we went to visit them were emotionally and verbally abused. I had a kid whose foot was broken by a guard," she said. "They would get put in isolation for months for things like picking up a pencil when a guard had said not to move. Some of them started hearing voices that were telling them to hurt people or hurt themselves, and I knew when they had gotten to Shenandoah they were not having any violent thoughts."

She said she never witnessed staff abuse teens first-hand, but that teens would complain to her of injuries from being tackled by guards and reveal bruises. The specialist encouraged them to file a formal complaint.

Though lawyers for Shenandoah responded with court filings denying all wrongdoing, information contained in a separate 2016 lawsuit appears to support some of the information contained in the recent abuse complaints.

In a wrongful termination lawsuit filed against the Shenandoah center, a former staff member said he worked in unit called "Alpha Pod" where immigrant minors were held, "including those with psychological and mental issues and those who tend to fight more frequently."

The guard, Trenton Farris, who denied claims that he punched two children, sued the justice center alleging he was wrongly targeted for firing because he is black. Farris said most staff members at the facility are white, and that two white staff members involved in the incident over which he was fired went unpunished.

Lawyers for the center denied the former guard's claims, and the case was settled in January.

 

[Ana]Well you see, this is totally acceptable because the facility was opened under obama. Nothing to see here, move along[/stasis]

[Dahobbs 17545]

15 minutes ago, ScottishHorn said:

It's not debunked.

You being a complete moron is proven. So that is nice.  Oh, and don't forget, you are definitely evil. 

[ScottishHorn 172]

1 minute ago, Dahobbs said:

You being a complete moron is proven. So that is nice.  Oh, and don't forget, you are definitely evil. 

My bad. Trump got approval from Congress to build all these detention centers in a little over a year

[Js1 85353]

3 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

You being a complete moron is proven. So that is nice.  Oh, and don't forget, you are definitely evil. 

Just askin questions.

[ScottishHorn 172]

14 minutes ago, Captainant said:

[Ana]Well you see, this is totally acceptable because the facility was opened under obama. Nothing to see here, move along[/stasis]

This is complete bs.

[Anastasis 23474]

7 minutes ago, Captainant said:

[Ana]Well you see, this is totally acceptable because the facility was opened under obama. Nothing to see here, move along[/stasis]

[ScottishHorn 172]

15 minutes ago, Captainant said:

[Ana]Well you see, this is totally acceptable because the facility was opened under obama. Nothing to see here, move along[/stasis]

It's on Twitter so it must be true..

[Hugo Stiglitz 23367]

Edited June 21, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[Larry T. Spider 1746]

Obama opens a facility for normal border operations. Trump uses the facility as a staging ground for sepating children as young as 8 months from their parents to send them across the country with no plans for reunification. And the response is “but Obama”? Some of you hypocritical pieces of shit can go die in a fire. 

All the bitching for years about the Obama catch and release policy and now you are going to claim that he was separating kids from their families and detaining them.....which was it?

 

[Foosters 17858]

I'm not even sure why this is being debated as we have an entire swath of the country living in a different reality.  The stuff I'm seeing on the internet from the Trump fans would be fascinating if it weren't so disturbing.  People so conditioned to distrust the media that they believe this entire crisis - from the children being separated, to the cages, to the audio of the children crying - is fake. One massive media conspiracy concocted out of thin air to mislead the public and take down their leader.  We are so far gone.  

[ScottishHorn 172]

8 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I'm not even sure why this is being debated as we have an entire swath of the country living in a different reality.  The stuff I'm seeing on the internet from the Trump fans would be fascinating if it weren't so disturbing.  People so conditioned to distrust the media that they believe this entire crisis - from the children being separated, to the cages, to the audio of the children crying - is fake. One massive media conspiracy concocted out of thin air to mislead the public and take down their leader.  We are so far gone.  

I believe the children are crying and are separated and are locked in a facility.  I dont believe they are strapped down for days and beaten without food and water.  I also believe this is the way these situations have been handled in the past.  Have you read the flores settlement?

[F250 28777]

3 minutes ago, ScottishHorn said:

I believe the children are crying and are separated and are locked in a facility.  I dont believe they are strapped down for days and beaten without food and water.  I also believe this is the way these situations have been handled in the past.  Have you read the flores settlement?

[JohnRedHorn 29]

42 minutes ago, Foosters said:

I'm not even sure why this is being debated as we have an entire swath of the country living in a different reality.  The stuff I'm seeing on the internet from the Trump fans would be fascinating if it weren't so disturbing.  People so conditioned to distrust the media that they believe this entire crisis - from the children being separated, to the cages, to the audio of the children crying - is fake. One massive media conspiracy concocted out of thin air to mislead the public and take down their leader.  We are so far gone.  

This country deserves whatever future disaster/civil war it has coming to it. What a shithole this place has become in only 17 years. Bin Laden fucking won. 

[Dahobbs 17545]

56 minutes ago, ScottishHorn said:

I believe the children are crying and are separated and are locked in a facility.  I dont believe they are strapped down for days and beaten without food and water.  I also believe this is the way these situations have been handled in the past.  Have you read the flores settlement?

AGAIN, it doesn't require this. Nothing in the law requires this. You don't need to jail people for fucking misdemeanors. For fucks sake, do you think it is a violation of the law when the cops don't fucking arrest everyone caught speeding? Options that don't involve essentially permanently splitting up families:

(1) Don't fucking arrest people;

(2) Detain for minimal amount of time for processing (i.e., less than 1 day) and then arrange for ankle monitors to ensure attendance at hearing;

(3) Detain for less than 20 days so that families can be kept together (i.e., get more judges to process things quickly)

(4) Don't detain at all in a secure facility, but provide relief shelters with food, water, etc. where families can voluntarily stay together pending the results of hearing;

(5) Even for those that you have to detain longer than 20 days, don't move the family to separate ends of the fucking country;

(6) Some combination of all the above;

Every single one of these options would be a legal and viable way to enforce the law. And none of them would require splitting up families for months or even permanently as the Trump administration has effectively done. So shut the fuck up you evil fuck stick.

P.S. This goes to JBJ too. 

Edited June 21, 2018 by Dahobbs
JBJ is an evil fuck stick too

[HtownHorn 14690]

23 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

The press needs to keep pursuing this story too. There are so many unanswered questions about what they’ve been doing within these facilities.

Too bad they were silent when this started 6 years ago, when the term "tender age" originated. Or when these kids were abused in these centers. Whatever sock you were using at the time was very silent over this national tragedy.

Edited June 21, 2018 by HtownHorn

[HtownHorn 14690]

17 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

 

The fix the law you stupid bitch, it's your fucking job. Catch and release is a fucking stupid policy that is leading to this crisis.

Edited June 21, 2018 by HtownHorn

[Dahobbs 17545]

2 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

Too bad they were silent when this started 6 years ago, when the term "tender age" originated. Or when these kids were abused in these centers. Whatever sock you were using at the time was very silent over this national tragedy.

They didnt do this before. They kept the families together or released them. The primary source of children for separate detention was actual unaccompanied children, you know, the kind actually contemplated by the laws on "unaccompanied minors". Also, you are an evil fuck too. 

[Dahobbs 17545]

Just now, HtownHorn said:

The fix the law you stupid bitch.

Doesnt require any of this, see above. 

[Mojo Hand 4580]

Yeah Senate minority who can't get a single bill brought to the floor under McConnell!   Fix the law! 

[HtownHorn 14690]

14 minutes ago, Dahobbs said:

They didnt do this before. They kept the families together or released them. The primary source of children for separate detention was actual unaccompanied children, you know, the kind actually contemplated by the laws on "unaccompanied minors". Also, you are an evil fuck too. 

[kevwun 15790]

16 minutes ago, HtownHorn said:

The fix the law you stupid bitch, it's your fucking job. Catch and release is a fucking stupid policy that is leading to this crisis.

Do you also scream at your wife when you can't get a boner?

[HtownHorn 14690]

12 minutes ago, Mojo Hand said:

Yeah Senate minority who can't get a single bill brought to the floor under McConnell!   Fix the law! 

But at the same time can block any bill brought to the floor.

[David Dennison 18869]

Just now, HtownHorn said:

But at the same time can block any bill brought to the floor.

You have the majority. Change the rule.