"It's horrendous." The words of a foster parent in Michigan after taking in a five-year-old boy from Honduras. The little boy, Jose, spent his first sleepless nights in his foster home crying or moaning, and every day would ask for his papa in Spanish. The father was arrested at the border when he presented himself to authorities seeking asylum, arrested under the new Trump administration policy of prosecuting parents for "trafficking their children" and then separating the young boys and girls from the parents and disappearing them into camps or foster homes where the family members can not reach one another.
According to the NY Times article that describe's Jose's plight, "In just the first two weeks under President Trump's new policy, 638 parents who arrived with 658 children had been prosecuted." https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/07/us/children-immigration-borders-family-separation.html. Yesterday, an NPR report announced that the number of separated children was closer to 2,000.
The American Council of (Catholic) Bishops denounced this policy last week, calling it "immoral" and suggesting that Catholics involved in implementing policies could face 'penalties' (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-immigration-catholic-bishops-moral-us-mexico-border-a8399016.html).
Politicians have started to denounce the policy as pictures of exhausted and traumatized young people hit the internet. Rep Paul Ryan introduced new policy measures to end this separation as did Sen Dianne Feinstein and Sen Michael Bennet. Two bills will hit the House floor this coming week and if you are interested in contacting your Representative about voting on the bills, you can visit the American Friends Service Committee here (https://www.afsc.org/actioncenter) or contact me to receive an action email and checklist from Americans of Conscience.
Let's be clear: though President Trump blamed separation of families on a "Democrat law" this is not a law, it's a policy that is being implemented by Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice. It's being used as a cruel and heartless disincentive to immigration and as a bargaining chip in the ongoing battle over immigration policy. Democrats are not in control of either the House or the Senate and so this is the Trump Administration and Republican Congress decision.
Applying for asylum at the border is a LEGAL way to immigrate. Asylum applicants are supposed to remain free and responsive to court decisions while their cases are being decided, as ruled by international human rights agreements that the United States has signed.
In my mind, everything about this policy is wrong. It's not truthful, it's not logical, and it's immoral. I have called members of Congress over the ongoing travesty of separating families but I am embarrassed to say that I have not done nearly enough. The horror of being ripped away from my children is one that, frankly, my mother's heart shies away from contemplating. It brings to mind photos of persecuted Gypsies and Jews being torn from their children as they board trains to concentration camps. In our country, now, parents are being placed in for-profit detention centers as they wait penniless and often without representation or means to contact their children. It's a difference of degrees, and the similarities make me ill.
We must take back our country and show the world that we have not descended into wholesale mean-spiritedness and cruelty. On this Father's Day, as we celebrate our fathers and our children spend playtime and meals with them, let's try to remember the fathers who languish in detention and the children who cry the night away missing them, and then let's do something about it.
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