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Essay / Inhumane Treatment of Immigrants in America
Throughout America's history, the treatment of immigrants, as well as immigration laws, have been consistently mismanaged. Along with this, current laws and regulations regarding immigration have always been a difficult, highly debated and controversial part of the law. In Congress, it has always been difficult to agree on this subject and it is difficult to make decisions that satisfy all parties. As a result, the mistreatment of immigrants and their children has worsened, including in immigration detention centers. Very inhumane treatment was displayed within these detention centers. If I were a member of Congress and able to impact these laws and regulations, I would change the way these government facilities are managed and the procedures implemented there. I would make the management and treatment of immigrants more humane and fairer. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In the United States, immigration detention centers have existed for decades and have always played an important role in American history. Dating back to 1892, “the world’s first dedicated immigrant detention center, Ellis Island Immigration Station in New Jersey,” was opened. Even then, immigrants were mistreated. When immigrants entered Ellis Island, if they were presumed ill, they "were taken out of line and taken through the room where they were locked in an enclosure, a cage, called the doctor's pen." Currently, detention centers have become very common and more undocumented immigrants are visiting them than ever before. In these immigration detention centers, immigrants are subjected to inhumane treatment. For example, it became public that they kept children in cages and families were separated. As of June 2019, more than two thousand children were being held by the US Border Patrol in a detention center, without their parents. Children are not supposed to be detained by these agents, legally, for more than 72 hours, but “in practice, they are held for days, sometimes weeks, in facilities without sufficient food or toothbrushes – spending entire days without a shower, overcrowded and poorly cared for.” On top of that, they put the children before judges alone, without representation, hoping that they would understand what was happening. Immigrant children as young as three years old are appearing in court regarding their deportation. Although “requiring that unaccompanied minors be expelled alone is not a new practice, as a result of the Trump administration's controversial family separation policy, more young children – including toddlers – are being affected than in the past. All of these things that happen to young children will have long-term effects on them,” a study recently published in Social Science & Medicine found that thirty-two percent of children in a detention center showed signs of emotional problems. The study leader also found that out of one hundred and fifty children aged nine to seventeen in the same detention center, seventeen percent showed symptoms of PTSD. Looking at these conditions that children face in detention centers, alone, without their families, if I were in Congress, I would make significant changes. The first thing I would change is the procedure for separating children from their families. Instead of taking them to separate facilities, I would say they :.