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Guatemalan children who crossed the border tell their stories

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Luis Miguel Diaz Calel in the blue shirt on the right and Anabelia Maribel Diaz Hernandez on the left talk to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rosario Caicedo (Christine Stuart photo)
Luis Miguel Diaz Calel in the blue shirt on the right and Anabelia Maribel Diaz Hernandez on the left talk to U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rosario Caicedo (Christine Stuart photo)

HARTFORD, Conn. –When Luis Miguel Diaz Calel and Anabelia Maribel Diaz Hernandez were picked up on April 14 by immigration police at the United States border they were taken to a detention center they called the “icebox.”

Calel and Hernandez, who are both 16,  told their story Thursday to U.S. Sens. Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal after a press conference about the surge of illegal immigration of unaccompanied Central American children across the border.

Once they got across the border, they were picked up by police and taken to the “icebox,” which Rosario Caicedo, of Unidad Latina en Accion, described as a workhouse. Calel and Hernandez said they slept on the ground and many of the children got sick from the extreme air conditioning.

“They were not treated in the nicest way and then everything they were carrying was taken away from them,” Caicedo said explaining they didn’t report being beaten.

See the complete story at CT News Junkie.

Comments

12 responses to “Guatemalan children who crossed the border tell their stories”

  1. EveT

    The article never explains in what sense the detention center is a “workhouse.” Of course they are “not treated in the nicest way.” They are breaking the law by entering the US. Their lives in their home countries may be very bad, but that does not automatically mean the US needs to take them in. We can’t solve every country’s internal problems.

  2. Suzanne

    I am always amazed at the lack of compassion, this time for children who are living in starved and violent conditions, by people whose relatives are not native to this land.
    *
    How would everyone like the internal problems of a country solved? Magic? In the meantime, these kids are caught in the crossfire and doing what they only know how to do under the circumstances: escape.
    *
    Did no one see the picture on the the cover of the New York Times showing these childrens’ detention center? It is a series of cubes made out of chain link fence on a concrete floor in a giant warehouse. It looks like a dog kennel.
    *
    I would like to know how these kids are taking advantage of our system simply by trying to save their own lives.
    *
    While the United States cannot solve all of the world’s problems, perhaps we could remove the billions going to Afghanistan, or the Ukraine or Iraq, all for the protection of precious oil reserves and other resources gobbled up by this overstuffed, over indulged country.
    *
    Take a breath and check out the values in this very state: no adequate oversight for DCF resulting in 19 recent deaths of children. No or lax oversight of people with disabilities resulting in primitive, injurious conditions.
    *
    We can be self-righteous all we want: if we are not paying attention to the “least of these” in any kind of benevolent way, we can be a country of LAWS all we want. The problems will still exist and punitive action diminishes us all.

  3. potaxpayer

    if the two dummys in the story worried about the gangs,illegal drugs and terrorists crossing our border destroying our own young people and our country as much as these kids, it would be a change for the people they were elected to serve the American People

  4. potaxpayer

    these are not kids in this picture. most of the people they call kids are 16-18 yr old men and woman looking for the free ride or they are already gangbangers posing as kids.

  5. Suzanne

    potaxpayer: highly misinformed statement. Most of these kids are in the single digits or low double. The New York Times reported as much. Stereotyping reflects more on you than the reality of this highly regrettable situation.

  6. potaxpayer

    you believe the n.y times? you suzanne are the one thats misinformed. i don’t want my taxes to pay for illegals problems when we have kids in poverty and being killed in every big city in america, hartford has the poorest zipcode in the country lets start there.

  7. Suzanne

    Good idea! And your reaction to The New York Times, potaxpayer, is nothing but predictable for a xenophobe. How have you helped reduce crime and poverty in Hartford’s zip code or in any other town in America? Until you do something instead of just writing stereotypical comments, your comments mean nothing at all.

  8. potaxpayer

    suzzanne i do what everyother hard working tax payer does, i don’t have time to help personally because i have to work so much to survive in connecticut. but i pay my taxes and i vote so don’t tell me my comments mean nothing. you sound like a typical liberal who thinks they know everything. and the n.y. times is the worst news paper in the country for the truth.the illegals are coming here going on welfare and having record number of babies, and bringing there criminal ways with them. i don’t read that in the n.y. times or any other news i see it myself everyday.

  9. Suzanne

    Poor potaxpayer: None of what you say is supported by the facts. Show where it says that “illegals” scam the welfare system. And by that, I mean REAL facts from us.gov (unless you find that akin to the NYT, one of the most respected papers in the nation.) You won’t find any.
    *
    I guess you would rather your hard earned tax dollars go to Iraq or Afghanistan or the Ukraine to continue our efforts to secure strategic sites in case we need any of their materials, like oil, in the future.
    *
    Yay! Let’s send ALL of our young people to places like Iraq so they can get killed for your value system.
    *
    Remember, “illegals” are PEOPLE first, just like you and me. Your lack of compassion is glaring.
    *
    That you have to work hard to be in CT? Join the club. If you think that makes you special, forget it. We are all working hard for our living.
    *
    If that makes me a liberal well then, Yay!, again. I’d rather be compassionate than hate-filled.
    *
    I don’t consider myself one, however. Pragmatism goes a long way toward being a good citizen.
    *
    Your viewpoint is your own but I find it very, very sad. Say what you want or what you will, you spout nonsense.

  10. potaxpayer

    its nonsense to people like you because you are a liberal and think different than me. i respect how you feel. illegals are people like you and me your right, but i don’t want to help them. they should go home and fight to make it better in there own countrys. i should not be held responsible for what ever is going on in central america or mexico period. we need to get metonorth fixed and people back to work in connecticut. vote republican is all i can say.

  11. potaxpayer

    on our tax return we need a box to check if you want to support illegal alian law breakers, and if you check yes you can put your money where your mouth is. then the government can double your taxes to pay for your compassion.

  12. Suzanne

    http://mediamatters.org/research/2013/02/01/10-myths-conservative-media-will-use-against-im/192494

    *

    Facts, not nonsense.

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