On Wednesday, August 5, at 7:00 p.m. at Urban Abbey Sr. Kathleen Erickson of the Sisters of Mercy led a lively discussion about her two months as the interim chaplain at a federal immigration  detention center in Dilley Texas. The center was built to house up to 2,400 women and children who have fled to the US border to escape violence in Central America. Sr. Kathleen described how the the Center was designed not to look like a prison and had many amenities, but was still a way to detain immigrant children who came to the US with their children.

A California federal court recently ordered that the Dilley facility and others like it which house immigrant women and children be closed.

According to the New York Times on July 25, the Judge ” found that migrant children had been held in “widespread deplorable conditions” in Border Patrol stations after they were first caught, and she said the authorities had “wholly failed” to provide the “safe and sanitary” conditions required for children even in temporary cells.

Come find out about ongoing efforts to assure that immigrant women and children who are fleeing violence in Central America receive humane treatment while they are awaiting immigration hearings.

The New York Times reported on July 25th:

A federal judge in California has ruled that the Obama administration’s detention of children and their mothers who were caught crossing the border illegally is a serious violation of a longstanding court settlement, and that the families should be released as quickly as possible.

In a decision late Friday roundly rejecting the administration’s arguments for holding the families, Judge Dolly M. Gee of Federal District Court for the Central District of California found that two detention centers in Texas that the administration opened last summer fail to meet minimum legal requirements of the 1997 settlement for facilities housing children.

Judge Gee also found that migrant children had been held in “widespread deplorable conditions” in Border Patrol stations after they were first caught, and she said the authorities had “wholly failed” to provide the “safe and sanitary” conditions required for children even in temporary cells.

Over 110 came out to learn why children were fleeing to and to support humane treatment for them

To see the text of the New York Times article, click on the link below:

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/us/detained-immigrant-children-judge-dolly-gee-ruling.html?_r=0