Today on Sojourner Truth:
State violence against children. On September 6, the Trump administration announced plans to issue new regulations that would terminate and replace the Flores Agreement. The Flores Agreement has been in place since 1997 and places limits on how long the government can detain child migrants. Right now, the Flores Agreement limits the detention of child migrants to 20 days. The Trump administration now wants indefinite detention of children in family detention centers. At the time of the government announcement, according to The Hill, there were still 416 children detained. Meanwhile, the administration has announced that a "temporary" child detention center that was set up earlier this year in the West Texas desert will expand from 1,200 beds to 3,800 beds. This amid news that the administration took close to $10 million from FEMA and redirected it to detaining immigrants, including child migrants. In the midst of news that close to 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico as a result of Hurricane Maria. Our guest is Peter Schey of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law.
Also, 62 immigrants held in the Tacoma Washington detention center are on hunger strike against conditions in that center as well as demanding the release of children taken by the U.S. government at the U.S./Mexico border. The hunger strikers are being threatened with being force fed and are experiencing other retaliations. Our guest is activist Maru Mora Villalpando.
For our ongoing Campaigners for Black Lives series, we speak with Cecily Myart-Cruz, a teacher and vice president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles/NEA. We discuss the possibility of a teachers' strike in Los Angeles as well as an update on Black Lives Matter in schools.
And we kick off our Sojourner Truth Congressional Election Watch.
