The war on immigrant families in America is currently the most pressing threat against young people in the western world.
I cannot, in good conscience, remain silent.
America implemented a zero-tolerance policy on “illegal immigration.” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been detaining migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers at U.S. borders, and forcibly separating parents from their children, although the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child says children have the “right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.”
Almost three thousand children under the age of 18 were removed from their parents’ custody and put into detention centres with chain-link walls and concrete floors.
The only reason the world knows about these children and the circumstances under which they were being detained is because some of the workers at these facilities were so appalled by what they saw, that they were compelled to document it with photos, video and first-hand accounts of what they witnessed.
Suddenly, what could be America’s most deplorable action in the 21st Century was thrust onto the world stage – and the world didn’t like what it saw.
Most importantly, the American people didn’t like what they saw.
The U.S. government machine was thrown into reverse and was forced to stop further separation of families.
Furthermore, outraged by this assault on the essence of family, “Judge Dana Sabraw of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California granted the nationwide preliminary injunction in a class action brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of parents separated from their children under Trump’s ‘zero tolerance’ policy.” (Margaret Hartmann, New York Magazine)
Despite this, the deadlines set by the court are slipping away. The government missed the deadline for having all of the children under five returned to their parents, citing problems verifying what parents belong with what kids. Why? Because they had no proper records.
Right now, 71 children are totally unlinked to parents, and even more are trying to fight the fact that their parents have already been deported. This isn’t an issue of legal vs. illegal immigration. It’s about the sanctity of family and children’s rights.
In an Arizona courtroom, Johan, a Honduran child not yet two years of age, was called to the stand. Since judges are required to ask if defendants understand court proceedings, Judge John Richardson had to ask Johan, a diapered infant from a Spanish speaking home, if he understood what was happening.
“I’m embarrassed to ask it, because I don’t know who you would explain it to, unless you think that a one-year-old could learn immigration law,” the judge said to Johan’s representative.
Johan was taken from the room crying. His father has already been deported to Honduras, after having been promised that he would be reunited with his son.
There was not yet a set plan for reuniting children whose parents have already been deported.
Even children who have been reunited with their families are not free, and perhaps never will be free of the emotional and sometimes physical trauma they have endured.
The UN Convention of the Rights of the Child is the only United Nations convention ratified by all UN members. All signatories recognized that children have to come first, that children are the future.
The Convention states: “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”
All nations and states which signed the convention promised to “respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.”
It doesn’t say to only award these rights to citizens of their country, or legal migrants.
That means each child deserves to be put first, that each child crossing the border has the right to be protected and sheltered, because that is what is in the child’s best interest.
What happened, America?
The plaque at the base of your Statue of Liberty reads: “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.”
It seems that “golden door” has slammed shut.
July 26 is the deadline by which all families have to be reunited according to a court-imposed deadline; 2 551 children still need to be returned to their parents, a process being further complicated by DNA tests that are supposed to determine what child belongs to what parent, all because there were no proper records maintained during the separation and detention.
The United States, a country once proud to be called “The Land of the Free,” separated infants from their parents and placed them in detention cages.
What happened, America?
Marlowe Evans is a Thomas Haney secondary graduate who writes about youth issues.
