DENVER — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is launching a brand new monitoring program for teenage migrants in Denver and different cities throughout the nation. Immigrant rights advocates instructed Denver7 they’re apprehensive about this system’s strategy and the corporate employed to run it.
The Younger Grownup Case Administration Program (YACMP) is meant to maintain 18 and 19-year-olds “who pose a low flight danger” out of detention whereas they navigate their courtroom hearings by connecting them with group companies, based on an ICE description of this system.
YACMP is certainly one of ICE’s new monitoring applications thought of an “different to detention.” However not like different surveillance applications lately launched in Denver, YACMP is particularly for younger adults.
“What’s actually onerous about this program is that it is placing its finger on an precise drawback, which is that youth are uniquely susceptible and in want of companies. But it surely actually is offering the mistaken answer,” stated Azadeh Erfani, a senior coverage analyst with the Nationwide Immigrant Justice Heart, which partnered with the Girls’s Refugee Fee and Younger Heart for Immigrant Kids’s Rights to look at this system.
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When ICE was contemplating creating YACMP in 2021, practically 100 immigration advocacy teams warned towards having an enforcement company like ICE answerable for offering group companies to youth.
“They did not hearken to us and so they moved ahead,” Erfani stated.
Denver is amongst greater than a dozen cities the place ICE will attempt YACMP. To run this system, ICE employed the corporate Acuity Worldwide, beforehand generally known as Caliburn Worldwide.
“Caliburn Worldwide has been mired in loads of scandals with respect to the [alleged] sexual abuse of youngsters, in addition to warehousing youngsters and prison-like circumstances in Florida” underneath the Trump administration in 2019, Erfani stated.
The corporate, which switched its title from Caliburn to Acuity in 2021, at present has a number of different federal contracts, together with with the Departments of Protection and Agriculture.
John Kelly, who served as Secretary of the Division of Homeland Safety underneath the Trump administration, was on Caliburn’s board of administrators in 2019 when the corporate ran the detention middle in Florida for unaccompanied youngster migrants. For the reason that firm grew to become Acuity, Kelly seems to have joined the board once more.
To this point, ICE has paid Acuity greater than $23 million to run YACMP, with $2 million of that compensating the corporate’s executives, based on the federal government’s USA Spending web site.
Denver7 has reached out to ICE and Acuity about YACMP since June. The corporate referred our request to ICE, however ICE public affairs declined to reply our questions and as an alternative directed us to publicly accessible data. This week, an ICE public affairs officer instructed Denver7 “we now have nothing additional so as to add on this program at the moment.”
ICE wouldn’t affirm if YACMP is at present energetic in Denver, however Denver was included on ICE’s listing of cities the place YACMP can be launched, and an area authorized service supplier instructed Denver7 they’re conscious of younger individuals being enrolled on the Entrance Vary.
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Acuity has been hiring case managers in additional than a dozen cities, together with two jobs listed in Denver, based on the corporate’s web site.
Whereas YACMP has case administration in its title, Erfani stated it doesn’t perform that means.
“YACMP could be very a lot a referral machine, for essentially the most half. So, it is simply sending youth to totally different organizations which might be speculated to then meet their wants,” she stated.
These service suppliers will not be paid as a part of this system.
“Not one of the funding is definitely going to these organizations who’re offering the actual companies,” Erfani stated.
Not like most case administration applications, members don’t opt-in voluntarily. ICE describes YACMP as primarily centered on monitoring teen migrants to advertise compliance.
“Youth are literally required to conform, and it is extremely troublesome for them to disenroll,” Erfani stated.
As soon as youths are enrolled, Erfani stated advocates fear there might be an escalation from this monitoring program to surveillance with a monitoring machine or detention, significantly after the younger individuals attain 20 years previous and age out of YACMP.
“The chance of detention is at all times going to forged a shadow,” she stated.
A number of immigrant rights advocacy teams, together with the Younger Heart for Immigrant Kids’s Rights, instructed Denver7 they consider it will be more practical and more cost effective to put money into “community-based social employees and shelter suppliers who’re greatest geared up to supply these companies safely and confidentially.”
“Defending youth requires us to put money into the companies that really maintain them protected, not applications like YACMP that unnecessarily topic them to heightened monitoring and surveillance and fail to guard their privateness,” the Younger Heart stated.
A number of conservative teams have additionally taken concern with ICE’s different to detention applications, together with YACMP. FAIR and the Heritage Basis have stated ICE applications ought to monitor migrants and implement compliance however not present entry to companies.
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