New report calls for end of US immigration detention system

A damning new report is calling for the shutdown of the United States' immigration detention system, as harrowing accounts emerge from facilities holding thousands of migrants, including infants and young children.

More than 5,600 people were detained at a single Texas facility in less than a year, with some children held for months under conditions advocates describe as cruel and neglectful. Among the cases drawing outrage: a nine-year-old who blamed herself for her detention, and a two-year-old whose illness was reportedly dismissed as "mental." At Krome, one of the country's oldest detention centers, where four people died last year, parents are frequently separated from children held in Dilley, Texas. The facility is operated by CoreCivic, which denies the allegations.

Policy analysts and lawmakers are speaking out in stark terms, with Florida Immigrant Coalition analyst Thomas Kennedy calling the system "disgusting" and "cruel," and Representative Joaquin Castro arguing that denying a sick five-year-old proper medical care while prescribing ibuprofen for two months straight amounts to torture.

Nitza Soledad Perez has this report.

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