Japanese Americans protest plans to use Fort Sill as detention center for border children

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Former internees protest the use of Fort Sill as a detention center for children separated from their families.

ASAM NEWS

A group that included Japanese Americans who were detained as children during World War II demonstrated in Oklahoma yesterday to protest the US government’s plan to house over 1,400 migrant children at Fort Sill, reports KSWO 7News.
“75 years ago, 120,000 of us were removed from our homes and forcibly incarcerated in prison camps across the country,” said protest organizer Satsuki Ina, whose sign included a photo of her as a child in a WWII incarceration camp. “We’re here today to protest the repetition of history.”

Some other survivors also brought camp ID cards and photos from when they were detained as children.

Fort Sill police threatened arrests if protesters did not move from base property. Police told them to resume their demonstration on the other side of Rogers Lane, which was considered Lawton city property, but protestors initially refused.

“If that’s what it takes, to be arrested to make our statement, for people to know that we mean it when we say, we’re going to do what we can for America to stop repeating history,” said Ina.

Once Lawton police arrived and let them speak, the protestors held a news conference and then headed to Shepler Park where they hung origami cranes and met with some other organizations and local Native American Tribes. The groups joined together in prayer and continued the demonstration into the afternoon.

“So much of what’s happening today is very familiar to us,” Ina said. “We, my family, suffered for four years with indeterminate detention. My father was taken from us and put in a separate prison camp and there was a period of time when we didn’t know where he was, and I was a toddler at that time and when we’re finally reunified in Crystal City, Texas, in the family internment camp there, at that point, my father was just a stranger to me. I had a lot of anxiety as a child. So I’ve made it my life’s work to understand the trauma consequences of mass incarceration and chronic states of trauma.”

The Fort Sill post was last used to house migrant children in 2014 under the Obama administration, when it took in 1,861 migrants, reports The San Diego Union-Tribune.

Oklahoma’s Republican leaders opposed lockups like Fort Sill under Obama but have made a switch to defend them under the current administration.

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During WWII, Japanese Americans were detained in Fort Sill, Oklahoma where Homeland Security plans to house Central American children separated from their families asking for asylum

Sen. James Lankford said in a statement last week that likening the migrant detention centers to incarceration camps “is a false equivalency.”

“What happened then is not what is happening now,” read the statement. “… Every country now knows if you come into our country with a child, you will be released. It is our responsibility to ensure the security and safety of all the children coming into our country, and I have confidence that will be done properly at Fort Sill.”

“I feel a heaviness because history repeated itself when they interned the Japanese Americans there and now they are taking these children that they claim to be unaccompanied by adults and keeping them at Fort Sill, and that’s just wrong,” said activist Rev. Steven B. Thompson. “That goes against our very human nature.”

Ina hopes the government will utilize alternatives to building walls and detaining children.

“Our hope is that children who are coming across the border are placed in community-based facilities, provided services and all effort be put into reunifying them with sponsors and family members,” said Ina.

“Unlike 1942, when America turned their backs on us while we were disappearing from our homes, our schools, our farms and our jobs — we’re here today to speak out, to protest the unjust incarceration of innocent people seeking refuge in this country,” Ina said.

“We stand with them, and we say, ‘Stop repeating history.'"

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George Takei On U.S. government holding kids In camps...

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George Takei: 'It is the most incompetent admnnistration...'

STAR TREK star George Takei was asked to recall his experience as a 5-year old when he and his family were detained during World War II.

Appearing last night (July 31) on MSNBC's Lawarence O'Donnel show, The Last Word, the 81-year old Japanese American actor recalled the soldiers, with bayonets drawn, pounding on the front door, his parents packing, his mother crying. Takei said, "I will never be able to forget that scary, horrible morning" when his family were taken from their home and placed in an internment camp.

Takei was discussing how traumatic events impact young children in relation to the children being separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

(Donald Trump) "has reached a new historical low," said Takei. "This notion of taking children from their parents, ... then incarcerating them in cages, then scattering them across the country," said Takei, best known for his role as Mr. Sulu in the original television series Star Trek that launched a megahit franchise with a fanatically loyal fanbase.

"It is the most incompetent administration. a new low in cruelty and inhumanity. It makes Americans ashamed," Takei told the host.

Takei's interview starts around the 3:40 mark in the video below:

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Chinese American judge rules against indefinite detention of immigrant children

NAPABA

JUDGE DOLLY GEE

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE attorneys didn't know what hit them when the diminutive judge resolutely rejected the Trump administration’s efforts to detain immigrant families in long-term facilities.

At first glance, one wouldn't think the diminutive and bespectacled Chinese American woman, Judge Dolly Gee could wield such power over the assembled team of lawyers from the DOJ, who trying to undo the 1997 Flores agreement limiting the detention time for children.

On Monday (July 9) Gee described the government’s request as a “cynical attempt” to foist responsibility on her for the president’s “ill-considered” action and Congress’ failure to address the issue for over 20 years. She said it was “procedurally improper and wholly without merit.” 

Under the Flores settlement agreement, migrant families are only allowed to be detained for 20 days while they await trial, before they must be released. The alternatives to this option are family separation or releasing the family together. The Trump administration is pushing to alter the ruling so that families can remain in custody together, but for an indefinite period of time longer than the 20 days.

Defendants seek to overturn the Flores Agreement and asked Gee to upend the parties’ agreement by judicial fiat, wrote Gee, an appointee of President Barack Obama. "It is apparent that Defendants’ Application is a cynical attempt...to shift responsibility to the Judiciary for over 20 years of Congressional inaction and ill-considered Executive action that have led to the current stalemate.

While Gee‘s order allows for parents to agree to be detained with their children, she emphasizes in the ruling that an indefinite placement of a child in an unlicensed detention facility “would constitute a fundamental and material breach“ of the Flores agreement.

Since the Trump-initiated zero-tolerance policy towards asylum seekers that started in April, government attorneys been hammered for the emotional issue of separating children from their parents, Trump's executive order negating that policy and have been trying to navigate between Gee's ruling and that of San Diego judge who gave until July 26 before all detained children be reunited with their families.

The government asserted in its Flores filing that the San Diego ruling would necessitate longer-term detention of children, since that would be the only way to both reunite them with their parents and keep the parents incarcerated during their immigration proceedings.

Gee rejected that argument.

“Defendants advance a tortured interpretation of the Flores Agreement in an attempt to show that the … injunction permits them to suspend the Flores release and licensure provisions,” she wrote.

Gee said she was often underestimated early in her career because she looked much younger than she was and stood only 4-foot-11 (150 centimeters).

As a daughter of immigrants herself, Gee has spent her career advocating for the underdog, 

Gee comes from a family that has directly experienced the effects of immigration restriction. In an interview with the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), she explained that her family has a long history with moving to America. Her great-great-grandfather immigrated to the United States to work on the Trans-Continental Railroad in the 1800's, but was later forced to return to China as a result of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Decades later, her father moved to America, learned English at the age of 15, and enrolled in the United States Navy to fight in World War II.

Gee joked that her mother was her first pro bono client because she had to translate for her at medical appointments and help her apply for jobs as a seamstress when she was just a girl.

“She in many ways inspired my desire to go to law school,” Gee said in a video produced by NAPABA. “I saw firsthand the difficulties she encountered as a non-English speaker and also as a garment worker. And I saw many of the abuses that take place in the workplace, and I decided at a fairly early age that I wanted to do some type of work that would address some of the inequities I saw as a child."

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Indian American congresswoman arrested at immigration protest

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Concgresswoman Pramila Jayapal was led away by police as she sang "This Little Light of Mine."

REP. PRAMILA JAYAPAL, D-WA, was among the 575 people arrested in a "mass civil disobedience" demonstration that involved about 1000 people, most of them women.

“I just got arrested with a group of over 500 women who took over the center of the Hart Senate Building, protesting the inhumane and cruel zero-tolerance policy of Donald Trump and this administration, the separation of families, the caging of children, the imprisonment of asylum seekers,” she said. “These women understand, they’re from all over the country...they understand that this is far beyond politics, this is about right and wrong. We have to step up and put ourselves on the line.”

“I’m proud to have been arrested with them, to put myself in the camp of people who believe that the United States of America is better,” she added. “As a member of Congress, I refuse to let this president and this administration do what they are doing to children, parents, and asylum-seekers in my name.”

Jayapal was processed at the site of her arrest and then released. On June 30, Saturday, she paid her fine.

One of the reasons for the protestl was because Congress is set to break for a week-long recess, without having passed any legislation as a solution for the growing crisis at the United States-Mexico border.

The Women’s March organized the protest against Donald Trump's immigration policies. Most of the participants were women and at one point, were joined by Democratic Senators Tammy Duckworth, Illinois; Mazie Hirono, Hawaii; and Kamala Harris, California.

Duckworth, who joined the protest with her newborn baby strapped to her chest, later said, "I wanted to show my support for the folks here today." She added, "I could only imagine what it would be like to have my daughter — my breastfeeding child — ripped away from me the way some of these other moms' babies have been."

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Sen. Tammy Duckworth brought her baby to her first protest.

When the demonstrators reached the Hart Senate Building, about half the demonstrators entered, chanting, "We Care," and sat on the floor. Some of the women were draped in the tinfoil blankets, similar to one issued to the children separated from their parents.

According to the AP, the protesters were charged with “unlawful demonstration,” and were released at the scene after being processed.

Today's protest is a warmup for larger protests slated for Saturday, with “Families Belong Together” that will take place throughout the nation. 

• Click here to find a protest near you.
• Stand Up: If you can't attend an event, there are other things you can do.

Linda Sarsour, a co-founder of the Women’s March, said she hoped the protests, apart from sending a message to the administration and Congress, would mobilize people to vote in the midterms. 

“We believe that women voters are going to commit to going to the polls and make sure that we win back the House and the Senate this year,” she said.

(UPDATED: June 30 7:30 p.m. to add Pramila Jayapal paid her fine.) _______________________________________________________________________________ 

Judge orders reunification of migrant families in 30 days.

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Over 2000 children remain separated from their parents.

A FEDERAL JUDGE ordered that all children affected by Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy back with their parents in 30 days. 

"These families thought they might never see each other again. Tonight's court ruling will change lives," said Lee Gelernt of the ACLU's Immigrant Rights Project.

Kids younger than 5 must be reunited with parents within 14 days; older children must be reunited within 30 days, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

"Families belong together in communities, not in cages. Despite Trump's attempt to clean up his manufactured crisis, the executive order issued last week keeps children in jail and continues to treat families cruelly and inhumanely," said John Yang, executive director for Asian Americans Advancing Justice. 

In a ruling brought about by a "chaotic circumstance of the government's own making," US District Judge Dana Sabraw noted "the unfortunate reality" of cars, money, and other personal items being tracked better than the more than 2,000 children who've so far been taken from their parents, per Politico. "Certainly, that cannot satisfy the requirements of due process."

Under Sabraw's mandate, parents also can't be detained or deported without their kids, unless it's shown a parent is unfit or otherwise poses a danger, and prompt phone contact between parents and kids must be allowed, per NBC News. 

The court-ordered injunction was a response to a class-action lawsuit on behalf of two women separated from their children, including a Congolese woman who made headlines. 

Sabraw's ruling comes on the heels of an executive order from Donald Trump that was supposed to remedy the separations, but which stayed "silent on the issue of reuniting families that have already been separated or will be separated in the future," wrote Sabraw, a George W. Bush appointee.

 "Tears will be flowing in detention centers across the country when the families learn they will be reunited," said Gelernt.

In a scathing 24-page order, U.S. District Court Judge Dana Sabraw granted the American Civil Liberties Union the preliminary injunction the group had been seeking since March.

Sabraw said that it was of note that the government is capable of keeping track of “personal property of detainees in criminal and immigration proceedings ... money, important documents, and automobiles, to name a few ... yet, the government has no system in place to keep track of, provide effective communication with, and promptly produce alien children.”

As of yet, despite Trump's executive order, there are doubts the federal government could comply with the judge's order. According to media reports, the government hasn't revealed any plans for reuniting the approximately 2000 children -- including infants and toddlers who have not learned to speak yet - with their parents who remain in detention.

The Department of Homeland Security said that it would revert to the procedure employed during the Obama administration when families stayed together in detention.

According to a ruling based on the Flores v. United States, the government cannot detain children longer than 20 days. During the Obama era, when the 20 days were reached, the parents were released along with the children with the promise that they would return to the courts when a decision had been reached on their status.

“Unfortunately, more than ever, it is important that we look to the past and remember the lessons of Japanese internment," said Rep. Mark Takano, D-CA. "It took 40 years for the American government to admit to its cruel and racist mistakes. I pray this Administration learns those lessons now and stops ripping families apart, swiftly reunites every family this has happened to, and ends it’s unnecessary “zero tolerance” policy of criminalizing refugees and asylum seekers.”

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