Minor violations

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

News

4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2021

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Shelter staff have called 911 on migrant kids for minor offenses. In some cases, police have arrested, jailed and even tased those kids.

When unaccompanied children arrive alone at the U.S. border and seek asylum, they get sent to cells, then to government-funded shelters, where they wait to be released to family members or sponsors. Kids can spend months, sometimes years, at these shelters, and they can be secretive places. It’s hard for reporters and even government officials to get access to the shelters. But Reveal reporters Aura Bogado and Laura C. Morel found that one group sometimes entering shelters is police.

Reveal had to sue the federal government to get the records on migrant children in shelters run by the Office of Refugee Resettlement. The documents show that since 2014, at least 84 children held in shelters have been turned over to law enforcement.

First, Bogado and Morel share the story of a 16-year-old asylum seeker from Honduras who was tased by a Texas sheriff’s deputy. The incident was caught on the deputy’s body camera, which also captured the deputy’s partner as he insulted the teenager, calling him “El Stupido.” Then, we hear another disturbing story of a 17-year-old boy who briefly grabbed another teenager – and wound up being arrested for assault, held in jail and deported.

These are cases of overpolicing in a place where there are no bystanders to record, a place that is supposed to be taking care of vulnerable children. With a new administration, will anything change?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, it's Alan. I hope 2022 has been a good year for you. But to be honest, it's been a tough one for us.
0:08.0	This year, Reveal was struck by a financial crisis that jeopardized our very existence.
0:14.0	But we've rallied, and all the while that was happening, our staff forged ahead to produce ambitious investigations
0:22.0	that exposed corruption and abuses that the powerful interests did not want revealed.
0:27.0	Because that's what we do. If we're going to keep telling these kind of stories though, we're going to need support from you.
0:34.0	To support fearless investigative nonprofit journalism, please donate by December 31st.
0:41.0	Just visit revealnews.org slash 2023. Again, to donate to the show and to support our work into the future.
0:48.0	Please visit revealnews.org slash 2023. And from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
1:06.0	From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is reveal. I'm Alexi.
1:11.0	In March of last year, when the pandemic was first taking a grip on the United States, then President Trump closed the border to asylum seekers, citing Title 42 of the Public Health Code.
1:24.0	The restriction remains in place under President Biden, but with a significant exception. Unaccompanied migrant children are now being allowed to enter.
1:33.0	Biden explained his rationale a few months ago.
1:36.0	The idea that I'm going to say, which I would never do, an unaccompanied child ends up at the border.
1:43.0	We're just going to let him starve to death and stay on the other side.
1:48.0	No previous administration did that either, except Trump. I'm not going to do it.
1:55.0	When kids arrive alone, they get sent to cells near the border, then to government-sponsored shelters, where they wait to be released to family members and sponsors.
2:04.0	Kids spend months, sometimes years at these shelters. And they can be secretive places.
2:10.0	It's hard for elected officials to gain access, and reporters usually only get inside during occasional, highly scripted tours.
2:18.0	But a few years ago, reveals out of a goto heard that police were entering these shelters, because the staff were calling 911 for help with discipline.
2:28.0	Migrant children were getting arrested, and even being prosecuted as adults.
2:34.0	Reveals immigration team started to track down more information on individual cases.
2:40.0	And they uncovered body-worn camera footage of a then 16-year-old boy, an asylum seeker from Honduras, being tased by a deputy sheriff in Texas.
	...

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