ProPublica: The Children of Dilley
Head on over to ProPublica for some devastating reporting on family detention:
- The Children of Dilley (Feb 9) (the reporter interviewed more than two dozen detainees, half of them kids detained at Dilley — all of whose parents gave me their’ consent.")
- reporting on a mom and her 14 year old detained and separated from younger USC children/siblings (ages 5, 1).
- "When I asked the kids to tell me about the things they missed most from their lives outside Dilley, they almost always talked about their teachers and friends at school. Then they’d get to things like missing a beloved dog, McDonald’s Happy Meals, their favorite stuffed animal or a pair of new UGGs that had been waiting for them under the Christmas tree."
- reporting on 18 year old detained for 8 months with mom and four siblings, ranging in age from 16 to 5-year-old twins
- “I Have Been Here Too Long”: Read Letters from the Children Detained at ICE’s Dilley Facility (Feb 9) Have tissues at the ready before clicking on this one. It's pages of children's own handwritten notes with messages like:
- "I have been here too long... Seen how people like me, immigrants are being treated changes my perspective about the U.S."
- "Since I got to this Center all you will feel is sadness and mostly depression."
- "...I miss my school, I don’t like being here, I am bored here, I don’t feel so good in this place, I already want to leave this place..."
- How a Planned Disney World Vacation Turned Into Four Months in Immigration Detention (Feb 14) (reporting on an extended interview with a nine year old and her mom, detained for four months).
- Stopped at the Miami airport, the 9 year old "overheard one immigration officer tell another that if she had been 10 years old, they would have been able to keep her separated from her mom. That, she said, is when the real fear set in."
