In a story that got no attention because it fit no established 'narrative,' two reporters from the Los Angeles Times exposed a revolting scandal: the foul, inhuman conditions of a vaunted L.A. child migrant center called Casa Libre led by a top open borders advocate billed as a "champion of immigrant rights." 

In their report, Cindy Carcamo and Paloma Esquivel begin:

Los Angeles lawyer Peter Schey has long been a trailblazing courtroom defender of immigrant youth.

He helped argue the Supreme Court case that ensured the right of children without legal status to attend public schools. He also helped secure the Flores settlement — a landmark 1997 agreement to safeguard migrant children held by the government, which gave his legal foundation the right to inspect those shelters.

Sounds like a nice guy.

And so much for the open borders lobby actually caring about "the most vulnerable" migrant children.  The story the Times uncovered is that this place, led by one of that lobby's top leaders, was a broken-down hellhole for migrant kids with zero food (a Venezuelan-style socialist diet), cockroaches, bedbugs, a flooded basement, a leaking roof, no heat, a record of locking kids out, bedroom windows that were just holes without glass, rooms with no light bulbs, rooms with kicked out walls, crumbling ceilings, accusations of failed supervision that meant only three of the kids went to school at one point, and at other times kids were dumped into the streets when school was not in session.  In still other cases, drug-dealers on the inside ran the show.  There were a lot of violations, some 143 cited, with 93 of those labeled as posing "an immediate risk to the health, safety or personal rights of residents."  The Times has a database of all of them for viewing here.  Anyone who complained or tried to fix things got fired and branded a 'disgruntled' employee, the Times reported.  And apparently, the people in charge were told again and again about what a hellhole it all was — sometimes the migrant kids themselves pleading for food — and they did nothing.

If I were a migrant kid stuck in a pit like that, I'd ask for a trip back to Uncle Sam's cage.

Why the place didn't get shut down as a health hazard and a plague on society years ago is amazing, but we do know that it was loaded with patronage from powerful California Democrats, such as Maria Elena Durazo, who was on the board of this place until recently and now is the state senator who led Gov. Gavin Newsom on a junket to El Salvador to find out how he could help illegal aliens coming to California even more — such as bankroll more of these houses of horror?  Conflict of interest?  You decide.

What's scary is that places such as Casa Libre, run by these NGO functionaries — and Schey was honored as an 'immigrant advocate' by the Los Angeles city council — are viewed as the humane alternative for what it delicately calls "the most vulnerable children."  They're the answer to what the left falsely calls the Trump administration's 'caged children' policy, meaning, the U.S. detention of children caught crossing the U.S. border illegally and in need of care.  (There were cages, sure enough, but they dated from the Obama era.)  

Remember this?

Kirstjen Nielsen was responsible for:

-Locking toddlers in cages
-The death of a 7 year-old on her agency’s watch
-Repeatedly lying about taking children from their mothers

Now this President wants someone even "tougher." This should be a warning to all who believe in justice.

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) April 8, 2019

Or this?

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) made a big accusation about U.S. border policy Wednesday evening during an Instagram Live video in which she was drinking wine and assembling furniture on the floor of her apartment.

"At least I'm not trying to cage children at the border and inject them with drugs," she said. "That's not a mistake. That is a deliberate policy to attack people based on their national origin. That's not a mistake, that's just hatred. That's just cruelty. That's just wrong!"

She made the comment after she complained about the frequent criticism she faces for gaffes as a 29-year-old Congresswoman.

Don't put them in 'cages,' the Left hollers — have these NGOs give them humane care instead.  Now we learn from the Times just what that care is about: bedbugs, roaches, drug dealing...

Why would an open-borders lefty allow this to happen?  Probably because there's lots of federal money in it, and lots of political protection.  The kids are just props for drawing federal dollars and pushing for an even grander leftist agenda of ending borders, ending any credible immigration law, and shaking as much cash as possible out of the U.S. system to boot.  If the open borders lobby can draw props for caring for migrant kids, so much the better, but the kids are just a means to an end.

Next time a lefty yells about 'caged kids,' one can only think of the hypocrisy now exposed.

Image credit: Wm Jas via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.