Not nasty enough..

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An employee at an Arizona facility that houses immigrant children separated from their families at the border has been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl, according to Phoenix police. Fernando Negrete, 32, was arrested Tuesday and is facing charges of molestation of a child, sexual abuse, and aggravated assault, the Arizona Republic reported. One of the victim’s roommates informed police on July 25 that she had witnessed the suspect kiss the girl multiple times and touch her breasts and crotch over her clothes in the bedroom she shared with two other minors. The claims made by the teen are substantiated by video surveillance footage showing Negrete near the girls’ room multiple times between 9 p.m. and about 10:30 p.m. on June 27.

According to the Phoenix Police Department, the suspect admitted to his involvement and was booked into jail on one count each of molestation, aggravated assault, and sexual abuse. Just last week, ProPublica published police reports and call logs from more than two-thirds of youth immigrant shelters run and/or contracted by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement describing rampant abuse.

Employee at immigrant shelter in Arizona arrested for allegedly sexually abusing teen girl – ThinkProgress

A worker at an immigrant detention center is facing 11 charges on sex offenses after he allegedly abused at least eight unaccompanied immigrant boys, ProPublica reported Thursday. The youth care worker, Levian Pacheco, is accused of performing oral sex on two teenagers, and trying to get one to penetrate him anally, according to the site. Six other teenagers between the ages of 15 and 17 allege that Pacheco, who is HIV-positive, groped them over their clothing.

Worker charged with sexually abusing eight migrant children at detention facility | TheHill

The American Immigration Lawyers Association confirmed reports on Wednesday that a migrant child died after being released from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Dilley, Texas. “AILA has learned that a toddler died soon after release from the Dilley South Texas Family Residential Center,” Gregory Z. Chen, director of government relations, said in a statement, according to The Washington Post. “We do not have information on the cause of death or information that confirms a connection between medical treatment at STFRC and this death.”

Migrant toddler died after release from ICE detention, lawyers group says – ThinkProgress

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And how about this, fresh from orphaning 700+ children..

The Trump administration on Thursday reportedly told a federal judge they shouldn’t be responsible for finding migrant parents who were deported after being separated from their children under President Trump’s controversial “zero-tolerance” policy. 

The Justice Department told a federal judge that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), a nonprofit organization that is representing plaintiffs in a class-action against the administration over the separations, should use their "considerable resources" to help find the parents, according to a court document filed Thursday and obtained by Politico..

Trump administration: ACLU, not government, should find deported parents | TheHill

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The 16-year-old American daughter of a US marine held back tears as long as she could before her family was split in two. Her mother, Alejandra Juarez, was finally leaving for Mexico, rather than be sent off in handcuffs, after exhausting all options to stop her deportation. “My mom is a good person. She’s not a criminal,” Pamela said, cursing at the immigration agency before her mother checked in on Friday for her flight from Orlando international airport. Alejandra and Temo Juarez, a naturalized citizen who runs a roofing business, quietly raised Pamela and their nine-year-old daughter, Estela, in the central Florida town of Davenport until a 2013 traffic stop exposed her legal status. Afterward, she regularly checked in with US Immigration and Customs officials, which typically went after higher-priority targets like people with criminal records. Temo didn’t figure his vote for Donald Trump would affect them personally. That was before the enforcement of Trump’s “zero-tolerance” policy toward illegal immigration. Now, the Juarez family will be divided in two: Estela will join her mother in Mexico after she gets settled, while Temo cares for Pamela and pays the bills.

'It’s an absolute disgrace': tears and anger as wife of US marine deported to Mexico | World news | The Guardian

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A majority-black county in rural Georgia announced a plan last week to close seven of its nine polling places ahead of the November election, claiming the polls cannot continue to operate because they are not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The move sparked instant opposition from voting rights advocates, who have threatened legal action if Randolph County follows though with the plan.

Activists are also scrambling to collect enough signatures to stop the effort before Friday, when the election board will make a final determination. The racial implications of the closures have generated significant attention. The county is over 61 percent black, and one of the polling locations that would be shuttered serves a precinct where more than 95 percent of voters are African American. Had the U.S. Supreme Court not gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013, the closures would most likely have been blocked by the Department of Justice. 

But the method the county is using to justify the closures has generated less attention. Republican lawmakers and election administrators in Randolph County are not the first to use the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), intended to protect the nation’s disabled communities, as a pretext to disenfranchise minority voters.

Trump administration is using federal disability law to disenfranchise minority voters – ThinkProgress

How Nasty is that?

• Disenfranchising minorities and using the disabilities act as a tool to achieve that..
  

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Months later..

Nearly 500 migrant children are still separated from their parents, including 22 children under the age of five. According to a government filing Thursday night, 497 of the 2,654 migrant children separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy are still being held in detention facilities, many of which have histories of abuse, mismanagement, or neglect. The parents of 322 of those children have already been deported.

The Trump administration claims 167 parents of children still in custody waived their right to be reunited with their children, but as MSNBC’s Jacob Soboroff noted Thursday night, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) strongly disputes that argument. “Some parents make have been coerced or misled by U.S. government actions that deprived the parents of their right to seek asylum,” the ACLU said in the filing. “These incidents include parents who were told that they needed to accept removal and not pursue asylum with their children, and parents who were required to sign documents they do not understand, in languages they do not speak, that had the effect of waiving their right to seek asylum.””

Nearly 500 immigrant kids remain separated from parents. Most of their parents have been deported. – ThinkProgress

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Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting, said he was "certain" that Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh asked security to remove him from the confirmation hearing after Guttenberg tried to speak with him. Guttenberg said earlier Tuesday that he approached Kavanaugh during the lunch break to introduce himself, and Kavanaugh “pulled his hand back, turned his back to me and walked away.” “As soon as I said [my daughter was] ‘murdered in Parkland,’ he just did an immediate turn and went away,” Guttenberg told CNN in an interview Tuesday night. “All he had to do was extend his hand back and say, I’m sorry for your loss, tell me about your daughter.’”

Parkland father: Kavanaugh asked security to kick me out of hearing | TheHill

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The number of migrant children being held in federally contracted shelters has risen to 12,800 this month, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday evening. That number represents a more than fivefold increase since last May, setting a record, according to a report in The New York Times, which first reported the data. In May 2017, the number was 2,400, the Times said. The increase in the number of children held in government shelters has strained the facilities, which are now near 90 percent capacity, versus 30 percent a year ago. The government operates about 100 such facilities. The dramatic rise was caused by a reduction in the number of children being released to live with family members or other sponsors, according to the data reviewed by the Times, and not by an influx of children migrating into the country.

Number of migrant children in federal shelters hits record, as facilities near capacity

One 16-year-old from Guatemala said he wanted to “quitarme la vida,” or “take my life away,” as he waited to be released from a Chicago shelter for immigrant children. He was kept there for at least 584 days. A 17-year-old from Guinea went on a hunger strike, telling staff members he refused to eat until he saw evidence they were trying to find him a home. He was released nearly nine months after he entered a shelter. And a 10-month-old boy, forcibly separated from his father at the U.S.-Mexico border in March, was bitten repeatedly by an older child and later hospitalized after falling from a highchair. He was detained for five months.  ProPublica Illinois has obtained thousands of confidential records about the nine federally funded shelters in the Chicago area for immigrant youth operated by the nonprofit Heartland Human Care Services — some dating back years, others from as recently as last week.

As Months Pass in Chicago Shelters, Immigrant Children Contemplate Escape, Even Suicide | Alternet

Family Separation: Children who were separated from their parents under the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy face lasting consequences even after they’re returned to their families. Jeremy Raff filmed the bittersweet reunion of one mother, Anita, and her 6-year-old son, who’s showing signs of trauma. Read their story, and watch the documentary here.

The Atlantic Daily: September 7, 2018 - The Atlantic

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Amazing that this stuff isn't more in the headlines, it's stomach turning..

Holes in immigration laws are allowing state court judges to grant custody of migrant children to American families without notifying their deported parents, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. The AP scoured hundreds of court documents and immigration records to reveal several cases of children being permanently, legally taken from their families after initial separations. The report focuses on the case of Alexa Ramos, who was separated from her mother, Araceli, for 15 months, to explain issues of the legal standing for children placed under the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

Araceli Ramos and her daughter fled from El Salvador to the U.S. to escape from the children's abusive father and were arrested upon crossing into the country by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Normally, running from abuse mean that Ramos would be granted asylum, but she was denied because of criminal charges against her. After months of Ramos being in detention and Alexa being in foster care, the mother was deported after being unable to get a lawyer to defend her asylum request. She says she was forced by an agent to sign a waiver to leave her daughter behind.

AP: Migrant children may be adopted after parents are deported | TheHill

As the deportees were led off the plane onto the steamy San Salvador tarmac, an anguished Araceli Ramos Bonilla burst into tears, her face contorted with pain: "They want to steal my daughter!" It had been 10 weeks since Ramos had last held her 2-year-old, Alexa. Ten weeks since she was arrested crossing the border into Texas and U.S. immigration authorities seized her daughter and told her she would never see the girl again.

What followed — one foster family's initially successful attempt to win full custody of Alexa — reveals what could happen to some of the infants, children and teens taken from their families at the border under a Trump administration policy earlier this year. The "zero-tolerance" crackdown ended in June, but hundreds of children remain in detention, shelters or foster care and U.S. officials say more than 200 are not eligible for reunification or release.

Deported parents may lose kids to adoption, investigation finds

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Last December, Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV) caused controversy when he threw Laura Packard, a health care activist and Stage 4 lymphoma patient, out of a town hall on the Republican tax cuts. “Why are you voting for me to lose my health care? Without it I will die,” Packard asked, moments before Heller's security detail ejected her from the room.

It was a cowardly move, as the tax bill is projected to result in 13 million more uninsured Americans over the next 10 years, and Heller clearly had no interest in answering the question or coming to grips with how he is paying for his corporate tax cuts. But amazingly, confronted with his actions this month, Heller decided his best strategy was to go after Packard in an email blast to voters, trashing her as a "Democrat political operative."

GOP Senator Calls Cancer Patient He Threw Out of Town Hall a 'Democrat Political Operative' | Alternet

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Amazing, or perhaps not..

Months after Donald Trump claimed he was abandoning his own policy of separating immigrant asylum seekers and their children, he is now exploring ways to bring the horrific policy back. Asked Saturday about why he would revert to a hugely unpopular and likely illegal approach, Trump incorrectly claimed that it is an effective deterrent. “Well, I will say this: if they feel there will be separation, they don’t come, you know. If they feel there’s separation, it’s — it’s a terrible situation,” he told reporters..

While Trump is correct that virtually every Democrat in Congress opposes taking young children from their parents and effectively imprisoning them, he is completely wrong about the policy being a deterrent. Indeed border apprehensions of migrating families actually notably went up during the time the Trump administration’s so-called “zero-tolerance” policy was in full effect. According to a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Customs and Border Protection data, 2018 numbers were not only much higher than a year earlier, they were the highest since 2012.

Trump also repeated the widely-debunked myth that many of the immigrant kids are not actually related to the adults the arrive with and are just props. “Also, in many cases, you have really bad people coming in and using children. They’re not their children, they don’t know the children, they haven’t known the children for 20 minutes and they grab children and they use them to come into our country,” he said. According to Trump’s own Department of Homeland Security, just 46 times in fiscal year 2017 out of 303,916 apprehensions did someone fraudulently claim a child was theirs — 0.0151% of all cases.

Trump falsely claims that cruel family separation policy is a good deterrent – ThinkProgress

The policy produced untold trauma and 500 orphans, so far..