This post is also published in Miami Herald and Florida Phoenix.

On Aug. 6, I and other representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) toured the Temporary Emergency Influx Shelter in Homestead, where undocumented migrant children had been detained.

We expected to see how the children were treated, in hopes of bringing some accountability to a place that has avoided public oversight.

But, according to staff members at the shelter, three nights before our arrival, between 1 and 7 a.m., the last of the children detained there – approximately 175 of them – were removed from the facility and sent elsewhere. They didn’t say where and gave no indication what would happen next to the kids.

The trauma and stress our government continues to subject these children to is outrageous. Some children were separated from families at the border; others endured traumatic journeys to the U.S. only to be swept into detention with no explanation of what is happening to them.

And then, the government abruptly transferred them to other locations in the middle of the night. Did senior Trump administration officials consider, or even care, how moving children this way would affect them?

The pre-dawn transfer of children out of Homestead is only the most recent indefensible incident at the facility.

Homestead has drawn national attention for being a privately operated prison for migrant children, for its enormous size, its lack of oversight, and for the inadequate conditions found there. At one point, it held some 2,700 kids.

Experts in child welfare agree that no child should be housed in a facility of that size – a place that is more like a prison than a home. They should especially not be housed there for months and months, as many children were.

A for-profit prison for migrant children in Miami-Dade County — particularly one that treats children so poorly and keeps them detained for far longer than needed — is a human rights catastrophe and a moral abomination.

Although Homestead is temporarily vacant, will the government send more migrant kids to replace those removed? It appears so.

Acting Director Jonathan Hayes, of the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), recently said some 3,000 beds will remain ready in large influx centers, such as Homestead. The cost — to continue to operate a private prison-like detention center for children while it is currently empty— will be approximately $720,000 per day.

“Emergency influx shelters,” like Homestead, have operated with little accountability to the public, to Congress or to the law. Instead of operating according to state licensing standards, the facilities are administered according to contract terms not disclosed to the public.

In some instances, those standards are clearly inadequate.

On our tour we were told by a representative of the private company that operates the facility that of 130 teachers at Homestead, only 8 to 10 were certified. When asked why the company does not require teacher certification, she replied that they comply with ORR contract terms regarding the qualifications for teachers. But just what are those terms, and why are they so low? The public has not been told.

Is the Homestead facility complying with the ORR policy on the reporting of sexual abuse? We don’t know because ORR has failed to provide basic information to us or Congress on that policy. In fact, we don’t know the contract standards for any of the basic care and treatment of children the shelter is responsible for.

Homestead has cost taxpayers $33 million or $720,000 per day, in the weeks since it has stopped sheltering children. It is now on what is called “warm status,” which means it is prepared to receive children at any time — and likely will house children again starting this fall.

We must fight vigorously against the re-opening and new construction of mass detention centers for children, which will psychologically harm them. Floridians should make it clear that they oppose them. Local elected officials, especially in Miami-Dade County, must champion that fight.

Under public pressure, federal officials have recently changed policies to expedite the release of children to appropriate sponsors and significantly decrease the average length of time children spend in ORR custody. We must keep up that pressure.

In addition, we must pressure the federal government to abandon mass detention sites and instead work with nonprofit providers to establish small, state-licensed, permanent shelters and care programs, with established models of family-like and trauma-informed foster care, driven by the best interests of the child. These shelters are more accountable, transparent, and appropriate for the care of children.

And while we advocate for these reforms, we must continue to make it loud and clear that policies that allow for separating children from their families or detaining children for long periods of time are unacceptable and that we will not stand for it.

Cruelty is not an immigration policy.

The continued existence of the Homestead detention facility and others like it brings shame to our state and our nation.

Our government must do better. Our humanity demands it.

A version of this post is published in Tampa Bay Times.

Floridians believe in second chances and support criminal justice reform.

For evidence, look at the last election where over 60 percent of voters supported restoring voting rights to returning citizens after they complete their sentence, excluding those convicted of murder and felony sexual offense.

More than 60 percent of Floridians also supported changing the state constitution to allow criminal justice sentencing reforms to be applied to people currently incarcerated, not just those sentenced in the future.

Polls conducted by conservative and progressive pollsters have shown a clear majority of voters support common-sense reforms like providing non-violent drug offenders with substance abuse treatment, instead of multi-year or multi-decade prison sentences, and increasing mental health services, educational programming, and vocational training to ensure that individuals are able to successfully reintegrate in their communities and become productive citizens once released from prison.

In addition to the statistical evidence, I see in my daily life that Floridians of all ages, races, religions, genders, and geographies support second chances and the basic principles that seem to have been lost on our legislators. For example, possession of one ounce of marijuana should not result in up to five years in prison, and Black people should not get longer sentences than white people who commit the same offense in the same city with similar criminal records.

As I meet with directly impacted people, law enforcement officials, faith and business leaders across the state, most agree that incarcerated Floridians should be able to reduce their sentences through good behavior, completion of education or job training courses, or by performing an outstanding deed, such as saving a life of a fellow inmate or guard. Everyone seems to agree that we need to expand these rehabilitative opportunities and reward participation so that individuals will be better able to be productive citizens once released.  However, Florida Statutes currently arbitrarily place a 15-percent limit on the amount of time one can earn off their sentence for good behavior and engaging in such programming.  

The Florida Legislature passed a criminal justice reform package earlier this year that in small ways amended some of the most outdated criminal statutes (e.g., it made it a misdemeanor to steal something over $300, whereas previously it had been a felony; and, made it less burdensome for individuals to obtain some occupational licenses upon release from prison). Some legislators and reporters have called this the “Florida First Step Act,” after the federal First Step Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump in December. 

But if the goal is to tackle Florida's mass incarceration crisis, equating Florida’s bill with the national measure is a major overstatement. The federal First Step Act freed more than 3,000 from prison and halfway houses across the country. This will result in a one-percent drop in the federal prison population. In addition, the federal First Step Act invests millions of dollars into reentry support, reduces racial disparities among those incarcerated, allows incarcerated people to take more time off their sentence through positive behavior, and expands the types of serious and debilitating illnesses that could allow  people to complete their sentences in their communities.

I think it's wrong to call Florida's modest reform by the name of the First Step Act when it invests zero dollars in reentry, gets zero people out of prison, and has no impact on racial disparities that have resulted in a much higher percentage of Black Floridians being incarcerated than white Floridians. It is smart policy to champion reforms that reduce recidivism  racial disparities.

Here are three common-sense reforms all Floridians should get behind:

1. If incarcerated people earn time off their sentences for good behavior and engaging in rehabilitative programming, let them use it. Don't arbitrarily cap the time a person can use toward their sentence at 15 percent. We should be encouraging, incentivizing, and rewarding good behavior and participation in self-betterment programs, not limiting it.  
2. Decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Last year, over 40,000 Floridians - disproportionately young people and people of color - were arrested for possessing less than one ounce of marijuana.
3. Ensure that individuals that are arrested are not locked up in jail pre-trial simply because they can’t afford bail. It is unjust and inhumane to keep people who are not a flight risk and do not pose a risk of physical harm to others separated from their families, their jobs, and their communities simply because they don’t have enough money to post bail.

In addition, Florida often sentences people to life in prison, even though their offenses did not cause loss of life or even injury to victims. Sentencing individuals to decades of prison when no one was physically harmed, with no chance of release through rehabilitation, will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per inmate and is simply wrong. That needs to change.

These reforms — and other common-sense fixes — have been successfully implemented in other states. By following their example, members of the Florida Legislature and the governor could help end the state’s mass incarceration crisis.

In June 1939, a passenger ship named the St. Louis approached the coast of Florida, planning to dock in Miami. The boat was packed with nearly a thousand refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe. Most were Jewish, and they thought they’d find a safe haven in the United States.

They were wrong. President Franklin Roosevelt denied their pleas for help, and the U.S. Coast Guard prevented the St. Louis from reaching our shores. By the end of World War 2, nearly a third of the people on board had been killed by the Nazis.

As Europe emerged from the inferno of war and the Holocaust, nations across the world resolved that people fleeing violence and persecution, like those on the St. Louis, would no longer be met with indifference by other nations. In 1951, the Refugee Convention was signed, and by 1980 Congress enshrined the principle of asylum for refugees in domestic immigration law. Under both Republican and Democratic administrations, America has been a leader in providing humanitarian protections to people fleeing persecution, torture, and genocide.

For decades, these protections have been the law of the land in the U.S. We have sheltered people from across the globe, enriching our communities and proudly standing as a beacon of hope in the process.

Today, the U.S. government under President Donald Trump is doing everything it can to destroy those protections. And although the ACLU and our partners have managed to block some of their efforts, the administration is currently being allowed to implement key aspects of its ruthless agenda on the ground.

In the past few months, nearly 50,000 vulnerable asylum-seekers have been placed into a cruel program that forcibly returns them to Mexico before their applications are even processed by U.S. immigration authorities. The program was designed for one purpose: to make it so difficult and dangerous to apply for asylum that people will simply give up and return to the persecution they fled. Cartels and criminals in the border cities where asylum-seekers are stuck have learned they are easy prey for extortion, kidnapping, and sexual assault.

And that’s not all. Another new policy bans virtually all asylum-seekers from receiving asylum if they arrived at the border after transiting through a ‘third-country.' This regulation is especially vicious, given the dangerous overland journeys many asylum-seekers make, and the inability of most to arrive directly in the U.S. from their home country without passing through another one first.

The stories emerging from the border right now due to these policies are horrifying. Border Patrol agents giving pregnant women medication to stop their contractions so they can be dumped in Mexico without shelter. Children kidnapped after being placed into the program, with their assailants threatening to kill them and sell their organs. Vulnerable young women raped and assaulted in cities where they don’t know anyone and can’t rely on the authorities for protection. Entire families stuck in squalid tent camps just a stone’s throw from safety in the U.S.

What we know of the dangers these people are facing on our doorstep is just the tip of the iceberg. Because advocates, journalists, and lawyers have limited access to them, most of their suffering is unheard and unseen by people in the U.S. After harrowing journeys fleeing gang violence, political persecution, domestic abuse, and ethnic targeting, they’ve found only indifference at our hands.

The Trump Administration can’t be allowed to unilaterally strip people of humanitarian protections created by Congress.  A majority of the judges who have considered our challenge to the forced return to Mexico program have found it has serious legal flaws, but the government has been permitted to implement it during the initial stage of litigation anyway. It has thus become part of a virtual border wall being built by Trump as he builds his physical one. And no degree of cruelty goes too far for its architects.

They want you to believe that the asylum system was broken before they took office, and that these policies were created to stop people from “gaming the system.” In fact, the opposite is true: the administration's policies are causing chaos and making the system unworkable for people who need – and are legally entitled to – our protection. In 2017, for example, it ended a program that had assisted asylum-seekers in attending 99% of check-ins and court dates while claiming that it needs to radically expand the immigration detention system because asylum-seekers don't show up for hearings. Government asylum officers themselves call Trump’s new asylum policies a “supervillain plan” and immigration judges have described the newly created “tent courts” as something that might exist in “China or Russia.”

The president and his appointees are the ones breaking the asylum system, and they are hoping that you won’t notice or be outraged. They want the people pleading for help at our border to stay out of sight and out of mind, and for you to assume they’re someone else’s problem. We can’t let that happen.

We’re in court tomorrow challenging two of Trump’s most ruthless anti-asylum policies. The stakes could not be higher. If these policies are allowed to stand, tens of thousands of people will remain in danger, with few options other than to return back to the persecution they're trying to escape. Make no mistake, that’s exactly what this administration wants.

There is no way to sugar-coat the reality of what’s happening at the border. Our government is waging a war on asylum-seekers, and it's counting on the American public to stay silent and not pay attention. We’re doing what we can in the courts and in Congress, but we need you to get informed, get angry, and generate public pressure on our elected officials – as well as all the presidential candidates – to demand an immediate reversal of these policies.

We need your help, and so do the vulnerable families in danger at our doorstep within arms reach of the safety they deserve. It’s time for us to look at ourselves in the mirror and decide who we want to be. Are we going to protect those families and welcome them onto our shores, or will we be like those who turned the St. Louis away and condemned hundreds of its passengers to death?

Omar Jadwat, Director, ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project