FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Government Accountability Project Sends Letter to President Biden with Concerns Regarding the Proposed Reinstatement of Family Detention
WASHINGTON — Today, Government Accountability Project sent a letter to President Biden and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Security Mayorkas on behalf of whistleblower clients Drs. Scott Allen and Pamela McPherson, DHS subject matter experts in medical and mental health, renewing their concerns about harms to children caused by family detention. Recent reporting revealed that the Biden Administration is considering reinstating family detention after ending the practice just two years ago. DHS Secretary Mayorkas confirmed on March 7, 2023, that DHS is considering this option.
Drs. Scott Allen and Pamela McPherson are physicians, an internist and child and adolescent psychiatrist respectively, who serve as contracted experts to conduct investigations for DHS’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties of ICE family detention centers, some of which have involved serious harms, including deaths. After warning internally about the well-documented harm to children in detention settings, in 2018 they publicly, and repeatedly, began to raise the alarm to DHS, Congress and the public about the harms to immigrant children in DHS detention—and how those harms are foreseeable and exacerbated by systemic weaknesses in the ability of the detention facilities to meet minimal standards of care and protect children....
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