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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChildren still ripped from parents at border
Krish OMara Vignarajah
One year ago, on April 6, the United States rolled out its zero-tolerance policy toward families seeking protection within our borders. The policy codified the practice of family separation and was followed by heart-wrenching stories of young children torn from their parents and put in cages. By June, bowing to public outrage, the U.S. government retracted zero-tolerance. Tragically, while the policy has ended, the practice has not.
Today children often infants and toddlers continue to be ripped from their parents arms. And of the thousands of children who were separated during the original crisis, we still do not know that every child has been reunited with a parent or guardian.
In just the last several months, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) has identified 10 children in our care who have been recently separated from their parents at the border. Among them was an infant, just 8 months old, who was separated from his mother on Christmas Eve. I cant begin to understand the rationale for such a cruel separation, but I can imagine the grief of the mother and the helplessness of the baby, cut from his primary source of love, nourishment and comfort.
Another child who came into our care was a 1-year-old girl separated from her father. As a mother of a 1-year-old girl, I can imagine my own daughter, terrified and tearful, standing in a detention facility, wondering when she might see me or her father again ...
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-op-0405-family-separation-20190403-story.html
tblue37
(64,979 posts)struggle4progress
(118,032 posts)by Nancy LeTourneau
April 4, 2019
In the weeks before the 2018 midterms, the Trump administrations family separation policy on our southern border spurred outrage all over the country. I remember it well, because even some white evangelical women in Texas responded by supporting Democrat Beto ORourke over Republican Ted Cruz, based mainly on their opposition to that policy.
Despite the fact that children continue to be separated from their families, that outrage has died down, even as the government has lost track of thousands who remain in custody.
... the people who run the facilities where they were housed actually tracked their menstrual cycles. The bigger picture is that this was done in order to identify possible pregnancies and stop them from getting abortions ...
https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/04/04/what-was-done-to-migrant-girls-in-custody-is-shameful/