Let’s talk about numbers and facts before we even consider “humanity.” 7,635 children were taken from their families at the US border as part of the stricter immigration policies promised by the Trump administration. The children were placed under the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) who would assign them to sponsors while their cases were evaluated.
In between the months of October and December 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services called the initial 7,635 children’s sponsors and found that 6, 075 remained with their sponsors, over 80 of them were not with their sponsors (5 were deported, 28 ran away and 52 were relocated), and a total of 1,475 kids were unaccounted for.
These children did not escape, they were not deported, or they aren’t even known to be alive.
They are “lost.”
Let’s restate that: 1,500 children that the United States’ Government removed from families are unaccounted for..19% of the 7,000 kids that they took away from their families have been “misplaced” in a span of just a few months.
How does a government lose children?
The current administration was always clear about their immigration stance and policies. By deploying National Guard troops to the border and establishing “a zero-tolerance policy,” they were never gentle about what kind of treatment they’d be offering to immigrants.
In an interview with NPR, John Kelly was confronted with the idea that taking children away from families seeking asylum was inhumane, to which he responded:
“The children will be taken care of–put into foster care or whatever, but the big point is they elected to come illegally into the United States, and this is a technique that no one hopes will be used extensively or for very long.”
They will be taken care of… “or whatever.”
However, an ACLU report published by the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School has found over 30,000 pages of records relating to abuse of children in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) custody at the southern border between 2009 and 2014. The CBP is a sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security. Clearly, they’ve been choosing the “whatever” option for the last few years.
Now, with a “zero tolerance” policy stating that anyone, including children, will be prosecuted for trying to cross the border unlawfully regardless of their reasons, fearing more abuse is expected.
Contrary to what most government officials claim, what the United States currently faces is not an “immigration” problem. It’s a humanitarian problem, and it’s one that it has been cultivating since the country was founded.
The U.S. has barely been able to thinly veil their hatred for anyone that does not fit their Eurocentric and outdated molds before, but it’s been harder for them to do so with their current president and elected officials.
Take last week for example where, in a discussion about immigration laws, President Donald Trump said “[immigrants] exploited the loopholes in our laws to enter the country as unaccompanied alien minors.”
“They look so innocent. They’re not innocent.”
Making damaging generalizations about oppressed groups has been the President’s brand since before the elections. However, as perhaps one of the most powerful men in the world right now, his toxic behavior and ideas seep into a country that was founded on hatred and oppression and only serve as an enabler for more hatred.
Take his elected Secretary of Education as another example. While testifying before the House Committee on Education and Workforce, Representative Adriano Espaillat asked Secretary Betsy DeVos if she believed a school principal or teacher should be responsible for calling ICE on students that are known to be undocumented.
“Sir, I think that’s a school decision. That’s a local community decision. These issues are state and local issues to be addressed and dealt with.”
DeVos failed to acknowledge that expecting a school to report a child to ICE violates the constitution. Lorella Praeli, director of immigration policy and campaigns at the American Civil Liberties Union, reacted similarly in a response to DeVos’s comments:
“Let’s be clear: Any school that reports a child to ICE would violate the Constitution. The Supreme Court has made clear that every child in America has a right to a basic education, regardless of immigration status.”
And if those comments didn’t capture the current humanitarian crisis enough, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly was questioned about his stance on separating mothers from their children and after being asked, “Even though people say that it’s cruel and heartless to take a mother away from her children?” He responded:
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”
In this same interview, Kelly had stated that “the vast majority of the people that move illegally to the United States are not bad people” and justified harsher immigration policies as an excuse because “[the immigrants] are not people that would easily assimilate into the United States, into our modern society.”
With such powerful government officials promoting hatred, dehumanization, and even colonial ideals in order to spur their agendas and a nasty track record of abuse and exploitation of colored bodies, I ask again:
How does a government lose almost 1,500 children?
Source 1: Herika Martinez / AFP / Getty Images
Source 2:
https://www.refinery29.com/2018/05/200187/1500-migrant-children-missing-federal-agencies