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Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Lights for Liberty Vigil

By Leah Chiappino

“I’m hungry here at Clint all the time … I’m too scared to ask the officials for any more food,” a 12-year-old boy stated in testimony read at the Lights for Liberty candlelight vigil, held July 12 in Huntington Village. It was one of more than a thousand vigils held both nationally and internationally in protest of family separations and the conditions at the United States-Mexico border, where children are being held in cages.  

Lights for LIberty Vigil

Local pediatrician Dr. Eve Krief helped coordinate the event as founder of Long Island Communities Against Hate in a joint effort with multiple other organizations and churches that include the Unitarian Universalist Church of Huntington and St. John’s Episcopal Church. 

“My mother taught me silence is complicity and if we don’t speak out, we are all responsible,” she said. “If we let the inhumanity go on, we lose our own humanity.”

Krief’s own mother was a Holocaust survivor who lost both parents and two sisters during Hitler’s reign.

During Friday’s rally, the names of children who died in detention facilities were recited, as folk musicians performed. 

Local teenagers read the written testimonies of immigrant children. A 17-year-old pregnant mother described guards taking blankets and mattresses from detainees at 3 a.m., leaving babies as young as two months old sleeping on a concrete floor. 

“I think guards act this way to punish us,” she stated.

The testimonies read also included the experience of a 16-year-old mother, who described sleeping on floor mats with aluminum blankets, and not being offered a shower for days. “They took our baby’s diapers, formula and all of our belongings,” she stated. “There is no soap and our clothes are dirty.” 

A 17-year-old boy’s testimony described conditions at the Ursula detention center were a toilet sits out in the open inside the “cage” where he was being held.  He lacked not only privacy but also access to soap, paper towels, a toothbrush and toothpaste.

Families seeking asylum at Border detention center on July 13 in McAllen, Texas

Another mother stated that when her baby became sick, the guard told her to “just deal with it.” She asked for help two more times, then broke down in tears before officers took the child to a doctor. Other testimonies that were read also contained reports of sick children being denied care, with another guard saying, “She doesn’t have the face of a sick baby. She doesn’t need to see a doctor,” after a mother reported her baby was vomiting and had diarrhea. 

Some children described children being separated from their parents. Children as young as two years old were left alone and crying, only to be mocked and ignored by the guards.

At least seven children have died in custody of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol in the past year, according to government officials, compared to zero in the last decade. 

“We want our country to once again represent the words inscripted on the Statue of Liberty that welcomes the tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We want our country to welcome those legally seeking asylum in our country as they escape danger and violence,” Krief said. “Instead, however, we are seeing children and families held in inhumane and overcrowded conditions and we are seeing ongoing family separation.”

The groups participating in Lights for Liberty demand that changes be made at the border, which include improving children’s living conditions at both border and detention centers, and releasing the 13,000 children living in detention facilities who don’t know when they will be released.

Krief said many have family members who willing to take them in but are not permitted to. 

Protesters are also demanding that the administration return to the policies of the Flores Settlement Agreement, a 1997 provision that detailed the procedure for unaccompanied minors entering the United States. The policy was reversed by the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, a crackdown on illegal immigration that ultimately led to family separation. 

Flores, according to Krief, limited the time children spend in U.S. Customs and Border Patrol custody to 72 hours, compared to the current status of children who stay in custody for weeks. The Flores agreement also states that children should not be kept in detention facilities for more than 20 days, according to the law, but minors have reported staying for upwards of nine months. Lights for Liberty also demands Customs and Border Patrol allow congressional visits to detention facilities in order to increase oversight. Final demands include access to pediatric care and other necessities, not separating children from their parents unless a welfare agency deems them unfit, and the accountability of people who carried out secret separations, even before the zero-tolerance program, which has led to separated children who may never be reunited with their parents.

“My hope in all of these events is to increase public awareness and to get people to understand this should not be about politics, but humanity,” she said. “The conditions these children are kept in borders on child abuse. Looking back, this will be a dark stain on our country’s history because we are traumatizing children and families who are only legally seeking asylum in our country after escaping dangerous conditions in their own countries.”

However, in response to backlash against people like U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-Bronx), who referred to the detention centers as concentration camps, she feels the situation is too dire to play politics and worry about labels. 

“There’s been a lot of questions from people about us referring to these detention centers as concentration camps, which they do meet the definition for, but I feel if we wait for perfect analogies then it will be too late.”

Krief, who sits on the executive committee of the Long Island Queens and Brooklyn chapter of American Academy of Pediatrics, added that the health effects of the conditions in detention facilities are detrimental and potentially irreversible. 

“As a pediatrician I am appalled and horrified at the conditions that we’re keeping children in,” she said. “We’re emotionally traumatizing them, and we’re physically traumatizing them.” 

Children are experiencing Toxic Stress Syndrome, she said, as a result of extreme stress, which changes the architecture of the brain and affects children the rest of their lives.

Congress has attempted to remedy conditions at the border, according to a New York Times report, having passed a bill granting $4.5 billion dollars in humanitarian aid to the border, which included improvements to hygiene, medical care and training for workers along with limiting a detention center stay of a child to 90 days unless no other facilities are available. 

Krief feels this is not enough. 

“There’s no oversight to where the funds are going,” she said. “It doesn’t increase the transparency in these facilities.”

Krief encourages the public to call their representatives in order to protest the conditions, a notion that was advocated at the vigil.

“This is an emergent human rights violation,” she said. “Unless they hear from all of their constituents on both sides of the aisle, every single day, demanding they address the inhumanity, they won’t do anything, which is unacceptable and shameful.”

Photos from Steven Zaitz and Rep. Tom Suozzi’s Office (detention center)

 

Correction:  The printed version of this story erroneously referred to toxic stress syndrome as toxic shock syndrome.

By Sara-Megan Walsh

Dozens of Huntington residents gathered in the shadow of Constitution Oak last Friday, to declare the intent to fight for the human rights of immigrant children across Long Island and the nation.

More than 100 residents gathered June 15 to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration policies at the Huntington Village Green Park, near the intersection of Park Avenue and Main Street. Many carried signs reading “Families Belong Together” alongside the Spanish translation, “Familias Unidas, No Divididas,” while others imitated children crying out for their parents calling out to passing pedestrians and drivers.

“We are all disturbed and outraged with this administration’s new policy of separating children from their parents,  parents whose only crime is to bring their family to safety,” said Dr. Eve Krief, a Huntington pediatrician who founded the nonprofit group Long Island Inclusive Communities Against Hate. “We demand an immediate end to this horrendous, cruel and unjustified policy.”

“We demand an immediate end to this horrendous, cruel and unjustified policy.”
– Eve Krief

In mid-April, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy for immigrants who cross the border illegally, which means they can be arrested and prosecuted. There have been 1,995 children taken from 1,940 adults at the border from April 19 to May 31, according to reporting by the Associated Press.

Victoria Hernandez, an outreach coordinator for SEPA Mujer Long Island, a nonprofit organization that represents immigrant women, called for her neighbors and community members to take action against Trump’s policies. She suggested calling and writing to elected officials, as well as signing SEPA Mujer’s online petition at www.sepamujer.org.

“We have to take action to prevent Jeff Sessions from allowing this violence against women and children from occurring,” Hernandez said. “For the children, please, for the children take action.”

An immigrant couple with their young son from the Huntington area stood in the crowd, arms wrapped around each other as Hernandez spoke. The family was in court days earlier pleading their case for asylum, according to Huntington Rapid Response Network volunteer Renee Bradley, and will know within the next four months if they’ve been accepted or face deportation.

“They fear they could be injured or face certain death if forced to return to their home country,” she said, declining to release more specific details.

“I wasn’t asking for the opportunity or wonders of America, I was just asking for the Lord to give me one more chance to hug my mother again.”
– Dr. Harold Fernandez

Bradley works with other members of the Huntington Rapid Response Network to provide immigrant families with legal services and support as they face legal process and get settled. It is one of eight such groups across Long Island associated with Jobs with Justice, a Washington D.C. nonprofit that fights for equal worker’s rights, that provides immigrants with referrals to trusted immigration lawyers and free services, translation services, accompaniment to court dates and other social support. Bradley said she currently is aiding several asylum seekers with their cases.

“A lot of people are being caught up in a very wide net that’s all about MS-13, and MS-13 is being used to demonize the entire immigrant population,” she said.

Dr. Steve Goldstein, president of Chapter 2 of New York State’s American Academy of Pediatrics, said that the separation of children from their parents and detention can have life-long health impacts from the toxic stress it causes. Goldstein said it can lead to chronic anxiety, predisposition to high blood pressure, and cause detrimental changes in brain function and structure citing research done by the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University.

One doctor shared his personal story of making his way to the United States as an illegal immigrant from Columbia with the protestors. Dr. Harold Fernandez said at age 12 he traveled to the Bahamas, where he and 10 others boarded a small boat at midnight to make his way into the U.S. and reunite with parents, who were already working here.

“Rob children from their parents, put them in cages and treat them like animals — they will be wounded and broken forever.”
– Rev. Marie Tatro

“The trip was only seven hours, but I can tell you it [was] the longest seven hours of my life,” he said. “I wasn’t asking for the opportunity or wonders of America, I was just asking for the Lord to give me one more chance to hug my mother again.”

Suffolk County Legislator William “Doc” Spencer (D-Centerport) said he was appalled by what is happening across the nation and wants to propose an Immigrant Protection Act in Suffolk County. He referred to legislation approved by Westchester County lawmakers in March that limited the information the county shares with federal immigration authorities and bars employees from asking about a person’s citizenship in most circumstances. Spencer said he believed other Suffolk lawmakers would support such a bill.

“You want the perfect recruiting tool for groups like MS-13, here it is,” said Rev. Marie Tatro, with the Community Justice Ministry at the Episcopal Diocese of Long Island. “Rob children from their parents, put them in cages and treat them like animals — they will be wounded and broken forever.”

Tatro said several Long Island churches and religious organizations are springing into action to help immigrants affected by offering them sanctuary, providing them with safe haven from Immigration and Custom Enforcement officers.

“There are angels of mercy working tirelessly all across Long Island to provide help,” she said. “We are all in this together, we will, and we must learn from history.”

Inside the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Yaphank. File photo by Kevin Redding

By Kevin Redding

Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco has sent a clear message to undocumented immigrants who choose to break the law, by announcing the county will no longer need a judge’s order before detaining and holding illegal inmates wanted by federal immigration officials.

Suffolk County Sheriff Vincent DeMarco. File photo from Kristin MacKay

The policy reversal, which DeMarco believes will be good “for the country, not just the county,” has taken Suffolk off the list of “sanctuary cities” — regions that protect undocumented immigrants by not prosecuting them solely for violating federal immigration laws in the United States. The county’s removal from the list is something DeMarco has been in favor of for some time.

The sheriff initiated a review of the sanctuary policy alongside county Legislator Tom Cilmi (R-Bay Shore) as soon as the policy was adopted more than a year ago, after concerns that it creates public safety problems by allowing the release of criminal immigrants back to the communities as opposed to letting agents within Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, work on deporting them.

Although the announcement has been met with opposition from various immigration advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union, DeMarco said nothing has really changed in regards to how undocumented immigrants in the system are handled. He said this merely narrows in on those who entered the country illegally, have committed and been convicted of crimes and have found themselves in the criminal justice system.

According to DeMarco, “it’s not necessarily a policy change,” because since he became sheriff in 2006, ICE agents have been stationed in the county’s correctional facilities. For the past 10 years they have been putting detainers on inmates eligible for release who were either convicted of felonies, “significant misdemeanors,” three or more misdemeanors not considered significant or pose a threat to national security. The department had free reign to explore and investigate any inmate that came in.

It hadn’t been an issue to hold anyone of federal interest until the involvement of the ACLU in 2014.

DeMarco said he received a letter from the group citing two federal lawsuits stating that holding illegal immigrants solely on detainer without a judicial warrant would lead to an onslaught of lawsuits. In these cases, ICE asked municipalities to hold these inmates for an extra 48 hours after they normally would’ve been released to give the agents time to conduct their investigations and pick them up for potential deportation. The courts ruled this as a violation of the immigrants’ Fourth Amendment rights, to illegal search and seizure, without probable cause or a warrant.

“[DeMarco is] doing exactly the right thing both for the community and for the federal government.”

— Jessica Vaughan

In October, DeMarco had a meeting with the Department of Homeland Security and was advised that ICE had adjusted its detainer and administrative warrant paperwork to include probable cause, which means agents can now hold onto someone for an extra 48 hours without requiring a signed warrant from a judge if they are suspected to have immigrated illegally.

DeMarco said the change isn’t too significant in Suffolk County.

“People are trying to make an issue out of something that’s been going on here for more than 10 years,” he said. “This isn’t a problem for the county because ICE agents are stationed at the jail. In a rural county upstate or out West where there isn’t ICE presence within a certain amount of miles, it makes sense for them to hold them for 48 hours.”

While the reversal comes less than a month before the Trump administration inherits the White House and leads a much-anticipated attack against sanctuary city and immigration policies, DeMarco insists that the shift isn’t political.

“When ICE changed their paperwork, they didn’t know who the president was going to be,” DeMarco said. “They were just addressing concerns found in federal lawsuits.”

According to a representative from the Center for Immigration Studies, an independent not-for-profit that removed Suffolk from its list of sanctuary cities, ICE agents don’t go around patrolling the streets looking for criminal immigrants. Instead, agents depend on local law enforcement, like the sheriff’s office, to keep them in custody so they can be deported — “otherwise they flee.”

“[DeMarco is] doing exactly the right thing both for the community and for the federal government,” CIS director of policy studies, Jessica Vaughan, said. “It was his initiative that resulted in the reversal of the policy. Full cooperation with ICE is going to help Suffolk County with some of the more pressing public safety problems, like the resurgence of MS13 [street gang] activity there.”

Cilmi said this is a step in the right direction.

“There’s no cause for protesting because, from a practical standpoint, nothing has really changed and it has nothing to do with undocumented immigrants who are living here,” he said. “As long as they’re following the law, it doesn’t affect them at all. Those who aren’t will see this is not going to be tolerated.”

He said he suspects that the vast majority of the immigrant population living in the county — documented or undocumented — would be supportive of policies that affect drug dealers and gang members who continue to “wreak havoc” in the areas where they live.

“No one wants crimes in their communities,” he said.