Children In Cages
WRITTEN DURING TRUMP’S PRESIDENCY: Some of the children may never be reunited with their parents. Small children know their parents as mommy and daddy (not as Maria and Jose Gomez), they don’t know their own names, either.
I’m not politically-minded. I run Alternative Human Community magazine because I believe in the intrinsic decency and value of human beings. I rarely express my feelings on politics but this issue isn’t political: separating children from their parents goes beyond politics and challenges our collective humanity.
I NEVER expected to see children in cages, children torn away from their parents in the 21st Century United States and yet, this is what’s happening. We all bear witness and we are all responsible for the inhumanity committed in our name. I’m referring to the forced separation of families and the “Zero-tolerance” immigration policy. Since April 2018 over 2,300 children are being detained apart from their parents and nearly as many parents are imprisoned.
Seeking political asylum in the United States of America – like many of our ancestors did – became a crime. Anyone who enters the Country illegally with the intent of seeking political asylum is being arrested and imprisoned for committing a crime while their children are being taken to separate facilities and detained as well. (Many enter illegally because they didn’t find a way to enter legally.)
Surely some of the applicants will be granted political asylum. What a great new beginning: with an arrest record and a criminal record to boot! Whether or not the parents will be reunited with their children – which the current system is known to lose – is an open question.
Some of the children may never be reunited with their parents. The small children know their parents as mommy and daddy, not as Maria and Jose Gomez. Many of the smaller children don’t know their full names. Our record-keeping is lacking, too. (It’s been said that some desperate parents at the last moment wrote their children names on the kids’ bodies with permanent markers…)
Meanwhile both, the parents and the children suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. The long term consequences are difficult to predict.
Place the above in a proper context. Hatred of immigrants is openly encouraged. Illegal entry is perceived as nearly as bad as an attack on the U.S. Stop and think: nobody sane – especially with children in tow! – would plan to enter a foreign country illegally. Did it occur to anyone yet that political refugees may not have had the option – or know-how – to apply for legal immigration?! Many endured a living hell on their trek to America in the belief that once they arrive they’ll be met with compassion. None of them knew that today’s America – just like terrorists and Nazis – separates families… The refugees survived. They arrived on our soil. Their greatest assets – their children! – were taken away from them.
They brought us their vulnerability. They sought our protection. They trusted us with their children. They believed that we are good, compassionate and fair. They were wrong. Click To Tweet
Why not place armed border patrols on the Southern border and order them to shoot and kill anyone who approaches the border, including legal border crossings? It would surely discourage legal and illegal entries. I bet, quite a few of the imprisoned parents would have preferred being dead as opposed to being separated from their kids. (Recently, a father whose child was taken away from him by force committed suicide.)
No other country in the world separates children from their parents. It is a violation of human rights. Fittingly, on 06/19/18 the United States dropped out from the United Nations’ Human Rights Council…. The U.S. is the FIRST country to drop out of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council voluntarily. (I guess, it was a precautionary measure: after all, it’s better to quit than to get kicked out…)
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It started with the Dreamers who by all appearances are – or will be – prosecuted for the crimes of their parents. (Incidentally, prosecuting children for crimes committed by their parents isn’t legal.) They might be deported. “Deported”? Even the word doesn’t fit. Most of them have and know only one Country and have roots in only one Country. For many English is the only language they communicate in. The U.S. is their Country. What country should they be “deported” to?….
Then, in California parents were arrested by ICE agents for bringing their children to school. Most recently, a 60-something, legal alien was suddenly arrested while seating with his family in front of his own house on a Sunday morning; he is scheduled for deportation… Legal aliens and naturalized citizens are becoming increasingly anxious. It appears that anyone born outside of the United States could become a subject to removal at a drop of hat, for a reason or without any.
Millions living in the United States today, live the life of Anne Frank. Fully aware that taking their child to school or for a medical checkup, going to work or answering the doorbell could signal the end of life as they know it. Click To Tweet
It is counter-intuitive to introduce a “Zero-tolerance” immigration policy in the United States in times of worldwide terrorism. Anyone with an ounce of common sense would declare general amnesty for all undocumented aliens. Why? Because securing our Country should be a priority and ensuring internal security is more important than chasing terrorists half a world away. Following an amnesty, illegal aliens would step into the light and we would know whether or not they may potentially pose a threat to national security. No one’s done it. Instead a “wall” is being built. “Walls” don’t improve security. They don’t make good neighbors. They don’t earn respect. Ask the Germans.
What’s at stake isn’t politics or even the immigration policy; it is our Country and our good name.
United States of America are known worldwide as the symbol of freedom and compassion, the “land of opportunity”. Even foreigners know the inscription on the statue of Lady Liberty:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
WHAT’S HAPPENING?! It used to be “America, the beautiful”. Now it is “America, the barbaric”?
Would YOU be OK if your children were ripped away from you? Would YOU be OK if you were imprisoned for your will to live? If not, speak up! If you don’t, the shame and their blood will be on OUR hands. What’s happening isn’t just WRONG. It’s UNETHICAL, INHUMANE and UNAMERICAN.
I hope that a return to humanity is on the way, but the pictures of children in cages, children crying, children covered with aluminum foil blankets are seared in my mind, forever.
