It took a lawyer for the United States telling a panel of incredulous Ninth Circuit judges that it is “safe and sanitary” to confine immigrant children in facilities without soap or toothbrushes and to make them sleep on concrete floors under bright lights. This assertion generated widespread outrage.
Full Answer
Sarah Fabian, a Justice Department lawyer, was questioned by federal judges about the Trump administration not providing soap or toothbrushes for migrant children. “It’s within everybody’s common understanding that, you know, if you don’t have a toothbrush, if you don’t have soap, if you don’t have a blanket, it’s not safe and sanitary.
Ms. Fabian stopped short of directly stating that the government did not have to provide toothbrushes, soap and beds to migrant children.
Until last week, that is, when a courtroom video went viral of Ms. Fabian suggesting that the federal government may not be required to provide soap, toothbrushes or beds for detained migrant children.
In a private message on Facebook, Ms. Fabian expressed regret to her friends, acknowledging that her words had “struck a nerve.”. “Maybe many nerves,” she wrote, according to screenshots of the message provided to The New York Times on Tuesday by two of her Facebook friends.
Sarah Fabian, a Justice Department lawyer, was questioned by federal judges about the Trump administration not providing soap or toothbrushes for migrant children. “It’s within everybody’s common understanding that, you know, if you don’t have a toothbrush, if you don’t have soap, if you don’t have a blanket, it’s not safe and sanitary.