Separating Families - Losing Children

"How Many Ways Are There to Hate a Kid?"
The Children Are Watching

Every time the state issued a ridiculous policy affecting our schools, like more and more tests in more and more  subjects and grades, or deep funding cuts, my colleague Ron Sass,  noted global climate change scientist and Rice professor, would ask "How many ways are there to hate a kid?"   During the almost 30 years we worked together in the Rice Center for Education, we saw lots of those ill-advised, harmful policies come and go, so I heard that question many times.  Ron is retired now, but I'm sure as he sees the news of the draconian ways the US immigration authorities -- backed by a rabidly anti-immigrant attorney general -- are treating the children who come to our borders seeking asylum, refugee status, or even just a safe place to be a child, he knows there are even more ways to hate a kid than we knew.

First, who are the migrant children coming to the US?

•    Children who arrive in the United States alone or who are required to appear in immigration court on their own often are referred to as unaccompanied children or unaccompanied minors. 
•    The vast majority of unaccompanied children and families arriving at the southwest border come from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, although unaccompanied children may arrive from any country.

Second, what is being done to them -- not by bandits or drug dealers or other predators, but by the US government?

•    Unaccompanied children are placed with a parent or guardian who acts as a sponsor while they undergo immigration hearings. The only follow up is a call after a few weeks or 30 days. However the agency that releases the children is not responsible for them after they are released.
•    As a result of this policy, between October and December 2017, 1,475 children are unaccounted for.
•    To calm a public outraged by this callous treatment of even very young children (one child was described as 53 weeks old,  just one week after the first birthday), the president's chief of staff assured the nation that "the children will be taken care of -- put into foster care or whatever."

Can this really be the US?  Can we take pride in being a "nation of immigrants" if the "acceptable" immigrants are only the ones with light skin (you know, those desirable Norwegians!)?  Do we really have official, legal ways to "hate a kid"?

Third, what can be done to help these children -- and to save the soul of American democracy? These separations of children from their parents -- separations that do not guarantee parents will know where their children are -- are so unimaginable, it's not unexpected that most of us didn't know this was happening.  But now we know.  So what can we do to make sure these policies end and that this never happens again?

For the larger questions, I'll be writing about this again. Most important, I'll be writing about what we can do individually and what organizations we can join with to end this cruel and embarrassing treatment of the most vulnerable among us:  displaced children.

As a start,  look into the lawsuit the ACLU has brought on behalf of immigrant children in the custody of US immigration authorities.  Make a contribution to the ACLU for this vital (and expensive) work.  Contact your member of Congress.   Insist Jeff Sessions, the nation's attorney, protect the rights of everyone within our borders, including the children.

To share your ideas about ways we can protect these children, click on the "comments" pencil.