Donna Shalala: “Last week The Washington Post reported that the administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs, and…”

“Last week The Washington Post reported that the administration is canceling English classes, recreational programs, and legal aid for unaccompanied minors in migrant shelters. The largest of these shelters, the Homestead detention facility, is in my district's backyard. The children housed at the Homestead facility are between the ages of 13 and 17. Despite their youth, they have already faced unfathomable hardship, including poverty and violence in their home countries and the journey they have made to ours. But because of our anti-immigrant, antichild policies, their hardship doesn't end at our border. These children are taken to detention facilities like the one at Homestead, which currently houses 2,350 kids. I have seen the prison-like conditions in which they are kept. In fact, if they were in our Federal prisons, they would be better treated. In our Federal prisons murderers have 30-minute meals, but at these facilities for children, the kids have only 15 minutes to eat their meals. Federal prisoners are entitled to 300 minutes of phone calls per month, while these children have only 80 minutes a month to call their families. They are closely monitored, unable to leave the compound, kept in military camp-like rooms with up to 150 kids per room. We do not have a Federal prison in this country which houses 150 persons in one room. They are barred from even hugging their friends or siblings.…”