Large Crowd Gathers In Homestead To Protest Florida Detention Center For Unaccompanied Minor Immigrants
HOMESTEAD (CBSMiami/AP) — Immigration has been one of the biggest issues, both politically and as a humanitarian concern, in the US for the past couple years.
Clutching signs and umbrellas against a drenching downpour, scores of people protested Sunday outside a South Florida facility that has become the nation's biggest location for detaining immigrant children.
A coalition of religious groups and immigrant advocates said they want the Homestead detention center closed.
Protesters held signs that read "Homes Instead!" and "Stop Separating Families" as they beat drums and sang civil rights-era protest songs.
"Shut it down! Shut it down!" protesters shouted.
Lucy Duncan, an official with the American Friends Service Committee, asked protesters for a moment of silence to remember children who have died in federal custody, though not at the Homestead facility. She poured water into a potted plant as each of the seven names was read.
"It's a moral outrage," Duncan said. "We need for justice to break through. We need to remember those names."
Organizer Kristin Kumpf said 800 people from 22 states had RSVP'd for the protest being held on Father's Day.
Immigrant advocates have filed legal documents trying to force President Donald Trump's administration to quickly release immigrant children from the Florida detention center, which officials said in April could house up to 3,200 migrant teens.
The advocates accuse the administration of violating a decades-old settlement that they say requires immigrant children to be promptly released to relatives or other sponsors, or sent to child care facilities.
One activist, Sydney Solis said, "This is a crime against humanity! This is a war crime," she continued.
"This is a nationwide movement saying these children should not be detained," the Miami-Dade County commissioner of District 8, Daneilla Cava Levine, said.
Activist David Nuremberg added, "It is unconscionable that they're being kept here in these conditions."
The immigrant advocates have filed court papers with hundreds of pages of teens describing "prison-like" conditions endured in the Homestead facility.
The children testified that they are allowed limited phone calls and told to follow numerous strict rules or risk prolonging their detention or facing deportation. Many said they had limited access to their social workers and described frustration at the process of reunification with relatives or sponsors.
"The law is not being followed in this case," said Danielle Levine Cava, a Miami-Dade County commissioner who spoke at the protest.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
