A local facility for troubled teens is housing between 10 and 20 immigrant children and teenagers recently separated from their families as a result of President Donald Trump’s zero-tolerance policy for immigrants entering the country at non-authorized U.S. border crossings.
That’s according to U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, who visited Youth For Tomorrow in Bristow for about two hours Friday morning, according to his staff.
Kaine (D) went to the facility, located on Linton Hall Road, with a member of his staff. He spoke with some of the children in Spanish and left feeling they were being “appropriately cared for,” according to member of the senator’s staff.
Some of the children he met with were girls, the staff member said. They were between the ages of 10 and 17 and had arrived since April.
Kaine asked Youth For Tomorrow staff how the children were doing, and they confirmed many had been “traumatized” by their experiences, Kaine’s staff said in an email.
Youth for Tomorrow, a residential facility for troubled teens launched by former Washington Redskins Coach Joe Gibbs in 1986, has been caring for immigrant teens under a contract with federal officials for six years.
But prior to April 2018, those teens arrived at the border on their own, without a parent or guardian.
In a statement, Kaine said he is grateful to Youth For Tomorrow staff for the opportunity to visit the facility as well as what he called their “focus” on reuniting the children with their families.
Where was Corey? Isn’t he the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors? Why wasn’t he checking into this issue?
It sounds like Youth for Tomorrow wasn’t exactly forthcoming in its response to inquiries from local and state officials. What is being hidden here?
Youth for Tomorrow has, in recent years, been a contracted shelter for Unaccomplanied Minors through HHR. That program is different than these children who have been forcibly separated from their parents as the parents attempted to seek asylum. The children who, in essence, have been forcibly kidnapped, have become unaccompanied simply because the government removed them from their parents. We as a nation need to make certain we don’t fall for this obfuscation and deception.
Approximately 40 kids are at Youth for Tomorrow who have been forcibly separated from their parents at the border. These are not kids who came to this country alone. We cannot allow these kidnapped kids to be intermingled with those who came alone. The government needs to wear its shame and wear it publicly.
Thanks to Elena, Jill Palermo (see above article) and Tim Kaine for their attempts to get to the bottom of this horrible situation. We have a refugee crisis that has been handled awkwardly, and in my mind, criminally, by the current administration.
When this business is all over, we will really be able to separate the chaff from the wheat. This is the one thing that corporations and individuals and groups will not be able to wiggle out of. They will either be on the right side of history or the wrong side. The wrong side will simply not be able to recover in a decent society.
Given the history with YFT, it’s not surprising information flow to Corey is …. slow? And problematic for him. Clearly the county and state should be aware. The state is suing the Trump admin which makes this “right under its nose” appearance problematic for the commonwealth, too.
I agree, it’s a horrific practice, and for three reasons: 1. many admin comments suggest separation was a goal, not a byproduct (more or less the Obama position); 2. increasing the scale versus minimizing is also intentional; 3. safeguards necessary to ensure reunification have been haphazard at best, absent at worst (and again, how can this be accidental?).
Priority #1 should absolutely be reunification and making sure it stops.
The root of the problem goes deeper than Trump. He and his admin are taking harsh measures and scaling them up recklessly. They haven’t changed the underlying legal contours and didn’t invent the camps – personal opinion: this is why Obama has been relatively quiet on the issue, it’s not a happy part of his story. And some of the nastier / crypto-fascist statements about denying judicial process are carry-overs from past administrations. Probably the most disgusting comes from Eric Holder, who argued famously that due process does not require judicial process to support killing American citizens abroad for national security reasons (usually via drone strikes). The tools of the state don’t go away, they just get repurposed.
Again, priority #1 is cessation and reunification. Attacking root causes will take a lot longer and be much, much bigger than just dumping Trump.
Hi North!! Good to see you. All of this kidnapping takes my breath away. I was so glad to see millions of people take to the streets in defense of refugees and immigrants.
Corey must be slow–otherwise he wouldn’t hitch his horse to a rapidly falling star.
MoonHowler,
Yeah, the separation of kids with no reunification plan is stupid, evil, shocking, etc.
Stewart is playing a different game. His current office has limited taxpayer pimping opportunities, but he’s kept his name in national headlines. And earned renewed attention from Trump. He’s gunning for an “assistant secretary for X” position in the administration. Odds on, that lasts 9-15 months, then he’s got some juice to be a lobbyist.
Kaine really squandered some goodwill with his performance as HRC’s #2 (angry and vitriolic), but he’ll still beat Corey by 10 pts. Only real question is whether Corey cracks 40%. Kaine would be a logical cabinet appointment in a Dem admin in 2021, and Northam would appoint his replacement.
Corey is doing everything possible to turn Virginia blue.
Hi Starry!! Where have you been? Are you attending the soccer games?
Absolutely, Corey is doing his fair share for sure.