AMY GOODMAN: Fernando Garcia, you're nodding your head as Jennifer is down there in Weslaco talking about that area where Carlos just died. What is the legality of this? Keeping children in iceboxes, in freezing boxes. How long are they being held for?
FERNANDO GARCIA: You know, they're supposed to be -- I mean, children, specifically children, they're supposed to be held only for 72 hours in these Border Patrol or ICE detention centers. And then, after that, they should be either released or transferred. But that is not necessarily happening. I mean, in the case of Carlos Gregorio, he was held by Border Patrol for seven days. They cannot wash their hands and say that they didn't know anything that happened in those seven days. I mean, that is ridiculous.
What we are seeing is a complete lack of accountability and oversight of these institutions. I think the standards that they are acting, they are not only violating human rights, but also the U.S. Constitution. I mean, they are clearly buying into this rhetoric that immigrants are rapists, criminals, and this xenophobic sentiment. And I think that is the reason why there is this treatment that they are going through in the detention centers.
JUAN GONZÃ LEZ: And what kind of access do civil society organizations or local governments or even members of Congress have to be able to get into these detention centers and ascertain for themselves what's happening?
FERNANDO GARCIA: Well, we don't have access. I mean, and that actually became very clear after Trump got elected. In the past, we had very good relations with the local Border Patrol stations and ICE officers. After Trump was elected, we saw a number of things happening. The Tornillo case, where we had, like, children being separated from their mothers, and we didn't have access to that. Now there are other detention centers being built. The hieleras, the iceboxes, they have at least one in every detention center, in every processing center. And sometimes they are being used to punish people. If they misbehave, they will send them to the hieleras.
So, we don't have access. We had requested many times to go and observe what is the situation that these children, these families are going through. And it's very limited. I mean, it seems that they are hiding something. And what they are hiding is these conditions that are leading up to all of these children dying.
AMY GOODMAN: Senator Lindsey Graham has introduced a bill that would deny people the right to seek asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, forcing them instead to take their claims to U.S. consulates in their home countries, even if their lives are in danger. Graham's bill would also increase the number of days that migrant children could be detained to 100, five times the current limit. Fernando, your response?
FERNANDO GARCIA: No, you know, I think this is part of a larger vision, of a larger agenda, that's being applied at the border. They not only don't want more legal immigrants coming into the country, but they are strengthening the militarization of the border, that we have more military, police officers, Border Patrol, like never before. I think we have one of the most militarized areas. And even in those conditions, they still want to reject asylum seekers. And I think, at the end of the day, they are going against American history. Let's remind ourselves that many people came from other countries because of the same conditions. Europeans came to the United States through Ellis Island because they were fleeing violence. It seems that the Trump administration is going against history and against our American values.
AMY GOODMAN: We're going to talk more about that in a minute, but we have to break. Fernando Garcia, founding director of the Border Network for Human Rights, is joining us in studio, usually in El Paso. And Jennifer Harbury is with us, longtime human rights lawyer based in the Rio Grande Valley, speaking to us from Weslaco.
This is Democracy Now! After that, we will be speaking with a brother and sister of the leading Saudi feminist human rights activist, who's been jailed for more than a year. They and she say that she has been tortured in Saudi prison. Stay with us.
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