ICE personnel
Credit: Getty
It’s been said that you can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they have tried everything else.
We cannot think of a better example than the Trump administration’s policy to forcibly remove children from parents caught trying to enter the U.S. illegally as they are seeking asylum from violence, presumably to deter people from entering the country illegally.
Their children, including babies and toddlers, are then labeled “unaccompanied alien children” (a phrase never intended to be applied to children who could not yet walk) and placed in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR).
They are then transferred to live with people they do not know, sometimes thousands of miles away from their parent(s), with their parents not even knowing where their children are being taken. Previously, most children had been allowed to stay with their parents in shelter for families while they waited for their deportation proceeding.
Attorney General Jeff […]
It would be great to see this conversation shifted to cover the entire scope of our government’s treatment of children. Over half a million children are in foster care in this country. Is it safe to assume that those children were all rightly taken from their families? Highly doubted. Thanks for the compassionate articles Stephan, but don’t forget that it’s been a long tradition in this country to neglect children of unfortunate circumstances, not something that Trump started.
Charles, I have written about this for over a decade. Go to the SR archive, or Explorejournal.com or Academia.edu, or Researchgate.com and you can find dozens of my essays on healthcare and children.
Thanks Stephan, I’ll take a closer look at your earlier work.
I had only previously read your report on this page, but it seems I have some reading to do of your other work. Thanks for the links.
Charles is right, many children have been taken away from their parents over the years for no valid reason, and the foster families love it because they are paid well for whatever kind of care they give to their adopted foster children, many of which end up being abused much worse than they would have with their biological parents. The whole system of foster care is corrupt.
And overwhelmed with children rightly or wrongly placed. I do not know what it will take to focus the national mind away from wars of all sorts, immigration crisis that was not until cruel “enforcement” made it so and the increasing madness and chaos that radiates from the top but is a reflection of many.Americans.
Where are the family values crowd who are so actively protecting the unborn but are unmoved by the suffering of the born?