Protesters demonstrate outside the U.S. Customs and Border Protection building in opposition to President Trump’s second travel ban. (Photo by Ted Eytan)
While Washington D.C. is thousands of miles away from the border, the region is playing a key role in carrying out President Trump’s controversial immigration plans.
Dozens of migrant children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border are currently being held in facilities across the D.C. region, according to the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights Coalition.
Nithya Nathan-Pineau, the director of CAIR Coalition’s Detained Children’s program, says her group has personally interviewed “dozens” of detained children who are being held at public and private facilities in Maryland and Virginia.
“The majority of them have no contact with their parents,” Nathan-Pineau says.
Though Trump reversed course and signed an executive order ending the policy that separates children from their parents at the border, the fate of these children remains unclear.
“There’s no plan to get these kids back together with their parents,” Nathan-Pineau says.
‘Progressive county’ rents space to detain children
Virginia is also home to two of the three detention facilities housing immigrant minors in higher-level security settings.
Under a federal contract with the Office of Refugee Resettlement the Northern Virginia Juvenile Justice Center, which serves the cities of Alexandria and Falls Church and Arlington County, leases up to 30 beds at a time for these “unaccompanied minor children” who are alleged by the government to be in gangs or have criminal records.
“A very progressive county is essentially renting out space to detain kids,” says Becky Wolozin, an attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center. “These kids can either be from the border or from inside of the United States, and they can be placed in a secure facility for any number of reasons.”
Wolozin, however, says the facility is no place for migrant children who may be traumatized.
“It’s a jail,” Wolozin says, “Cinder block walls. Metal toilets. And no privacy.”
City leaders in Alexandria announced earlier this week that they plan to end the contract with the federal government over concerns about the Trump administration’s new immigration policies.
Local firms under fire for immigration contracts
The federal government has paid more than $40 million to MVM Inc., a contractor based in Northern Virginia, since 2014 for helping U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement transport “unaccompanied minors” to detention facilities around McAllen, Texas, according to federal spending records. MVM won another $5 million contract in September 2017 to provide emergency shelter services for “unaccompanied children.” (These contract awards were first reported by the Daily Beast.)
Last week, Sleeping Giants and Grab Your Wallet, a pair of online groups that urge economic boycotts of private companies that support Trump, published the names and email addresses for executives at MVM, as well as General Dynamics, a Rockville, Maryland-based defense contractor that also scored lucrative contracts to support the immigration system.
MVM’s newfound fame — or infamy — is surprising to some who know the firm’s founder, Dario Marquez. Marquez started the firm in the early 1970s after a career as a U.S. secret service agent. By 2010, the company was the 26th largest Hispanic-owned business in the country, according to Hispanic Business Magazine.
“Dario, he’s one of the most outstanding individuals in the Hispanic community,” says Michel Zajur, CEO of the Virginia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “He’s always giving back.”
Dario Marquez says he sold his interest in MVM—reportedly to his son Kevin Marquez—in 2015, and can’t speak for the company. The firm’s website still prominently lists Dario as MVM’s chair and founder.
MVM’s Director of Homeland Security, Joe Arabit, says there’s been a “misperception” of MVM’s role at the detention facilities. The Virginia contractor helps with transporting minors, but doesn’t operate the shelters.
“MVM has tremendous empathy for the families and children arriving at the U.S. border,” Arabit says.
‘They came here for asylum’
The Washington region also houses detention facilities for immigrant adults.
At least two men recently arrived from Honduras are currently in detention at a facility in Glen Burnie, Maryland.
“They came here for asylum,” Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland) told reporters on Tuesday after touring the low-security detention facility in Anne Arundel County. “One had a 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy.”
The Ordnance Road Correctional Center, which is owned by Anne Arundel County, has an agreement with the federal government to lease up to 130 beds at time for immigrant detainees. The county is paid a minimum of $1.7 million a year under the deal, according to the Capital Gazette.
Another congressman on the tour, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Virginia), said two of the men they spoke with spent most of the hour in tears.
“They talked about how worried they were for their children who had been ripped away from them,” Beyer said. “You could tell the intense grief that both had that they were not with their children.”
This story was originally published on WAMU.
