Women victims of sexual abuse at US detention centers: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with William Spring, London-based human rights activist, to ask for his take on a report revealing that undocumented immigrants held at the US Berks County Residential Center, Pennsylvania, are subject to physical and sexual violence.

What follows is a rough transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Indeed these immigrants are facing a traumatic situation. What can be done to help them?

Spring: There is a limit to what the federal government can do. The problem is there is such a massive change of populations going on both in the North America and in Europe and these are types of, how can I say, overwhelming numbers certain in  Europe for the authorities. Refugees’ status was not ever posited against such massive populations’ flows. Now at least the people in the United States have the advantage of being on American soil, they are not in Guantanamo Bay where the Constitution is abrogated; there are very cynical attempts of the American federal government to abrogate the provisions of the Constitution. These people seem to have lawyers but there is also a constant demand for money from them apparently, they are being kept awake even 15 minutes through the night by the guards banging on the door and coming in with flashlights. There is a normal flow of stories about sexual molestation of young women.

I think the whole situation of this type of immigration …is not going to be solved by detention centers. The same problem is occurring here in England with the Yarl’s Wood detention center which has a terrible reputation. But it is slightly better probably being in Yarl’s Wood or in Pennsylvania in the Bucks County facility than being stuck on the roadside in Clay in an unofficial camp which is a bit of a disgrace both to the French government and the British government.

Press TV: Certainly immigration is a big issue in the United States and of course other European countries as you mentioned the UK and France, is that the political will to make the necessary changes and reforms to immigration policies?

Spring: No. The point is the people of both the United States of America and the UK and France are very resistant to incomers; they do not have a tradition certainly not in Europe of welcoming incomers. I think there is more of a tradition of acceptance in the USA and there is in UK and France. And therefore there will always be extremist groups who are going to resist any attempts by people to flood the borders. It is clear, for example, the German government has made an announcement that they are expecting something like 800,000 immigrants this year. Now these types of numbers which governments cannot deal with and there is very real serious risk if these numbers keep coming in that vigilante groups will take over and the federal governments will be diminished. And this is the problem there is no clear strategy forward for Western countries whether they be America or Europe to actually accept all proactively work towards a solution of what is an absolutely overwhelming immigration crisis certainly in Europe and we need something worked out, but  no one really wants to work it out. There is a young story “who will bell the cat”, nobody wants to be involved in trying to find a solution to this problem.   

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk