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"At least during the internment of Japanese-Americans, I and other children were not stripped from our parents. We were not pulled screaming from our mothers’ arms. We were not left to change the diapers of younger children by ourselves." -George Takei, who was interned at the age of 5.
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@Adira: it’s terrible and it’s also costing us a shit ton of money! How’s can anyone get behind that?
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@gotkimchi: Who the F knows. I don't understand how any of these people think.
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I apologize to those of you who feel I spoke on a board where my opinions are not wanted. I personally am of the mindset that a healthy discussion involves opinions from all sides - in this case its not even all sides...never once did I state that I support the current policy to strictly enforce the law. I didnt realize to "some" this has become a reply only if you agree establishment.
I appreciate those of you who are capable of having a legitimate discussion and respecting that everyone is entitled to their own opinions and thoughts. And I appreciate those of you who actually read/understood what I wrote and didn't merely read my words, then project your opinion of my thoughts into my actual intent.
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@Adira: I'm on the verge of tears every time i think about these babies. I cannot handle it and cannot stop thinking about it. I know that we can donate and vote this fall, but can this really continue that long?!
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@Mrs D: I understand what you're trying to say.
And to that, with my very limited knowledge, I don't think children can automatically be used in this game called immigration... I think all we're asking is that children are not separated from their parents as they seek asylum and wait for court proceedings and what not. Why can't there just be family detention centers where family units can stay together until the court can decide whether they stay or go?
So to me, that's the part that's the most maddening. I totally understand immigration is much more complicated than my brain can handle, but to me, a world where a family sticks together, and the court of law still apply, can exist and I don't understand why Trump has to enact this whole zero tolerance thing.
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@NorthStar: I know. I donated more than I normally would, hoping that the $ can immediately pay for bonds and for families to be reunited. Have there been any good news for any of them?!
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@NorthStar: I don't know... Trump is not inclined to change course at this point, so this may continue until Congress can come up with a solution. And as of right now, Republicans are unwilling to work with Democrats to come up with a solution. And while all the Democratic Senators are behind Feinstein's proposed solution, no GOP will come on board. And even though the GOP holds the majority in both the House and Senate, they don't all agree on a solution either. It's frustrating and heartbreaking... Trump is using these children as political pawns to try to get funding for his wall. He's a monster.
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Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but if your opinion (this is a general statement, not meant to imply anyone in particular's personal opinion is this) is that separating children from their parents is okay (even just temporarily), then it's MY opinion that you are a monster.
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@snowjewelz: Family detention centers, like the Japanese-American internment camps?
Crossing the boarder at a non-official crossing point is a misdemeanor. But Trump is treating it like a Felony - immediately arresting and jailing people, even those that immediately turn themselves in to Border Control who are seeking Asylum.
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@snowjewelz: yup, and I've said over and over again I'd like to keep the families together. I'd challenge someone to find a rational human being who doesnt want to keep families together.
All that said, I get frustrated when the immediate solution becomes an executive order. I'd rather see congress do their jobs - put a law together to be signed. Cut all the BS, politicking, peacocking for the media and sit down together (both parties) and come to an agreement. The president said last night he's willing to sign something.
I am not a political expert, but I read short articles on the two bills presented one by each party. I preferred the language in Ted Cruz's bill, it allows families to be in a family detention center (barring any obvious criminal activity) and provides for more judges to expedite the process. Yet we still have all these press conferences (dont even get me started) of politicians starring into cameras asking the president to fix it...offering their pens...its a joke.
There job is to make laws, fix laws. If I stood in front of my boss and begged him to "just do my job for me" a job I am capable of doing I'd be fired. And to be clear, I feel this way about members of both parties. Stop to press conferences, stop the whining, and do your flippin jobs.
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@Mrs D: I appreciate your opinions. I think our biggest issue as a country in general right now is that we're so polarized and its so hard for anyone to have an actual discussion and try to meet in the middle.
Separating children from their parents is not the solution. I understand what the parent's are doing is illegal, I understand that this sends a strong message to those wanting to cross illegally, but I don't believe in terrorizing children and I don't know how anyone, Republican or Democrat (since they're each blaming the other) can just stand by and let this continue.
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@Adira: No no no... I don't mean that at all. The process that I read about is when people cross the seek asylum ,the have to wait somewhere till it's their turn to get heard by the judge to see if the qualify. Where do families usually stay while waiting for that? That's what I mean.
That's why I said it was maddening that Trump is just treating all the illegal crossing parents as criminals and therefore separating the children. But they only crossed the illegal way because as I read in another article, we've made crossing the legal way extremely difficult.
I agree @josina that we cannot just stand by as this continues. I also agree that people are just getting crazier over this. Some of the comments I read on various platforms make my blood boil.
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@pinkcupcake: For real, I am so fucking sick of the mental gymnastics that seems to be happening around this issue. Our government has stated explicitly that they are essentially holding children hostage in order to get what they want (i.e. that godforsaken wall). There are detention centers housing babies -- BABIES -- in cages. They're crying inconsolably, according to eyewitnesses. There are photos of a mother tenderly kneeling down to take the shoelaces out of her two-year-old's shoes because ICE requires that before they take the child away from her. The fact that I've seen so many people, in so many places, saying anything other than, "This is a travesty, how can I help?" is absolutely mind-blowing to me. If you think any of this is OK, we don't have a difference of opinion, we have a difference in morality. This is not a partisan issue. Are you OK with children being torn from their parents and kept in cages, yes or no? THAT is the issue.
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@Mrs D: The problem with this argument, that Congress needs to fix this, is that THIS problem (separating children from their families) was introduced by the Trump Administration. There wasn't some new law (passed by Democrats in the minority) in May that FORCED the Administration to do this. They DECIDED to do this. They DECIDED traumatizing children might help deter other immigrant families from coming here. Now they are pretending their hands are tied and that Congress needs to come up with a solution. But the Administration has all the power in the world to stop this atrocity. Trump doesn't even need to sign an executive order to do it. He just needs to tell his own administration "Stop doing this." The "laws" he's using as an excuse to do this have been on the books for decades, and yet neither Bush or Obama did what Trump is doing. Trump decided to do this, so pushing the blame to Congress is unfair. TRUMP is doing this. TRUMP continues to allow this to happen. TRUMP is the monster here.
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@snowjewelz: I know you didn't really mean that, but that's what detention centers sound like. I'd have to double-check, but I believe MOST asylum seekers are released and given a court date to return for their case. 99% of them SHOW UP. Jailing them is hardly necessary, especially for a misdemeanor.
ETA: @Madison43: corrected me below! We already have family detention centers to hold families while they wait to be processed.
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@Adira: just to be super duper clear, the United States has used family detention centers for hold families who have crossed the border illegally for many, many years. This is nothing new. The only new component is that families are being separated bc the adults are charged with a crime, and we have laws prohibited children from being held in adult incarceration facilities. I just really think it’s super important for advocates to understand precisely what hd been happening and what has changed.
There is actually an excellent article on the Raices Texas website explaining the history of family detention centers (and the problems that were there before this most recent crisis). I would link, but their site is down, I assume from overwhelming interest.
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@Madison43: Thanks for clarifying! So the policy already WAS to put families in detention centers together. Instead of doing that, Trump is arresting and jailing the adults, which is resulting in their children being separated from them.
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@Madison43: Thank you for clarifying! Yes, I think the main issue is the administration has made crossing legally and seeking asylum more difficult/impossible, THEN they enact the zero tolerance policy so that the families get separated. That is the issue.
I think that family detention centers, where families under NORMAL circumstances that cross over illegally go, that's been around and that's another issue.
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The fact is, children are not being "ripped away" from their parents. Any parent in the US that does something illegal goes to jail or to a holding facility. Their children go to foster care or group homes. The parents do have a choice of turning around and not crossing the border illegally. By choosing to do something illegal, the parents are creating the problem and are responsible for their children's trauma. In addition, many of the children being held in foster care are/were unaccompanied. The biggest real issue here is the lack of communication between immigration officers and the foster care system (with kids getting "lost" in the system). I think this is very, very biased discussion, based on emotional overreaction (let's face it...no one likes to see a baby cry) as well as being inaccurate. Let's not give the current administration actual "fake news" to support their points.
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@Adira: ‘Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but if your opinion...is that separating children from their parents is okay (even just temporarily), then it's MY opinion that you are a monster‘
10000000x this. There is no room for waiting around discussing and debating, having opinions that this is even remotely ok. Stop separating families NOW. Do your due process to investigate but do NOT torture these children and parents.
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@Adira: Just read something!
Myth: The children have to be separated from their parents because there parents must be arrested and it would be cruel to put children in jail with their parents - FALSE. First, in the case of economic migrants crossing the border illegally, criminal prosecution has not been the legal norm, and families have been kept together at all cost. Also, crossing the border without documentation is a typically a misdemeanor not requiring arrest, but rather a civil proceeding. Additionally, parents who have been detained have historically been detained with their children in ICE "family residential centers," again, for civil processing. The Trump administration's shift in policy is for political purposes only, not legal ones.
ETA: Linked
https://www.facebook.com/thekarenbrown/posts/10215764784460167 -
@tlynne: This is the logic of all abusers. "If you only did what I told you, I wouldn't have to hurt you or your children."
Crossing the boarder illegally is a misdemeanor, and prior to May, parents were not immediately jailed for it. Blaming the victims for OUR horrific actions is what all abusers do. We have the CHOICE not to traumatize children for their parents actions, and we are CHOOSING to do it, period.
There can be consequences for illegally crossing the border that do not result in traumatizing children. We've just chosen to do that as a deterrent to others. "Don't come to the US - we are evil and will torture your children!"
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@tlynne: Not everyone who commits a crime is sent to jail. Not everyone who commits a crime has their children taken away. People who committed this very crime, in fact, did not have their children taken away until now. And some of the people having their kids, yes, RIPPED AWAY, aren't even doing anything illegal.
Also, "responsible for their children's trauma"? Fuck that. They're coming here to save their children from the trauma they're already enduring in their own home countries.
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@snowjewelz: Thanks for sharing that!
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Myth: The parents and children will be reunited shortly, once the parents' court cases are finalized. FALSE. Criminal court is a vastly different beast than civil court proceedings. Also, the children are being processed as unaccompanied minors ("unaccompanied alien children"), which typically means they are sent into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHS). Under normal circumstances when a child enters the country without his or her parent, ORR attempts to locate a family member within a few weeks, and the child is then released to a family member, or if a family member cannot be located, the child is placed in a residential center (anywhere in the country), or in some cases, foster care. Prior to Trump's new policy, ORR was operating at 95% capacity, and they simply cannot effectively manage the influx of 2000+ children, some as young as 4 months. Also, keep in mind, these are not unaccompanied minor children, they have parents. There is great legal ambiguity on how and even whether the parents will get their children back because we are in uncharted territory right now. According to the ACLU lawsuit (see below), there is currently no easy vehicle for reuniting parents with their children. Additionally, according to a May 2018 report, numerous cases of verbal, physical and sexual abuse were found to have occurred in these residential centers.
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If anyone else has any thoughts about these parents being at fault, or "what kind of parent would do this?" Read this.
An excerpt, and link to full version: "My mother is that kind of mother. She’s the kind of mother who sheltered her children from bullets and bombs. She’s the kind of mother who buried her brother, murdered for having fought on the wrong side and vowed to not let her husband and children face the same fate. She’s the kind of mother who made long treks on rickety buses, and walked for hours with her young children in tow so that they could see their father, a prisoner of war, for a few hours and then make the same long trek back home until the next visiting day. She’s the kind of mother who had to make impossible choices: send her two young sons off with her husband and pray that she’d see them again one day; leave her baby boy behind and hope he’ll one day understand and forgive her; risk her life and mine when we fled Vietnam as part of the mass exodus of Boat People, refugees of the war; agree to give up her daughter to strangers who could hopefully seek medical care for me, knowing that a future where I was alive and loved and cared for by someone else was better than me dying in her loving arms. (As fate would have it, the Malaysian authorities would not allow for the separation of mother from child and I was shuttled back onto our boat. Luckily, I survived the rest of our journey)."
https://www.facebook.com/nina.tarnay/posts/10156462897131484
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@Adira: @Mrsscb: If this is the way you really feel, then please get involved in foster care and take care of the children. Since you know everything , and feel comfortable enough to make personal attacks, I suggest you go into politcs immediately and fix all the problems. It takes nothing to say whatever you want online, but I would bet you have no idea what abuse looks like in the face of a foster child dropped off at YOUR home in the middle of the night with no clothing or possessions. I do. While you are making personal attacks online to someone you do not know, I am actually helping kids who have been hurt by their parents' choices. And yes, the parents are responsible for traumatizing their children. You just want to write a letter and maybe take a day off work to go stand around or cuss out a random stranger online to make yourself feel better...when, at the end of the day, you haven't accomplished anything at all. You are no different than Trump on Twitter. While Trump admin is harsher on people who break the law....he has the legal right to enforce the law. Is the law right? That is a different discussion. The adults in this case chose to break the law. Did they make a hard choice? Yes. But they are the ones who made the choice. As someone who has actually dealt with the immigration system for family, it is very doable to immigrate legally. It also helps to check your facts....not checking facts, then making personal attacks and using foul language to try to cover up the fact that you didn't actually research the issue, is the reason you come across as an angry junior high school student. In other words, your personal attacks and trying to curse at me make it impossible for me to take you seriously.
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@tlynne: what a charming wall of text that was. Does ranting make you feel better about rationalizing babies in cages?
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@MrsSCB: well...since that particulat picture was taken during the OBAMA administration, no, it doesn't. The picture is about 4 years old. Where were you protesting for this child then? As I recall, I had just become a foster parent becuase I wanted to do something other than talk about it.
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@tlynne: I'm sorry - when did I curse or make personal attacks of you? I honestly have no idea what you're talking about.
Parents are not responsible for traumatizing their children when the trauma they are suffering are because of the choices our government has made. That's akin to saying domestic violence victims are responsible for the violence against them because they a. originally chose to let that person into their life and/or b. they haven't left yet. Both are victim blaming for the abuse they are receiving due to the choices others have made.
I never claimed that the choices the Trump Administration have chosen to make in applying the law in the manner they are applying them is not legal or within his power. I didn't say the Trump Administration is breaking the law in their CHOICE to enforce it in this manner. It was their decision to apply the law in this way, just as it continues to be their decision to CONTINUE to do so. But I have every right to condemn their horrible decision and to call them out for the monsters that they are.
So um... thanks for the response? But not sure what your point was except you disagree with me, want to blame victims, and I guess agree that traumatizing children is okay? Okay then... our morals are obviously different.
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@Adira: yes, essentially. I don’t want to oversimply bc there of course exceptions but it has been the “norm” for families seeking asylum to be temporarily detained together while their initial application was processed (days/weeks?...I’m honestly not sure what the timeline is anymore). Assuming you were deemed eligible for asylum, the family would be released into the county and then would eventually have a full hearing on their application. Now, as @snowjewelz: pointed out above, if an asylum seeker enters the county illegally (as opposed to at a point of entry), they are charged with a crime and sent to an adult detention facility. Children in our country - for obvious reasons - cannot reside in an adult correctional facility - so they separated from their parents and sent to a separate facility where they are processed as unaccompanied minors. There are so many f-ed up things about this policy, including that the government put it in place without any plan in place as to how these kids would be reunited with their families because now the kids and the parents are on completely separate immigration tracks. Even if you have zero heart and think this is an acceptable way to curb immigration, it makes zero financial sense because you are overburdening our system with kids don’t need to be in foster care BC THEY HAVE FAMILIES!
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@tlynne: what photo? I haven’t shared a photo. But here you go. These are from recent days. How do you feel about this? Still fine? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/17/separation-border-children-cages-south-texas-warehouse-holding-facility
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@tlynne: I'm not sure what 4 year old photo you are talking about, but here's a photo provided by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection showing people detained at a facility in McAllen, Texas, on Sunday. Note the cage they are in.
Note: I didn't read the above article - just stole the picture from it.
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tlynne: "he has the legal right to enforce the law. Is the law right?"
The Holocaust was the law too. Slavery was the law. Jim Crow was the law.
Following the rule of law has long been an excuse for atrocities.
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@Adira: but calling me "no better than a child abuser"....you dont find that a personal attack? I would not have said the same to ANYONE else online. And as far as our morals go, I believe in honesty and checking facts. If these people were US residents or citizens , I would be outraged. But they are making a decision to try to come illegally...knowing that the consequences may be separation. Therefore, they are making informed decisions and are not victims.
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@tlynne: I don't know who you think you are quoting, but I didn't say that. I did say this: "This is the logic of all abusers." which I stand by. The logic you are using is similar logic to what all abusers use. That doesn't mean YOU are an abuser, just that you are using the same logic as one. Hope that clarifies it for you!
"If these people were US residents or citizens , I would be outraged." This is absolutely where we differ with our morals. This statement says it all! If these people were US citizens, you would be outraged, but since they are NOT US citizens, it's apparently okay to treat them like dirt. I believe in treating ALL people with compassion, regardless of their nationality or color of their skin or how they came to reside in my country. The idea that these people are somehow less-then simply because they were not born here? Nope, not okay. That's the same logic Hitler used. It's the same logic WE used to stay out of WWII as long as we could. As long as the horror wasn't happening to American families, who cares? Shame on America then and shame on us now.
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@afc061018: @Adira: As I said, that's a completely different discussion. But again...my point was and is...get involved for real and make a real difference instead of just talking about it and being patronizing to people you don't know. It is one thing to be outraged today while living in nice homes in peace and comfort....it is another to open your house, home, and heart to really get involved. And yes, I differentiate between residents/citizens and illegal immigrants because the law does. My family had to immigrate legally.
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@tlynne: Indeed, opening your home and heart are the best ways to change your immediate world. It is possible for all of us to be doing so, just as you have, and still be outraged at the treatment of others around us, most especially by those who represent us and speak for us as the voice of our government. It is our moral duty to hold them accountable to the standards we deem necessary for a just, safe, and happy life. No matter our political beliefs, we should all be able to agree that the care and safety of children is above all else—no matter their race or citizenship. If we cannot agree on such a basic belief, then we as a society have already lost.
ETA: The law is actually at the center of this conversation and cannot be separated from it, as the president himself has said he is following the law. Whether the law is new or old matters not at this point and is simply a way of deflecting action. The only thing that matters now is fixing what is happening and stopping the separation of families. Anything else is solely a way to deflect responsibility and defer action. For the president to have the power to enforce this means he also has the power, in one way or another, to stop it, and to not do so is unconscionable.
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@tlynne: Actually, in response to your response to @afc061018:, I don't think your point WAS about getting involved. Your first post on this thread was to blame the parents for the trauma their children are receiving.
"By choosing to do something illegal, the parents are creating the problem and are responsible for their children's trauma."
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