More than 40 West Virginians traveled to Staunton, Virginia earlier this week to hold a protest at a juvenile detention center. The center housed migrant children who filed child abuse reports against the facility. The protest was organized by the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center in Staunton Virginia (WVIRM), a group of religious leaders and activists from the Kanawha Valley.
For several years, the WVIRM has helped refugees resettle in West Virginia. They take a position that it is a matter of religious faith to shelter those in need and to provide safety to those escaping violence and war in other countries.
With the national news about children being separated by their parents along the Mexican border, the group wondered if any undocumented children are being held in facilities near West Virginia. That’s when they learned about allegations of child abuse, mostly from half-a-dozen migrant children, who were held at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center in Staunton, Virginia.
A group from several different religious backgrounds organized a protest, including a rabbi from Charleston, and Lynn Clarke, from St. John’s Episcopal Church.
“When I thought about the young people that are in that facility, I hoped that they had some awareness that we were there and cared for them," Clarke said. "I thought about my own children and how it would have been unbearable to be separated from them the way these migrant children are separated.”
The Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center is being investigated by Virginia state officials for claims by children who say they were physically and mentally abused at the facility. The Associated Press has reported that half-a-dozen accounts by children are the source of a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Juvenile Center. Clarke said these news stories are part of what prompted her group to visit the center to organize a protest.
West Virginia Public Broadcasting reached out to the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center for comment on these allegations. A spokesperson from the facility said they have no statement about the pending lawsuits and would not tell us how many children are being held at the facility.
The protesters said they weren’t only protesting this one site, but were also speaking out against the practice of separating children from their families.
37 people rode the bus from Charleston to Staunton, and a few more carloads from Bridgeport and Fayette County took part in the protest.
Victor Urecki, the rabbi at B'nai Jacob Synagogue in Charleston, who came to America as an immigrant himself when he was a child, was among those who rode the bus to Virginia.
“People spent an entire day of their lives driving up to Staunton, Virginia just to say that families belong together,” Urecki said.
And though there is talk in West Virginia, and even within his own synagogue about the need to protect the U.S. border and to keep immigrants out of our country, Rabbi Urecki said he thinks the issue of separating children from their parents, and abuse of children, goes beyond the issue of immigration.
“When you see children being separated from their families, illegally, unjustly, I think that’s awakening the hearts and minds of a lot of people," he said. "That’s why we saw such an outpouring of love and support in our community, and I think you’re going to continue to see that in this country.”
