How does psychological trauma affect children's developing brains? In this powerful talk, social worker Luis H. Zayas discusses his work with refugees and asylum-seeking families at the US-Mexico border. What emerges is a stunning analysis of the long-term impact of the US's controversial detention and child separation policies -- and practical steps for how the country can do better.
This film traces the fight of 29 parents who traveled north to Tijuana, Mexico in March 2019, hoping to claim asylum and reunite with their children. The U.S. government had separated these parents from their children along with hundreds of other families at the border trying to claim asylum as part of the Trump administration's "zero tolerance" immigration policy. The film focus on two parents – Nery and "Maria" – each determined to see their children again.
Secret reports recently revealed by National Public Radio (NPR) have exposed the torturous reality of immigration detention in the United States. Among the revelations were gross medical negligence, unsanitary conditions, rampant racism and frequent, unprovoked, brutality against detainees. Silky Shah, Executive Director of Detention Watch Network, joined The Freedom Side to discuss the reports, the brutal conditions inside immigration detention centers, the connections to the broader US prison system and what needs to change in immigration detention policy.
Amid an intensifying crackdown on asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, we speak to the author of the new book Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition about U.S. immigration policy under the Biden administration. Author Silky Shah is the executive director of Detention Watch Network and a longtime immigration rights advocate whose new book aims to “debunk the idea that immigration is a public safety issue,” in the face of narratives, from both the Republican and Democrat political establishments, of criminality and deterrence. Despite Biden’s campaign promises to reform the immigration system, his administration has “ceded more and more ground to the Republicans and moved the whole conversation to the right,” Shah says. “Legalization isn’t even on the table.” Shah discusses how the immigrant rights’ movement uses the language of abolition to build connections with other social movements fighting oppression, from mass incarceration to police brutality. “These systems aren’t separate. … We have to call for abolition of the whole system and understand those things together.”