Latest news with #AndreaReyes
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Health
- San Francisco Chronicle
I helped care for FCI Dublin victims. Trump's plan to reopen the prison for ICE is horrifying
As the child of Japanese Americans who were detained for years by the U.S. government, I have witnessed the violent suppression of protests in Los Angeles against Immigration and Customs Enforcement with shock and anger. ICE's brutal tactics, separation of families and demonizing rhetoric are reflective of a system that is fundamentally flawed and inhumane. That's why people in California have been organizing for decades to get ICE out of our communities — and are currently filling the streets in protest. Here in the Bay Area, there's one disturbing Trump administration plan in particular worth fighting: making sure the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin — a former Bureau of Prisons facility — does not reopen as an ICE detention center. In April of 2024, FCI Dublin closed amidst rampant abuse. From 2019 to 2021, at least eight employees at the prison, including the former warden and chaplain, were charged with sexual misconduct. Seven of the employees were found guilty and an eighth will go to trial this fall. In many instances, noncitizens incarcerated at the prison were specifically targeted for abuse by staff, who threatened to turn them over to ICE or made false promises that they could help them stay in the United States in exchange for sexual acts. Survivors also faced medical neglect and retaliation, and reported inhumane and unsafe physical conditions at the facility, and unsound infrastructure. As an emergency physician at Stanford Tri-Valley Medical Center, the nearest medical center to the Dublin prison when it was in operation, I was part of the health care team that cared for these women. I continue to be horrified by what survivors endured at the prison. Public testimony of the brave survivors includes that of Andrea Reyes, who said that former correctional officer Ross Klinger used her mental health files to exploit her emotions and commit sexual violence against her. Another woman identified as A.Y. testified that she woke one morning with an officer on top of her, removing her clothes. When she reported the abuse, she said officers retaliated against her by withholding clothes, hygiene products and other important items. Their pain — and that of other brave women — echoes in the walls of FCI Dublin. Beyond the facility's legacy of abuse, its crumbling physical structure is unsafe for human habitation — including severe mold and asbestos problems. And now, just a year later, the Trump administration is proposing to reopen the Dublin prison as an ICE detention center, part of its cruel mass detention and deportation agenda. As a physician and the child of teenagers who were unjustly incarcerated, I stand firmly opposed to the conversion of the Dublin prison for incarcerating immigrants. In 1942, the U.S. government declared my parents, then teenagers, a threat to national security. President Franklin D Roosevelt invoked the Alien Enemies Act to imprison and deport thousands of Japanese immigrants living in the U.S. Roosevelt enacted Executive Order 9066, which led to the indefinite detention of about 120,000 Japanese Americans, many of whom lost homes, farms and small businesses. They were ordered to leave their homes in San Francisco and were housed in horse stables in Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, where they had to muck out stalls to improvise living quarters. Later, they were loaded onto trains headed to the middle of the desert in Topaz, Utah, where hastily built dormitories provided neither privacy nor shelter from blinding dust storms. My parents survived these prison camps — but their experience was not a relic of history; it's an injustice that feels all too familiar today. With 50,000 people behind bars in ICE custody nationwide, the detention system is fundamentally inhumane. Immigrants can be locked up in ICE detention regardless of their immigration status. Meanwhile, citizens too can become targets based on what they look like, where they come from, and where they work. These are our neighbors, friends, and co-workers — integral to the Bay Area community. The Trump administration wants to increase the number of people in detention to over 120,000, roughly the number of Japanese Americans incarcerated in detention camps during World War II. ICE's interest in reopening the notorious prison disregards the suffering of its survivors, local community members who have made their opposition to the facility clear and elected officials who have demanded its permanent closure. There is currently no immigration detention center in Northern California because people across the region successfully joined together to shut down previous facilities and ICE contracts. Furthermore, given the history of inadequate medical care administered by the private prison industry, our local community in the Bay Area would be deeply impacted by the reopening of the Dublin prison. I expect to see an influx of people sent to our medical center — even as our emergency department wait times have exponentially expanded over the past several years. This will be a breeding ground for sickness and disease, and it will overrun our fragile and already overstretched health care system. This moment demands that everyone in the Bay Area unite: medical professionals, business owners and others need to demand that the Dublin prison permanently close and denounce the targeting, detention and deportation of our community members. We must follow the bravery of FCI Dublin survivors. Lives are at stake.
Fox News
16-03-2025
- Fox News
Missing Connecticut girl found alive 25 years after kidnapping with help from DNA testing
Connecticut police have located a New Haven girl — now a woman — who went missing 25 years ago, when she was just 2 years old. Andrea Reyes, 27, was abducted in October 1999 by her non-custodial, biological mother, Rosa Tenorio, who brought her to Mexico. "Thank you for sharing in our joy in finding our daughter Andrea. After 25 years, God has answered our prayers and blessed us with a chance to know her again," Andrea's stepmother said in an emotional statement during a March 12 press conference with the New Haven Police Department. "We recognize that this reacquaintance will have challenges, however, we are confident that God is building the path before us and leading our steps." Andrea's father went on several trips to Mexico himself over the years to find his daughter, police said during the press conference. Andrea's father and stepmother thanked law enforcement and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). Her stepmother also said DNA technology helped law enforcement develop a lead that ultimately led them to Andrea, who currently lives in Mexico. She added that they "do not lose sight for those families waiting for their loved ones to be found." "We keep you in our prayers, hoping for the day that you, too, can be reunited with your loved ones," Andrea's stepmother said. "As we establish new connections over these days and months, we ask for your prayers and respect for our privacy. We hope that our good news will one day be your good news." Mexican authorities apparently identified Reyes and her mother in 2000, but "it was advised that the Government of Mexico would not take further action to remove Andrea from her mother," New Haven PD Sgt. John Moore said during the press conference. Andrea apparently contacted the man she believed to be her father in 2023, when Det. Kealyn Nivakoff with the New Haven Police Department began to re-investigate the case. To confirm her identity, New Haven police partnered with forensic genetic genealogy research company Othram, which ultimately confirmed a father-daughter relationship between Andrea and her father. Family abductions are the second-most common type of child abduction in the United States, according to NCMEC. In 2023, NCMEC received 1,185 family abduction cases and 59% of all AMBER Alerts that were issued were for family abductions. "One of the biggest misconceptions about family abduction cases is that the children are safe and 'not really missing' because they're with a parent," Angeline Hartmann, director of communications at NCMEC, said in a statement. "At NCMEC, we know that there is a lot of emotion behind these cases, and these scenarios can be unpredictable and dangerous. These children ARE missing and living a life on the run with their kidnapper. They're forced to lie about who they are and are often isolated. The recent recoveries of Andrea Reyes and Aziz Khan remind everyone that these kids can be found, no matter how long they've been gone." An arrest warrant for Tenorio remains active.
