July, 08 2021, 10:18am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
AIUSA media office,Email:,media@aiusa.org,Phone: 202-544-0200 x302
Abuses at Fort Bliss Confirm Children Seeking Asylum Don't Belong in Detention
Today, the #WelcomeWithDignity responded to the Government Accountability Project's press release on whistleblower allegations of abuse at Fort Bliss. Eyewitnesses described a fire and water damage repair company with no experience of youth care being charged with the direct supervision of children, failures in case management and oversight, and thousands of children housed in dormitory tents. #WelcomeWithDignity campaign members-many of whom visited the center in question-responded:
WASHINGTON
Today, the #WelcomeWithDignity responded to the Government Accountability Project's press release on whistleblower allegations of abuse at Fort Bliss. Eyewitnesses described a fire and water damage repair company with no experience of youth care being charged with the direct supervision of children, failures in case management and oversight, and thousands of children housed in dormitory tents. #WelcomeWithDignity campaign members-many of whom visited the center in question-responded:
"WRC is very concerned about the serious allegations in the whistleblower s' complaints, as reported by the Government Accountability Project and NBC, and urges Congress to investigate these complaints thoroughly and immediately," said Leah Chavla, senior policy advisor at the Women's Refugee Commission. "Unfortunately, allegations of poor treatment, unhygienic and overcrowded living conditions, inadequate medical attention, prolonged stays of children, and inexperienced staff at these emergency facilities and particularly at the Ft. Bliss site are consistent with what WRC and partner organizations have independently heard and advocated against. WRC renews its call to HHS and the Biden administration to immediately close the emergency intake site at Ft. Bliss, to ensure that children are never held in these types of inappropriate conditions, and to focus efforts on much-needed reforms and improvements to the model of care for unaccompanied children."
"We must agree as a nation that the mass incarceration of children is immoral and should never be considered a viable option. The allegations in the Government Accountability Project's report highlight the egregious abuse and trauma inflicted upon the children held at Fort Bliss," said David Inoue, Executive Director for the Japanese American Citizens League. "The Biden administration must immediately make the humane treatment of immigrant children a priority."
"This terrible situation at Ft. Bliss should never have happened," said Denise Bell, researcher for Refugee and Migrant Rights at Amnesty International USA. "The administration has every opportunity to ensure it is not repeated by moving to close these emergency facilities as quickly as possible and immediately implementing long-overdue reforms so that such emergency facilities are never needed. This was preventable, and the U.S. must act urgently to uphold the best interests of children. That starts with ensuring children are safely with their families and approved sponsors must faster, and re-orienting the model of care altogether so that children are living with family and caretakers rather than in government custody at all."
The allegations in the whistleblowers' complaints are shocking, but not surprising, said Naomi Steinberg, Vice President, Policy & Advocacy at HIAS. "Now is the time for the Biden administration to make the necessary reforms to ensure that no child is ever forced to stay in dangerous conditions like those in Ft. Bliss again. Unaccompanied children should be reunited with their loved ones as quickly as possible, not warehoused in tents in the desert."
"This important report and related testimonies and media coverage sadly confirm the concerns we've long had about the unjust detention of migrant youths in unsafe, abusive settings like Ft. Bliss since the inception of the Biden administration, and previously at sites like Homestead and Tornillo. Enough/Ya Basta! The Ft. Bliss detention facility and other similar settings must be shut down immediately. Youth who have been subjected to abusive conditions like these are entitled to full compensation and reparations for these injustices. All officials responsible for these abuses must be held accountable as well." Camilo Perez-Bustillo, Witness at the Border
"While the Biden administration must thoroughly investigate these troubling complaints regarding the poor treatment of children at Fort Bliss, it must also urgently move the children to more adequate facilities where they can be treated with the dignity and respect they deserve," said Santiago Mueckay, Manager of Federal Government Relations at Save the Children Action Network. "Many of these children have already suffered unimaginable traumas back home and on their way to the U.S. So, to hear these reports detailing how contractors hired by the U.S. government are causing even further trauma is deeply distressing. That's why Save the Children Action Network, together with our 375,000 grassroots advocates nationwide, will continue to advocate against the use of large influx facilities, and urge the Biden administration to expedite the reunification of these children with their families."
"We are calling on President Biden and Secretary Becerra to put an end to this cruelty," said Paola Luisi, Director of Families Belong Together. "These heartbreaking reports from whistleblowers show that the ongoing abuse and neglect towards children did not end with Trump's removal from office. Our priority as a nation must be to ensure that children are in safe and healthy environments, as they seek protection and wait for their cases to be processed and reunited with their loved ones. At stake is how we as a nation treat children after years of Trump's cruelty."
"The evidence is overwhelming. Good people are risking everything to get the horrible truth of Fort Bliss out to the public. Close the child prison at Fort Bliss. It is no place for children."-Joshua Rubin, Founder, Witness at the Border
Join the movement and sign our pledge to #WelcomeWithDignity here.
The Welcome with Dignity Campaign is composed of more than 80 organizations committed to transforming the way the United States receives and protects people forced to flee their homes to ensure they are treated humanely and fairly. To learn more and join our campaign visit: welcomewithdignity.org
Amnesty International is a global movement of millions of people demanding human rights for all people - no matter who they are or where they are. We are the world's largest grassroots human rights organization.
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Florida Republicans Ripped for Advancing Show-Me-Your-Papers Voter ID Bill
"This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy," said the ACLU of Florida's executive director.
Feb 25, 2026
With 251 days until the US general election, Florida Republicans on Wednesday passed a show-me-your-papers bill that opponents warn could prevent thousands of eligible state voters from registering if they don't have a valid birth certificate or passport, or their documents don't reflect a name change.
"Midterm elections are coming later this year—and they're a crucial test of our democracy," ACLU of Florida executive director Bacardi Jackson said in a Wednesday statement. "Moments like this bring new voters into the process and give communities the power to hold leaders accountable—exactly what a healthy democracy demands. But right now, some lawmakers are pushing an anti-voter bill that could shut thousands of eligible people out of our elections and discourage the enrollment of new eligible voters."
The Florida House of Representatives on Wednesday voted 83-31 on HB 991, sponsored by Rep. Jenna Persons-Mulicka (R-78).
"The Florida House version of the bill would only go into effect in January 2027. But under a similar bill set for consideration in the Florida Senate, the new rules would take effect this July, before the November midterm elections," Democracy Docket detailed. "A House committee already gave preliminary approval to the bill earlier this month."
Jackson highlighted that "many eligible voters don't have ready access to an unexpired passport or an original or certified copy of their birth certificate because of logistical and financial barriers. More than 8 million Floridians do not have a valid passport, and because many women legally change their name upon marriage, more than 4.7 million women in Florida do not have a birth certificate reflecting their current legal name—documents this bill would require."
"At the same time, this proposal would eliminate current, valid forms of ID proving eligibility at the polls, including student IDs, retirement center IDs, and public assistance IDs," she warned. "Taken together, these changes are not neutral or harmless—they would fall hardest on low-income voters, students, seniors, women, and Black and brown Floridians."
The ACLU leader also argued that "context matters. This wave of anti-voter legislation is advancing amid ongoing abuses of power that pose unprecedented threats to American democracy." She specifically pointed to the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act that the GOP-controlled US House of Representatives passed earlier this month.
"We're seeing parallel efforts nationally to make it harder for eligible voters to cast their ballots—including the SAVE Act being debated in Congress right now—and Florida is leading the way down this authoritarian path," she said. The federal bill is less likely to get through the US Senate, whose filibuster rule requires the GOP to get some Democratic support to advance most legislation.
"What makes this even more galling is that lawmakers don't have to do any of this at all—they are choosing to," said Jackson. "They could enact reforms making it easier for eligible Floridians to vote and have their voices be heard, like the Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore Florida Voting Rights Act, HB 1419/SB 1598. Instead, they are fast-tracking legislation that would make voting harder for eligible Floridians and silence communities that deserve to be heard."
"We will not stand by while politicians in power seek to entrench their power at the expense of the people's rights," she vowed. "We will keep organizing and fighting to reclaim and defend our democracy—because every eligible Floridian deserves to vote."
Meanwhile, at the federal level, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) plans to hold a vote on the SAVE America Act this week. President Donald Trump used his State of the Union address on Tuesday night to increase pressure on Congress to send the bill to his desk.
"I'm asking you to approve the SAVE America Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections—that cheating is rampant in our elections," Trump said. "It's very simple: All voters must show voter ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. None."
Experts have long countered such GOP claims by emphasizing that, as the Brennan Center for Justice put it in a pair of blog posts, "noncitizen voting is already illegal" and "extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare."
Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel for the national voting rights group Fair Elections Center, told Democracy Docket on Wednesday that Florida's voter suppression bill "would do a lot of the same things," as the SAVE America Act, "in terms of preventing American citizens from voting who don't have access to documentary proof of citizenship documents."
"The last thing someone who is on a path to citizenship would want to do is to jeopardize their naturalization by voting illegally," Kanter Cohen said. "And so people don't do that. That's not something that's happening because it has such dire consequences."
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'Despicable': Vance, Oz Announce Freeze on Some Medicaid Funding for Minnesota
"The Constitution clearly gives Congress the power to spend taxpayer funds, and no law allows the president to halt if he feels some US states aren’t being 'good stewards' of the money," said one critic.
Feb 25, 2026
US Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday that the Trump administration will pause some Medicaid funding for Minnesota over fraud concerns—without offering any guarantees that the suspension will not adversely impact the more than 1 million Minnesotans who depend upon the key healthcare program.
"We're announcing today that we have decided to temporarily halt certain amounts of Medicaid funding that is going to the state of Minnesota in order to ensure that the state of Minnesota takes its obligations seriously to be good stewards of the American people's tax money," Vance said at a White House press conference with Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Mehmet Oz.
"Now what is this gonna mean?" Vance continued. "What this means is that, first of all, the providers on the ground in Minnesota have actually already been paid... What we're doing is we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes it obligations seriously to stop the fraud that's being perpetrated."
They already targeted SNAP in Minnesota. They’ve killed two Minnesotans and injured or kidnapped hundreds more. Now they’re stealing their Medicaid. They’re going to deny people healthcare because of a YouTube video about a Somali daycare scam that wasn’t even true.
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— Kelly (@broadwaybabyto.bsky.social) February 25, 2026 at 3:05 PM
Oz demanded that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz determine "who these providers are; make sure they're not already in trouble for doing bad stuff, and then reevaluate all the current providers to make sure they're supposed to be able to provide these services."
Responding to Oz's remarks, Gaia Leadership Project founder Elizabeth Cronise McLaughlin said on Bluesky, "So Minnesota is supposed to review every appointment by a Medicaid recipient with every doctor to get funds already lawfully allocated to the state?"
Asked by a reporter how he intends to ensure that the funding pause "doesn't impact the people who are enrolled in Medicaid," Vance said he is "worried about the justice of it all."
"I think it's offensive that American taxpayers pay into these programs and they're defrauded... and it's really sad that American children who need these services are unable to get them, because they're going to fraudsters," Vance replied.
"Look, we're certainly gonna make sure that our anti-fraud efforts go after the fraudsters and not after anybody who actually benefits from these services," he continued. "But I actually think the question is a little off, in a way, because the problem is not going after the fraud, the problem is that these programs are being defrauded to begin with."
"Our social safety net will disappear unless we take fraud more seriously," added the vice president, whose boss, President Donald Trump, last year signed into law the biggest cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in the nation's history as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Medicaid is the primary healthcare safety net for lower-income Americans, with nearly 70 million people enrolled nationwide at the end of last year.
While federal prosecutors are investigating Minnesota’s Medicaid system—specifically, 14 high-risk service programs such as housing support and personal-care services—on suspicion of billions of dollars in fraudulent billings since 2018, and dozens of people have been convicted of stealing public money through the state’s social services system, critics noted that Congress, not the president, has the power of the purse.
Some observers noted that Trump has already targeted Minnesota—which voted against him all three times he ran for president—with his deadly crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their defenders and racist attacks on Somali immigrants, including Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).
The Medicaid freeze follows the Trump administration's $10 billion cut in federal childcare funding to five Democrat-led states, including Minnesota, last month—a move that opponents argue punishes working families who committed no fraud.
University of Illinois professor Nicholas Grossman called the Medicaid pause "taxation without representation."
"The Constitution clearly gives Congress the power to spend taxpayer funds, and no law allows the president to halt if he feels some US states aren’t being 'good stewards' of the money," he said on Bluesky. "In case there’s any confusion on this, the Impoundment Control Act forbids it."
"The people of Minnesota vote for representatives to Congress," Grossman added. "Minnesota representatives and senators were in DC, representing their constituents, when Congress passed laws using proper procedure that allocated Medicaid funding. The president breaking those laws violates the fundamental compact of the republic."
Oz on Wednesday also announced "a six-month national moratorium blocking all new enrollments for durable medical equipment—prosthesis, orthotics—supplies across the board" in the name of fighting fraud. The move targets suppliers, not individual Medicaid beneficiaries.
This from Oz, a promoter of privatized Medicare Advantage programs, which are notorious for overcharging taxpayers and denying patients necessary care. The CMS under Oz increased federal funding for Medicare Advantage plans by more than $25 billion for 2026.
As Common Dreams recently reported, United Health Group (UHG), one of the country's largest for-profit health insurance companies, has been the leading beneficiary of a long-running Medicare Advantage fraud scheme that the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission—an independent, nonpartisan legislative branch agency—warned could cost US taxpayers $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
Some critics said that if Trump really cared about fraud, he'd go after companies like UHG—and stop pardoning so many convicted criminals who committed billions of dollars worth of fraud.
"These guys are despicable," Michigan State University professor Brendan Cantwell said Wednesday in response to Vance and Oz's announcement.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement Wednesday that “Medicaid fraud is a serious problem that requires cracking down on fraudsters—not patients."
Weissman continued:
This administration’s anti-fraud rhetoric is itself a fraud. In fact, the administration has gutted anti-fraud government agencies and programs and let fraudsters off the hook. It has issued record-breaking pardons to fraudsters; sought to eliminate the most important anti-consumer fraud agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; eviscerated the corps of inspectors general whose job is to root out waste, fraud, and abuses; and dropped dozens of fraud and fraud-related investigations against large corporations.
“The Trump administration suspension of Medicaid funding in Minnesota is a bad-faith, punitive, and shameful measure that will punish people in Minnesota as part of the same deceptive story that the Trump administration has told to justify the outrageous [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] invasion of the state," Weissman added.
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Former Brazilian Political Officials Found Guilty of Plotting Murder of Marielle Franco
"What the killers did not expect is that her legacy would become greater than all of this," said Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Carmen Lúcia.
Feb 25, 2026
A five-judge panel on Brazil's Supreme Court on Wednesday voted unanimously to convict former Congressman Chiquinho Brazão and his brother, politician Domingos Brazão, of ordering the 2018 murder of Rio de Janeiro City Councilwoman Marielle Franco and her driver, Anderson Gomes.
As reported by Reuters, the court sentenced the Brazão brothers to each serve 76 years in prison for plotting to assassinate the 38-year-old Franco because they feared she and her allies in the Socialism and Liberty Party would be an impediment to their illegal scheme that involved taking public lands to develop private real estate projects.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who oversaw the trial of the brothers, said that the two men did not think they would be held accountable for killing Franco because she was a Black woman who represented a poor neighborhood in Rio.
"Inside the misogynistic, prejudiced minds of those who ordered and carried out the crime, who would care about that?" Moraes said. “They did not expect such wide repercussions."
Justice Carmen Lúcia also said that the Brazão brothers seemed to believe that they would be allowed to get away with murder.
"What the killers did not expect," said Lúcia, "is that her legacy would become greater than all of this."
The court also sentenced former Rio de Janeiro Police Chief Rivaldo Barbosa to an 18-year prison sentence for obstructing the investigation into Franco's murder.
Franco's widow, current Rio City Councilwoman Mônica Benício, told Payday Report that the court's conviction of the plotters was a landmark decision for Brazilian democracy.
"For the country, this is an opportunity to demonstrate its capacity to break with the selective penal system that protects criminal structures and their political ties," Benício said. "We must learn a lesson from what the assassination of Marielle and Anderson reveals about Brazil: the obscure connections between crime, politics, and the police."
Anielle Franco, a sister of Marielle Franco who currently serves as Brazil's Minister of Racial Equality, hailed the verdict as "justice" in a social media post, vowing that "our fight continues for all victims of violence."
Agnes Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International, said that justice for Franco and Gomes was "a long time coming," and added that "their killings are emblematic of the broader and highly alarming trend of lethal violence and structural racism against human rights defenders in Brazil."
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