September 05, 2018

Do not forget about separated migrant children

located:	USA, Mexico
editor:	Yair Oded

Following the execution of the U.S. government’s “zero tolerance” policy on undocumented migration into the country, which resulted in the separation of thousands of children from their parents, U.S. district judge Dana Sabraw deemed the operation unconstitutional and ordered the administration to reunite the families torn apart by July 26, 2018.

Although the court-ordered deadline had passed, there are still more than 500 migrant children pending reunification. For some, the prospect of seeing their parents in the foreseeable future remains tragically unlikely.

Responding to a lawsuit filed against them by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation (ACLU), the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that as of August 20, there were 528 migrant children still held in government- contracted facilities without their parents. In the same report, the government indicates that 23 of the children are under the age of 5, 35 have parents who failed to pass a background check, and 343 whose parents were already deported back to their home countries. More than 700 children were reunited with their parents in detention facilities, where their conditions remain harsh.

It has also been reported that parents who were reunited with their children are still being placed under immense pressure to abandon their immigration cases and opt for deportation, in which case they have to make the gutting choice between being deported with their children or leaving their kids behind, hoping that they will somehow be granted shelter in the U.S. in the future.  

The government’s cold approach to the issue was expressed by an administration official during an interview for the New Yorker, in which he said, “Did the outcry over family separation surprise the Administration? Yes, official said. “The expectation was that the kids would go to Office of Refugee Resettlement, that the parents would get deported, & that no one would care.”

As time passes, countless testimonies surface about the horrifying reality of parents and children in immigration facilities after being caught at the border. In an article for the Daily Beast, reporter Scott unearths stories of migrants who lament the ongoing inhumane treatment they receive by immigration officials. One female immigrant describes how Border Patrol separated her and her son, “literally pull[ing] their hands apart and physically separat[ing] them.” Another migrant describes being held in a large detention facility with high chain-fencing that resembled a dog kennel, in which women and children were held in different sections and didn’t have consistent or sufficient access to one another. Prisoners are not allowed to ask any questions, recounts the migrant, even when they are abruptly told they’re being transferred to another facility. During meal time, she claims, “The guards gave us sandwiches with rotten meat and threw cookies at us like we were animals.” When the women told the guards they were thirsty, “they were led to the bathroom and mockingly told to drink from the toilet.”

The plight of Central American migrants in the U.S. is still severe. And pressing. It seems that the nation’s attention has drifted away from migrant families and fixated elsewhere, on a new White House saga. Yet, it is crucial that both the public and the media remain alert to the abhorrent treatment migrants are subject to in the Southern border. It is imperative that the hundreds of children still separated from their parents won’t be forgotten, and that sufficient pressure will be placed on the government to assume responsibility over its devastating policy and take the actions necessary to remedy the tremendous damage it caused. Evidently, only an ongoing and persistent public outcry could prevent these children from growing up as orphans.

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