Professor Binford describes conditions at the border

by Tom Mayhall Rastrelli,

Willamette Law’s Warren Binford and a team of lawyers find hundreds of children being neglected and living in dangerous conditions.

  • Warren Binford

CNN, The Associated Press, The New Yorker and dozens of news media have recently featured Willamette College of Law Professor Warren Binford discussing the dangerous and neglectful conditions at Border Patrol facilities in Texas.

Binford and a team of lawyers, doctors and interpreters have been interviewing migrant children, who are being detained by the U.S. government and have been separated from their parents and families, to ensure the Flores settlement — a Clinton-era legal agreement that governs the conditions under which migrant families and children can be detained — is being met.

Last week, when Binford and others toured the facility in Clint, Texas, they found hundreds of children living in unsanitary conditions, suffering from lice and flu outbreaks, caring for one another, and sleeping on cement floors.

“There is a judgment in this case that says that children are supposed to be treated a certain way when they are in government custody. All of these children are in government custody, and those very basic standards are being violated,” Binford said to The New Yorker.

“Imagine if these were your children,” she said to CNN.

Binford is an internationally recognized children’s rights scholar and advocate. She directs Willamette Law’s Clinical Law Program which specializes in immigration, child and family advocacy, trusts and estates, and business law.

Read the full story in The New Yorker.

View the CNN report

About Willamette University College of Law

As the first law school in the Pacific Northwest, Willamette University College of Law boasts an innovative program designed to prepare leaders in government, private practice, and business with the lawyering skills needed in the 21st Century. Willamette Law’s small class sizes foster an interactive learning environment among our diverse student population with a thriving externship and clinical program, ample practical skills courses, and a new Business Lawyering Institute. With a “one student at a time” placement approach, our students are given individualized development plans and tools for success in today’s legal job market. In recent years, outside industry watchers such as Moody’s and The National Jurist Magazine have recognized Willamette Law for its positive job placement results. Willamette lawyers are the best dealmakers, problem solvers, community leaders, and change-makers in the most innovative and exciting region in the country. Our location — nestled in the heart of the Willamette Valley and across the street from the Oregon State Capitol, Supreme Court and many state agencies — is an advantage that cannot be matched anywhere in the region.

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