Campaign Action
The Trump administration has been on a gaslighting campaign regarding its policy tearing children as young as 53 weeks old from the arms of immigrant parents at the U.S./Mexico border, both claiming that the policy is the fault of Democrats (lie), and that there is no policy at all (even bigger lie). It’s an insult either way to moms like Jocelyn, an asylum-seeker whose son, James, was stolen from her by the federal government in Texas and taken 1,000 miles away to Chicago last August:
Jocelyn speaks to him only once a week, she said, and recently has grown even more worried because his case officer informed her they are medicating him to help his nerves. She's worried about the trauma this is causing the 14-year-old.
Trump has been separating families at the border since last year, clearly, but Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III formally announced the policy last month. “According to the D.H.S.,” the New Yorker reports, “six hundred and fifty-eight children were separated from their parents between May 6th and May 18th.” But children were already separated before that, including James and seven-year-old “S.S.”, torn from her mom despite the family passing an initial asylum screening:
Jocelyn, on behalf of herself and hundreds of others, is suing several federal agencies, claiming it's illegal for the government to keep families separated for no legitimate reason after a fit parent has served a sentence -- three days to two weeks -- for the misdemeanor of illegally crossing the border. Jocelyn's case, [American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney Lee Gelernt] said, is only the tip of the iceberg.
"Literally 3-, 4-, 5-year-olds screaming, 'Please don't take me away from my mommy,' and being ripped away," Lee said. “I’ve seen months,” Laura St. John of the Florence Project told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, “where a parent had no idea where their child was after the US government took their child away.” This is a crisis, and it’s happening before our very eyes, and with our tax dollars.
It shouldn’t take research to prove it, but family separation is deeply traumatizing for kids. “Children who have been separated from their parents,” the Center for American Progress reports, “frequently show signs of trauma, including anxiety, depression, frequent crying, disrupted eating and sleeping, and difficulties in school.”
Even before being sent to a facility, an ACLU and International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago School of Law report scanning years of internal government documents, accessed through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and litigation, showed children have been abused, physically and sexually, by immigration agents:
… Children allege that agents assaulted them with their feet, fists, flashlights, and Tasers. In one case, an agent ran over a 17-year-old with a patrol vehicle and then got out and punched the child in the head and body. Often, children noted that other agents witnessed the abuse or saw the injuries but refused them medical attention. In one case, agents accused a pregnant minor of lying about the pain — which turned out to be labor contractions preceding a stillbirth.
In a National Day of Action for Children today, thousands of outraged Americans are expected to rally across the U.S. to demand that the Trump administration keep families together, ensure safety and fair representation for all children and youth, and that Congress defunds Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP). Click here to find and join a rally near you, and click here to call your member of Congress. Jocelyn and many other parents are depending on us:
Though she's in a court battle to be reunited with her son, Jocelyn still hopes to be granted asylum after fleeing her native Brazil because of domestic violence.
Asked whether she has second thoughts about crossing that border now that she hasn't seen her son for so long, she said, "This is a hard question to answer. If you're on that side, it's horrible. And if you're on this side, it's also horrible.”