By J. Shadé Quintanilla
Family detention centers for immigrant families are jails that force children to grow up behind bars, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, on Monday. Keynote speaker at the YWCA Pasadena-Foothill Valley Women for Racial Justice Breakfast in the Hilton Pasadena, Salas spoke about the work that needs to be done to improve the rights of immigrant women, children, and their families. She criticized the existence of family detention centers that hold undocumented immigrants from Mexico and Latin America and called for their closure, labeling them prisons and highlighting the detrimental effects the centers have on the mental health of mothers and children.
“Women fled the violence and death in their own countries only to find themselves imprisoned for seeking refuge,” Salas said before a full house of community advocates for racial and gender equality. “When we choose to jail mothers and children in search of protection, we’re clearly in a deficit of compassion.”
In the United States, there are over 3,000 spaces for undocumented immigrants at family detention centers in Texas and Pennsylvania, according to the National Immigrant Justice Center. Before May 2014, the Department of Homeland Security had fewer than 100 spaces for individuals, all at one detention center in Pennsylvania. But due to the significant increase of immigrants crossing the border last year, there has been 40-fold increase of family detention beds. Many of these detainees are mothers and children who have crossed the U.S./Mexico border in order to escape extreme violence from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, one of the most violent regions in the world.
Salas pointed out that while the influx unaccompanied minors that crossed the U.S. border are now fortunately spared from being kept in detention centers, children accompanied by their mothers or other family members are not given the same treatment. Instead, these families are detained in secured facilities until they face a judge who will determine whether or not they can remain in the United States. In these centers, children are still provided schooling, but behind bars, Salas noted. She called for the closure of the detention centers, noting that immigrant children should not be placed in jail-like settings and deserve special protections.
Other than calling for the closure of family detention centers, Salas urged audience members to speak out against racist language and stereotypes towards immigrants and to exercise their right to vote. An immigrant from Mexico, Salas moved to Pasadena in the seventies when her parents had enough money saved up to send her and her sister to the U.S. At the age of four, Salas had to cross rivers, climb mountains and hide from La Migra–immigration police–with her uncles and aunts in order to reunite with her parents. Salas and her family were undocumented immigrants, but they later received their green cards with the help of the Institute of Los Angeles, an organization initiated by YWCA New York in 1913.
Salas shared with the audience about her internal struggle as an immigrant and the racism she experienced. Growing up, she often felt like she was unwelcome in the United States and she did not understand why other Americans treated her and her family differently, even though they were all hardworking. She heard people refer to her and her family as sin papeles (without papers), illegals, and mojados–wetbacks.
Salas expressed the importance of speaking up against derogatory terms towards immigrants and criticized the use of the term, “illegal.”
“If you use the word illegal to describe a human being, you automatically devoid them of any humanity and diminish the compassion that others might have for them,” she said.
Beyond fighting the language used to describe immigrants–undocumented and documented–she urged the audience to fight for immigrant rights by voting candidates who see immigrants for who they are and create inclusive policies that give them access to basic human rights.
“When we participate in our community and we vote our values, those who continue to promote racism and division will know that they have no chance to enter our city halls, our state capitols and certainly, not our White House.”
YWCA Pasadena-Foothill Valley also honored Stella Murga, founder and director of the Adelante Youth Alliance, with the 2015 Racial Justice Award at their Women for Racial Justice Breakfast.The event was a part of the YWCA’s A Week Without Violence.
