WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th September, 2018) US President Donald Trump has created another humanitarian disaster this time by trying to detain migrant children indefinitely, Human Rights First's Senior Director for Refugee Protection Eleanor Acer said in a press release.
Earlier on Thursday, the Trump administration proposed a regulation to end a legal agreement that prevents the Federal government from detaining immigrant children for more than 20 days.
"Locking up families seeking refugee protection in immigration jails for months or longer is not a solution, it is just another humanitarian and political fiasco," Acer said on Thursday.
"Locking up families seeking refugee protection in immigration jails for months or longer is not a solution, it is just another humanitarian and political fiasco," Acer said.
Mass incarceration, she added, of vulnerable families is also a massive waste of government resources.
"Instead of jailing families in costly detention facilities, their cases can be overseen through cost-effective and proven case management systems," Acer said.
The proposed regulation would terminate the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, a binding court deal between the government and immigrant rights litigants which states that migrant children can only be held in detention for 20 days.
In June, Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to seek changes in the Flores agreement in order to detain children longer.
Trump was forced to issue an order to halt family separations at the border after viral images of kids locked in cages sparked outrage across the political spectrum and drew intense levels of international opprobrium. As a result of the "zero-tolerance" policy, about 2,600 immigrant children were forcibly separated from their parents this spring following arrests in connection with illegal entry into the United States.
