A TRUE 4TH: The Flores Exhibits
HX Focus: Taking A Look At Who Makes America Great
For the next couple of days, we’re celebrating the 4th of July with reminders of who and what makes America great. Up next, a passionate award-winning Immigration Lawyer and a Director of the Clinical Law Program at Willamette University.
Luis Mancheno + W. Warren H. Binford
Binford, along with Waterwell, the Broadway Advocacy Coalition and Luis Mancheno helped create The Flores Exhibits to bring visibility to the testimonies of migrant children and young adults held in detention at the U.S. / Mexico border. The project aims to influence systemic change in our immigration policies through narrative-driven advocacy.
The Flores Exhibits is a project that is part of a national campaign to establish legal protections for immigrant children held in U.S. government facilities.
In June 2019, a team of lawyers who work as independent monitors of the detention facilities took more than 60 testimonies from children detailing lengthy stays, ongoing family separations, and dirty, unsafe conditions. These sworn testimonies were submitted as exhibits in a motion for a Temporary Restraining Order filed by the National Center for Youth Law. The motion seeks to provide immediate relief to children living without access to basic hygiene supplies and adequate nutrition or sleep.
Artists, lawyers, advocates, and immigrants read the sworn testimonies of children held in detention facilities at the U.S. / Mexico Border as part of The Flores Exhibits project. Each reader read strictly what is presented in sworn testimonies taken in June 2019 by a team of lawyers visiting detention facilities as monitors for the Flores Settlement Agreement. This 1997 agreement set limits on the length of time and conditions under which children can be held in immigration detention, which were upheld by a 2017 court order in Flores v. Sessions.
Xorje chatted with one of the participants, Luis Mancheno, as well as W. Warren H. Binford. Take a listen.
