Statement of Mary Bauer, Deputy Legal Director, the Southern Poverty Law Center on the DHS Request for More Authority Targeting Immigrant Children

“Given the lengths to which federal agencies have gone to defend and cover up their treatment of immigrant children, there is absolutely no way Congress should give the Department of Homeland Security more authority, especially when it comes to removing children from the country.
 
DHS has a track record of cruelty toward children and families for the purposes of strong-arming its poorly considered policies; this legislative request is no different. Congress should insist that the thousands of immigrant children currently being held in detention are processed in a timely manner and released from detention to their sponsors while their cases move through the system.”