19 States File As Amici, In Flores -- Decrying Trump's Continued Violations Of Flores "Humane Treatment" And Prompt Placement Clauses...

The states signing on to ending Trump's concentration camp style treatment include California, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.

My latest backgrounder here -- and the full well-reasoned 21 page amici brief:

. . . .The TRO Application and countless media reports detail the deplorable and inhumane conditions in which the federal government is currently holding vulnerable immigrant children who are in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody in the El Paso and Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol Sectors at, or near, the border. Children are being held in extremely cold facilities, denied access to basic needs such as adequate and sufficient food, drinking water, emergency medical care, soap, showers, toothbrushes and clean clothing, deprived of sleep, and tasked to care for other very young children. The Court’s immediate intervention is necessary to prevent further harm to these children by compelling the federal government to comply with its legal obligations to hold children in safe and sanitary conditions. . . .

For more than two decades, the federal government has been required to meet minimum standards for the facilities in which immigrant children may be confined. These minimum standards, established in the Flores Settlement Agreement, require, among other things, that the federal government place children in border facilities that are safe and sanitary and make every effort to release children or otherwise promptly transfer children to state-licensed facilities. . . .

The harm caused to these children will have long-lasting effects well beyond the time of their release from CBP facilities. . . .

It staggers me that anyone need be told as much.

But for Team Trump. . . the cruelty is certainly the point. Around the nation today, many kids under ten are celebrating birthdays -- by the pool or on soccer fields -- and being served delicious fresh fruit as snacks. They are having fun with their friends and family. They are safe; they will sleep soundly tonight, after a warm bath or shower, and after their teeth are brushed -- they will read bedtime stories. . . .

And so I ask you: what has become of this nation's will to be better? To do the right thing? Wht are we. . . becoming?

नमस्ते