The Time To Act Is Now

Children should not be separated from their parents. Period. The world watches as images of immigrant children are seen detained ‘in cages’ and heard screaming for their parents. The Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy is being heavily criticized for separating children from their families that illegally cross the United States border.

Separating families is traumatizing for both child and parent, and leaves the child vulnerable to abuse by those who are supposed to care for them in the absence of their parent’s. Furthermore, the longer this policy remains in effect, the more children are at-risk of victimization and human trafficking. No parent should endure this. No child should experience this. Families belong together. Therefore, the time to act is now!

References:

Friedmann, S. (2018, May 28) How To Help Immigrant Kids Who Are Taken From Their Parents At The Border, Bustle, Retrieved from https://www.bustle.com/p/how-to-help-immigrant-kids-who-are-taken-from-their-parents-at-the-border-9235833 https://www.bustle.com/p/how-to-help-immigrant-kids-who-are-taken-from-their-parents-at-the-border-9235833

Gonzales, R. (2018, May 23) ACLU Report: Detained Immigrant Children Subjected To Widespread Abuse By Officials, NPR, Retrieved from https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/23/613907893/aclu-report-detained-immigrant-children-subjected-to-widespread-abuse-by-officia

Phillips, K. (2018, June 16) ‘America is better than this’: What a doctor saw in a Texas shelter for migrant children, The Washington Post, Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/06/16/america-is-better-than-this-what-a-doctor-saw-in-a-texas-shelter-for-migrant-children/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.2819c22abe64

Additional Reading:

Galston, W. (2018, June 18) As Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy backfires, Republicans are in jeopardy, Brookings, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/06/18/trumps-zero-tolerance-immigration-policy-puts-republicans-in-jeopardy/

Photo Credit: freeGraphicToday, Pixabay, License: CC Public Domain

Aneeta Pearson, MSW, MS