I'm seeing a lot of "nothing has changed, kids in cages" outrage about this. I'm not saying it's awesome in every way, or that we shouldn't be paying attention, but this is VERY different from the Trump administration facilities and policies, and that should be made clear. https://twitter.com/priscialva/status/1356724733023313920

First off, this particular facility was opened specifically in response to the kids-in-cages camps, and was reported as being much more humane. This is the Biden administration re-opening the NOT sordid camp that closed under Trump because it was more expensive to operate.

The Carrizo Springs facility was converted from pre-existing housing for oil and gas workers. It's air conditioned, and it has rooms, not cells. This is kids in cheap dormitory housing, not kids in cages.

Second of all, it's being reopened to house ONLY unaccompanied children, not children in the care of an adult, and ONLY teenagers. This isn't toddlers being forcibly separated from their guardians.

Thirdly, this is not the "make crossing the border extremely terrible so people won't do it" policy that the Trump administration was pursuing. These kids are being treated as refugees, and the goal is to place them with a sponsor in the US, ideally a relative.

(side note: the "Trump-era policy [that] makes them subject to expulsion" referenced in the screenshot above was blocked as unconstitutional last year. It was just reinstated on Friday by an appeals court of three Trump appointees. It will hopefully be rescinded soon)

Again, I'm not saying that there is nothing to be concerned about. This is still a detention center. There's still concern about how long kids are held for processing. This isn't inhumane cages, but I don't know what quality of care is actually being provided.

When the facility was operating under Trump's administration, it was operated by the Baptist Children and Families Services non-profit. I'm not clear on how much proselytizing they do. Obviously, I'm not totally comfortable with that.

On the other hand, we have to do *something* with unaccompanied minors crossing the border. "Good luck, kid" isn't an acceptable solution either.

From what I've seen so far, including reopening this facility, it looks like Biden's administration is *trying* to handle unaccompanied minors crossing the border humanely and welcomingly. I'm sure they will fall short, and we should hold them accountable where they do.

But yelling "kids in cages" and saying this is the exact same thing as under Trump isn't helping, and is actually hurting for two reasons:

1) It ISN'T kids in cages, and it ISN'T the exact same thing, so why should the Biden administration care? The problem being focused on doesn't exist, so they don't have to solve it. Meanwhile, any *actual* problems are under the radar.

2) If you call this "kids in cages", it makes it easy for historical revisionists to claim that the accusation that kids were put in cages has *always* been hyperbole, and mask the *actual* human rights violations of the past four years.

In short:
I get it that a compromise, moderate president sucks for progressives. But it does no good, and can actually cause harm to assume that a Biden administration is *exactly the same* as a Trump administration and there's no difference between Democrats and Republicans.

There ARE differences. Important differences. There aren't ENOUGH differences, the differences aren't big ENOUGH to actually protect people who need protecting and create justice, but claiming that they don't exist at all only hinders efforts to keep making progress.