July 29, 2018
Revulsion is the only fitting response. Friday, Pro Publica broke the story of the unchecked abuse of immigrant children that has been widespread in the shelters housing them. The most horrifying detail concerned a six year old girl who was sexually abused and then forced to sign a “contract” that imposed an obligation on her to stay away from her abuser! Lisa Fortuna, a child psychiatrist, described the shelters overburdened by a surge of children caused by Trump’s inhumane “zero tolerance” thusly, “If you’re a predator, it’s a gold mine,” (Source: “Immigrant Youth Shelters: ‘If You’re a Predator, It’s a Gold Mine,’” by Michael Grabel and Topher Sanders, ProPublica.org, 7/27/18). We shouldn’t think this is an isolated incident, given that Propublica examined five years of police logs for 70% of the shelters for immigrant minors operated by the Department of Health and Human Services (ibid).
Also on Friday, federal Judge Dolly Gee ruled that she would appoint an independent monitor to assess conditions at the detention centers holding immigrant minors in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. Judge Gee’s decision comes in the wake of reports of “inadequate food, forced dehydration and sleep deprivation” in those shelters (Source: “Federal Judge to appoint independent monitor for detained migrant children,” by Nick Watt and Jason Kravarnik, CNN.com, 7/27/18). Our government, not content with inflicting psychological torture on migrant children crossing the border, has decided to resort to physical torture as well.
Make no mistake, these actions being done in our name, using our tax dollars, violate the Geneva Convention against torture. Article I of the Convention states that torture is defined as any “act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as…punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person for any reason based on discrimination of any kind,” (Source: Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United Nations General Assembly, June 26,1987, ohchr.org). Can anyone honestly look at what the Trump administration has been doing to migrants at the border and call it anything other than the textbook definition of torture?
Despite having been a signatory since 1994, the United States has previously violated the Geneva Convention without any consequence for the perpetrators during the Iraq War and the associated “War on Terror.” President Obama declined to prosecute the Bush administration officials responsible for torture, despite the fact that torture is a violation of both international and U.S. law, as well as the Fourth and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. It does not matter if the torture occurs in the United States or abroad, or if the victim is a U.S. citizen or not. The ability of culpable Bush administration officials to evade punishment did not make them reflective, it merely emboldened their successors. We’d better not make the same mistake twice.