The Antelope Valley Times

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L.A. County will not help identify new detention centers

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LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to instruct county employees not to talk to federal workers about vacant county properties that could be used as immigration detention centers.

Federal authorities reached out to the county on Aug. 1 looking for facilities to house detained children, according to Supervisor Hilda Solis.

“Our federal government should not be in the business of identifying property anywhere in this county, state or nation that could be used to forcibly keep children locked up in a facility that resembles a jail,” Solis said. “This administration seeks to increase the number of federal detention facilities for migrant youth while simultaneously attempting to strip protections that spare these children from the trauma caused by cruel and prolonged detention. These unconscionable policies must stop.”

Supervisor Sheila Kuehl co-authored the motion recommending a letter to Secretary of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar documenting the board’s refusal to help identify any property that could be used to detain migrant children and their families.

“Among the many inhumane and devastating actions taken by the current federal administration, the policies that separate children from their parents, inflicting physical and psychological harm on whole families, is among the worst,” Kuehl said.

Solis and Kuehl accused the administration of trying to grow a private industry, saying an official for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services put the cost of holding a child in detention at nearly $800 per day.

At least six immigrant children, ranging in age from 2 1/2 to 16, have died while in federal custody, including from a brain infection and a debilitating heart condition, according to the Los Angeles Times, and a 1-year-old girl died after being released from custody from a respiratory illness that her mother says she developed while in custody.

Cramped and dirty conditions reported at a detention center in the border town of Clint, Texas, prompted a federal appeals court judge to rule last month that children must be provided with basic supplies like toothbrushes, soap and sleeping mats.

House Democrats said last week that the administration has since blocked congressional staff from touring detention facilities.

The effort to find more detention facilities comes as the Trump administration announced plans to end a 1997 Flores settlement agreement that limits detention of immigrant children to 20 days. California and 18 other states, plus the District of Columbia, are fighting that plan in court.

The Board of Supervisors also directed county lawyers to join or file a friend of the court brief in opposition to terminating the Flores settlement.

Trump argued last month that doing away with the 20-day limit and building a wall would help deter immigrants and save lives.

“When they see you can’t get into the United States, or when they see if they do get in the United States, they will be brought back to their country … they won’t come and many people will be saved,” Trump told reporters.

Border Patrol agents apprehended more than 3 1/2 times as many families and more than 60% more unaccompanied children in the Rio Grande Valley from last October through May versus the same time period last year, according to a July report by the inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security. The OIG warned of severe overcrowding and a lack of adequate food or access to showers and clean clothes.

Authorities have resorted to tent encampments to alleviate crowded conditions.

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48 comments for "L.A. County will not help identify new detention centers"

  1. Why doesn’t the County emphasize on having the homeless getting showers, safe zones (protection), clean clothes, enable to brush teeth. Illegals seem to have better benefits than American homeless. Priority should be given to American homeless first before housing illegals.

    • Gonzalo…There are many good people in every community that provide showers, safe zones, clean clothes, etc., to those in need without asking whether a homeless person is an American.

    • The same thing that would happen if LACSD released any other sort of person and that person committed a crime. An investigation, hopefully find the perp, round the perp up (arrest again), prosecute, jail, release (maybe). Thus the wheels of justice go round and round.

  3. God bless America. Stand beside her and guide her…If you love America , you know the rest. God bless to all!

  4. A course in history will enlighten you to the fact that before there was a MEXICO there were several different civilizations and people on the North and South American continents. Give it back to MEXICO so they can give it back to them.

    • I hear ya. Most of my family lives in Borinquen. The indigenous Taino people were wiped out by typhus and worked to death by the accursed Conquistadors and replaced with slave labor on sugar plantations. The Spanish perpetuated a corrupt, class-driven culture that persists to this day.

  6. It doesn’t matter what you all think or like or dislike either way you guys won’t be able to do nothing about it cause as you can see we are the majority and if you guys don’t like it go to he’ll we don’t care what you guys like cause you can’t change nothing .so huuuuuuufff just go work

      • Hey, Trumpist#1

        You’re good.

        The only thing I remember from high school Latin is that “Gaul is divided into 3 parts.”

        That and my teacher looked like a young Dick Van Dyke with a heavy southern accent. Needless to say, I only know the above from those classes. Oh, and “In vino veritas.” hic, and “Ars Gratia Artis” but everyone knows that.

        • If I use Latin I get more of my insults thru Big Brother. And I owe it all to you. I’m really getting to better appreciate your evil genius (think Joker in Batman or Lex Luther). Tim once told me I would. Quick, someone slap me \__?__/

  7. The problem is that LA county is trying to distance itself from the federal government. LA county is supposed to abide by all state and federal laws and shouldn’t be actively trying to politicize their government as separate… like its own little nation. Whether anyone agrees with family separation or not, we should all believe in the purpose of our laws. Besides, what makes sense? Detaining these migrants or sending them back?

    • I particularly like that federal law that says immigration enforcement is to be maintained strictly by federal law enforcement agents, not state or local…

      Oh, hey, LOOK you idiot, that’s the one the county is following! Maybe if you weren’t such a drooling sycophant for all thing Trump you’d catch on to that fact.

      • If I weren’t the accursed Trumpist, I would change my handle to “drooling sycophant”, lol.

      • Desperate liberal sycophants drooling all over themselves, cherry picking laws, and the Constitution.

      • Desperate liberal sycophants that don’t even understand their own principles. They are too busy drooling all over themselves and each other, wanting the government to take care of everything, so the people are completely dependent.

  9. This is anarchy pure bull….awful lawless Democrats….Do they have a list a laws that is OK for me to break? The Feds need to hammer these jerks.

  10. Federal law does not apply in Californiastan. It should not continue to be part of our great union. Maybe California and Mexico should incorporate together. Oh wait, it has already happened! \__O__/

      • Now that’s a sagacious comment. You must have been educated in CA/MX.

        We adamantly refuse to feel guilty and be silent while our beautiful state and most wonderful country are being stolen.

        • Mr Trumpist you are 10000% correct. Most of the folks here are nothing more than nattering nabobs of negatism that all guzzle major Kool Aid….esp this vile vermin Tim Scott that seems to live here

          • “nattering nabobs of negatism”…. LMAO. Good one.

            PS: Tim Scott holds people accountable (including me) and some don’t like it. I met him personally and found him to be personable and intelligent. I don’t usually agree with his politics but I respect and like him personally.

          • Vile vermin? He adds spice with his stroppy attitude. It would be fun to have coffee with both Tim and Trumpist. How about meeting me at City Hall in Lancaster on September 10, at 5:00 p.m.

          • I live in East Palmdale and have never got involved in the ill-maintained septic tank that is Lancaster politics (and Lancaster for that matter – apologies to Lancaster residents)

            But as I learn here what is happening, if it were up to me, I’d elect Tim Scott Palmdale mayor, and Don Quixote (Democrat though he was) as mayor of Lancaster.

          • I’m just playing, Trumpist. I left Lancaster for East Palmdale, then I left East Palmdale for Tehachapi, and I am no longer interested in the corrupt politics in either city. I know many people in both cities and love them all. I couldn’t get any one to back me up when I was a banner carrying rebel against Rex and the crew. Tim Scott for mayor of Palmdale, and Maryanne Williamson for mayor of Lancaster. Lancaster needs plenty of love, and instead of bird sounds, crystals can be placed all over town.

          • Absolutely right! Stolen back, I should have written. Still, that doesn’t mean I want to give it back.

            My kid was stationed at Ft. Bliss El Paso, so I told him we stole CA, NM, AZ, UT, NV, TX and CO. Then when even we didn’t want anymore, that’s where we put Ft. Bliss.

          • And once again, the inability of our political figures to cooperate with each other makes a major problem worse… All the while winning them votes from people who are also pretending to care.

            Stop campaigning from your offices and get TO WORK.

          • How so? Use your towering intellect and sublime eloquence to enlighten us.

            I know more about American and world history and than you ever will and I assert that you are the ignorant one. Were you educated in this hybrid third world country?? It shows.

        • David G. and Trumpist#1

          You are both in good company. Make that “bad” company.

          “nattering nabobs of negatism”…. was said by Vice President Spiro Agnew who pleaded “no contest” to tax evasion and resigned later followed by Nixon’s resignation.

          Those are Republicans for you 2. Corrupt to the bone and now we have one in the White House who might go to prison one day for his deeds.

          Who else are you going to quote, Mussolini?