There has always been a natural order to the family structure: get married or have a common-law partner, possibly have children—and raise these children to be self-sufficient, independent, and an asset to society. The new border policy under U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, is disrupting this family structure.
This immigration policy is a breach of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child—a human rights treaty which the U.S. failed to ratify, and has yet to do so to this day.
This document was signed by all 195 UN member states. Only the U.S. and South Sudan have not signed the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in history.
A version of the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy in question has been in effect since 2005. According to a report released by the U.S. Office of the Inspector General, the policy is “an initiative to criminally prosecute individuals who illegally enter the United States.”
While many cases were criminally prosecuted throughout the first decade of the policy, according to USA Today, “there were some separations under previous administrations, but no blanket policy to prosecute parents . . . and separate them from their children.”
It is the current American administration that has taken it to a whole new, inhumane, and intolerable level. After Trump’s election and the appointment of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Sessions announced a policy that would direct U.S. Homeland Security officials to refer all cases of illegal immigration to the federal government for prosecution.
This means that families are being separated at the border, with their children being taken to warehouses and put in metal cages. These children are being given bottled water and bags of chips as sustenance, and tin foil blankets for warmth—and throughout the day and night, the lights are kept on. Since this change in policy, at least 2,000 children have been separated from their parents and are being kept in these inhumane conditions, according to the Toronto Star.
The situation is made worse by the fact that some parents are being deported without knowing where their children are. Children are being forced to attend court proceedings in a language they are likely not familiar with, and make a statement to a judge, without their parents and sometimes without a translator.
A case that truly got my attention was one of a one-year-old boy named Johan, who made an appearance before an immigration judge in Phoenix. Johan and his father were separated upon coming to the U.S. from their home in Honduras. The father was removed from the country under the false pretense that he would be able to leave with his son. By the end of the hearing, Johan was granted a voluntary departure order that would allow him to be flown back to Honduras and reunite with his family.
Not all of the children are so lucky. Many cases are still ongoing.
No child should ever be separated from his or her family. To make that child stand in court and expect them to speak for themselves, as well as understand such a complicated matter in a language they do not speak, is downright horrendous. Children are innocent; they cling to their toys and bottles during courtroom proceedings. What does the U.S. attorney general want them to do—pull up their diapers, drop their sippy cups, and launch into a long-winded explanation of why they are in the country, in perfect English?
That won’t happen because these children are children—children who are stuck in a country they don’t know, and are scared because their parents are nowhere to be found in an unfamiliar place.
If Trump is willing to do this to children, the most innocent and needing of protection of us all, then the question must be asked: are any of us safe from his wrath?
The answer for immigrants and asylum seekers, it seems, is no.
