Migrant Children are Being Locked Up Inside Hotels by Private Security Company

Trump's administration uses hotels across the United States under emergency coronavirus orders to detain migrant children and their families before forcing them out of the country.

Continuing with his campaign against immigrants, Trump and his administration have been using major hotel networks to lock children and their families who were arrested at the border. The move has created a system of discreet detention and expulsion system that bypasses protections that aimed to safeguard vulnerable migrants.

Children hostage

According to The New York Times, data from the United States government and court documents showed that a private security company that managed hotel detentions had conducted increasing activities over the last couple of months under a border closure policy related to the COVID-19 global crisis.

Records show authorities have summarily expelled more than 100,000 migrants consisting of children and families from the country under the policy. Despite the policy's aim to reduce migration, border crossings seem to have increased in rate, partly because the legislation removes some of the legal consequences of repeat illegal crossings.

Experts believe the surge in hotel detentions would more than likely result in widespread criticism of the policy. Several legal advocacy groups have expressed their disagreement and have filed to challenge the policy in court.

The groups state that the policy endangers migrant children and violates the United States' asylum laws by placing them in life-threatening scenarios under their home countries.

Reports show that a private contractor for the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement is taking migrant children into custody and placing them in several hotels near the Texas-Mexico border, which have been used more than 200 times, as reported by AP News.

The data also shows that children as young as one are being placed inside the establishments where transportation workers who have had no childcare training monitor and supervise their conditions.

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Good living conditions

According to Sun-Sentinel, officials from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement state the children were being taken care of during their stay at the hotels. They defended the expulsions as being necessary for preventing the spread of the coronavirus pandemic within the United States.

Federal authorities have previously used hotels when immigration rates have shot up and as temporary areas before their traditional expulsions. Living conditions in the hotels are significantly better than those experienced inside Border Patrol holding cells where several migrants have died before.

Despite the finer living conditions in the hotels, they exist outside the formal detentions system. This means the establishments are not subject to policies that prevent abuse while in federal custody or that detainees be given access to phones, food, and medical attention.

While the hotel detention system was brought to light last month, new documents reveal the number of hotel chains participating in the activity.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement was shown to have detained more than 860 migrants in multiple hotels.

Despite no records showing the ages of the detainees, the official who was the source of the documents, and several former immigration officials who parted with Trump's administration said most, if not all were children due to the fact that parents were kept inside the Border Patrol holding stations.