(image) The detention facility in El Cajon, run by Southwest Key, is surrounded by wire fencing, concrete lots and a locked gate.
San Diego Congressional members Susan Davis and Juan Vargas joined House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic members of the Hispanic Caucus in touring three local facilities holding child immigrants, including a fenced facility in EL Cajon with 65 migrant boys, 10 percent of whom were forcibly separated from their parents by the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy of prosecuting all undocumented parents. In the past six weeks, the federal government has acknowledged taking away over 2,000 children from parents at the border, including infants and toddlers.
“The United States should have a zero tolerance policy for the immoral treatment of children,” said Rep. Davis (CA-53), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee whose district includes part of El Cajon. “We are a nation of values and we ask our men and women in uniform to defend those values every day. This policy is in no way consistent with those values.”
Davis adds, “As a social worker who practiced in medical and psychiatric settings, particularly focusing on children and families, I can say the profound trauma thee children are experiencing will cause immediate and long-lasting damage to them.”
Some prominent Republicans are also speaking out. Former First Lady Laura Bush wrote in a Washington Post editorial, “This zero-tolerance policy is cruel. It is immoral. And it breaks my heart.” She added, “Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert,” options being done in Texas., where she lives. “These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War Two, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history,” the wife of Republican President George W. Bush further stated.
The facilities in San Diego are run by Southwest Key, which runs 26 facilities set up originally to house only unaccompanied minors who came to the U.S. No prior administration has ever systematically separated children from parents who came with them to the border. Southwest Key’s centers are funded by the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement within the Health and Human Services department. Locally, their three centers are in El Cajon, Lemon Grove and San Diego. The children here are from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador—places where families have fled threats from drug cartels and gang violence.
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