(San Francisco) – Indefinite detention of asylum-seeking mothers and their children in the United States
takes a severe psychological toll, Human Rights Watch said today.
Mothers from 25 detained families, including 10 who had been locked up
for 8 to 10 months, described to Human Rights Watch their family’s
trauma, depression, and suicidal thoughts.
The Obama administration has until May 24, 2015, to propose a plan in response to a federal judge’s preliminary ruling
that family detention violates a binding settlement on the rights of
migrant children. US authorities should immediately release migrant
families detained after entering the United States to seek asylum, Human
Rights Watch said.
“The Obama administration has now kept traumatized children and their mothers locked up for nearly a year,” said Clara Long,
US researcher at Human Rights Watch. “They have no idea when they will
be released, and they are terrified to be deported back to places where
they could be killed, raped, or otherwise harmed.”
Women and their children wait in line to register at the Honduran Center
for Returned Migrants after being deported from Mexico, in San Pedro
Sula, northern Honduras on June 20, 2014.
