Detained children, deplorable conditions
Mount Holyoke鈥檚 David Hern谩ndez spoke on The Takeaway about the horrifying conditions faced by immigrant children at the Texas border.
By Keely Sexton
Associate Professor of Latina/o studies David Hern谩ndez discussed new reports of squalid and dangerous conditions at a children鈥檚 detention center in Texas on radio station WNYC鈥檚 .
Host Tanzina Vega talked with Hern谩ndez and Elora Mukherjee, a professor and director of the Immigrants鈥 Rights Clinic at Columbia Law School, about the conditions detained children face, many of whom sleep in filth on bare concrete floors and are not given sufficient food or medical treatment.
Hern谩ndez noted that the conditions were a result of anti-immigrant policies that were implemented in the 1970s and 鈥80s, and the expansion of post-9/11 anti-terrorist policies to include immigrants from Latin America. The culmination of these factors has resulted in the current crisis and the known deaths of seven detained children this year.
鈥淭he squalor 鈥 the lack of medical treatment, the bungled medical treatment and the indifference to detainees 鈥 that runs across the system,鈥 Hern谩ndez said.