Washington, D.C. – The recent reported news by the New York Times alerting that the Administration is considering reinstating family detention is shameful and a complete travesty of President Biden’s promises.
“It has been long-proven that family detention inflicts irreparable harm to children and their parents,” said Archi Pyati, CEO at the Tahirih Justice Center. “The reinstatement of this cruel and inhumane practice – which we fought hard to end under the Obama Administration – will be directly harmful to survivors of gender-based violence and a violation of U.S. and international human rights law. This is a disheartening step in the wrong direction from this administration.”
Family detention has been widely condemned by multiple medical experts, including physicians who worked in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. They stated that “the detention of children is harmful to their health. Detention foreseeably leads to mental health issues such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and suicidal or self-harming behaviors, neurodevelopmental disabilities, and chronic medical diseases such as diabetes and hypertension.”
For further comments, please contact Karla Flores at [email protected].
The Tahirih Justice Center is a national, nonprofit organization that serves immigrant survivors of gender-based violence. By amplifying the experiences of survivors in communities, courts, and Congress, Tahirih’s mission is to create a world in which all people share equal rights and live in safety and with dignity.
