OPINION

Separation anxiety

Nation reacts to Trumped-up assault on families

Once you've heard the recording of wailing children supposedly held in a U.S. border detention facility, how can anyone ignore the abominable federal policy that put them there?

The recording began airing Monday, providing an excruciatingly plaintive voice for immigrant children separated from their parents at the U.S. border under a controversial "no tolerance" policy.

Children sob inconsolably for their mothers and fathers and beg for help to reach a relative on the recording allegedly made last week in a border facility.

"No tolerance" means adults caught illegally crossing the nation's southern border are arrested and incarcerated, even if they are seeking asylum when they cross. Accompanying children are dispatched to separate detention centers under the policy that has come under increasing criticism nationwide.

To be clear, the U.S. is allowing some who present themselves at ports of entries and request asylum to come in. Apparent staffing limitations at the border, perhaps intentionally, cause many of these immigrants to be turned away at ports of entries. They're told to come back but many try instead to cross the border somewhere else.

Many of these people are desperate to escape the crime-ridden Central American countries from which they've trekked. Commonly, they have exhausted their resources to get to the border and live in fear of being killed before they can reach asylum.

This is a long-running problem, addressed differently under other administrations than it is being now.

Despite President Donald Trump's assertion that Democrats are to blame, this policy was put in place by the Trump administration and can be stopped by the president.

The policy is simply unacceptable, un-American, as so many are saying. That message has been repeatedly delivered by Republicans and Democrats alike, including former First Lady Laura Bush.

In a column for the Washington Post on Sunday, she called the zero-tolerance policy "cruel" and "immoral" and said the U.S. government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tent cities in the desert outside of El Paso.

She was reacting to the first public images from the border, images provided by the government of young male immigrants, some held in chain-link cages.

"These images are eerily reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of World War II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history," she wrote, emphasizing that the treatment inflicts trauma on the children.

The former first lady's voice may resonate with more of the nation's policy-makers, but she is hardly the only one urging a "kinder, more compassionate and more moral answer" to the current immigration crisis.

The American Academy of Pediatrics' director, for example, visited one of the shelters. While the children had beds and toys, she said people working at the shelters were instructed not to pick up or touch the children to comfort them.

Pity those workers who have to carry out the policy, to cause such agony in families and to suffer along with the children they can't comfort. They're shouldering a heavy burden on behalf of this government.

Many Americans say the separation practice is child abuse, warning that these immigrant children may face lifelong trauma as a result.

Remember, those government-controlled images from within detention facilities were concerning enough to draw Laura Bush -- and all the other living first ladies -- into the debate.

An increasing chorus of U.S. lawmakers is speaking out, too, against separating families, although President Trump has been digging in to enforce the policy.

Nevertheless, the newly released recording should propel even greater efforts to end the separation of immigrant families.

When, and if, the American media get unfettered access to the detainees, there will be more such evidence. For now, the press and the public, even members of Congress, get to see and hear only what the Trump administration allows.

Meanwhile, that recording of a handful of the more than 2,000 children separated from their parents at the border stands alone to give voice to their agony.

Initially released by ProPublica, the audio recording was obtained from a civil rights attorney whose unidentified client made the audio recording. The client asked to remain anonymous.

Give it a listen at www.propublica.org. Then imagine your own child or grandchild held in the same situation, unsure when or if they would be reunited with their parents.

Is this how you would want them treated?

If not, join the outcry to the president and to Congress to stop the separation of these immigrant families immediately.

Commentary on 06/20/2018

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