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Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

  • 1.  Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-07-2021 12:50 PM
    Children are kept in plastic cages, they have no place to play or move amongst the matrices on the floor.

    Every child has a right to safety, protection and a future, regardless of who they are or where they're from.  Yet open boarders has placed many of these children in the harmful and unsafe Federal "shelters". 

    Words are not enough.  We must act to make sure these children are safe, are united with family or placed in foster care.  There is no policy, no programs in place to handle the current volume.  Instead, children are living like sardines, in filthy conditions.  These children are living without proper food, medical care, and most importantly without human kindness.... at cost of $60 million per week.   Apparently a lot of money can be made housing immigrant children.

    Despite Americans UNITED CALL for IMMIGRATION REFORM - no president, no administration, no Congress has seriously taken action.  All that remains are soundbites.

    These children are not cattle.
    These children are not the next slave culture.

    Where is the Outrage?


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    Mary Ann Biermeier, M.Ed.
    Phoenix, Arizona
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  • 2.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-08-2021 10:09 AM
    If this is what is happening, is there a lack of outrage because Americans don't know what is happening?   Are organizations dedicated to the health and well being of children investigating this situation and getting involved  in and/or advocating on their behalf?  Are those in power able to do something to address these matters?   If so, what are they doing or not doing?

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    Christine Wigren
    Jamestown NY
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  • 3.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-09-2021 08:23 AM
    It's not IF this is what's happening. It IS. There are groups dedicated to funding and providing the children with lawyers and court fees in order to help get them out. There are groups working with foster agencies for those released so they have care until their families are found for them to be reunited. It's not enough. There are terrible stories coming out of these centers, but nothing major is being done. Biden mentioned that he would address the issue, but so far, many are still living in these awful prisons.

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    Melinda Rossi
    ECSE
    Denver CO
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  • 4.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-10-2021 04:20 PM
    It is outrageous and it has continued for years, despite whatever administration promises are being made.  The outrage only comes when the media targets it for their own best interest and ratings.  Unfortunately, there are many other civil liberty and civil rights issues that are given higher priority by our government, media, culture and citizens.  It is also unfortunate that there are not enough foster homes and families to support the children in need, whether they are our current neglected and abused children already in the system or immigrants in these horrible border situations.  I do not know how to change public perception of the true crisis at hand and get people charged up for real change for our young ones, who are also our future leaders.

    Follow the money and see where the priority lies.  What is really happening with the 60 million per week.  Where are the audits?  Where is the transparency?

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    Connie Richard
    Hartly Family Learning Ctr
    Hartly DE
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  • 5.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-19-2021 04:52 AM
    I don't want to get too political; neither the Right nor the Left can claim a moral high-ground, if for no other reason than we'd not be able to agree on a definition of what it means...

    The news media has been one major source of disappointment. I think more investigative journalism is needed to tell the country about the children at our border. We need to see their faces, understand their stories, and have some semblance of a clue as to the future they'll meet with. What is becoming of these kids? What have they endured to get here? What is it like for them after crossing? If alone, what/who is taking them? It makes me angry to type this and not know. We're being kept in the dark and we desperately NEED to be part of this. When will NBC or ABC open the border up to US -- the American people?

    Once we're all allowed to SEE the SAME situation for what it is, and once we can SEE little faces instead of hearing the word "unaccompanied minors" (found alone...dropped over wall...rescued from smugglers), I think (hope) things will change, for the sake of these kids. As a county we need to prepare for them -- together. I don't say this as a signal that I condone or encourage illegal and dangerous border crossings, which I do not, but we know enough to know the damage has been done, something isn't right, and enough is enough. We need to know the TRUTH.

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    Lindsay
    Billings MT
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  • 6.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-19-2021 02:54 PM
    Thank you for carefully crafting your response as kind and certainly thoughtful.  You are right in stating that caring for our children - all of our children - should never be a political statement.  At every turn we should call out Media and elitism when talking points suggest what is happening at our borders - for decades now - is somehow political.

    Nothing happens now, no policies are established, without the elite financially prospering.  It is the old adage, just follow the money and you will find the truth.

    Words are not enough, words will not save these children.  The shame is breathtaking.

    115 - 118 degrees this week in the Sonoran Desert.   The Border Patrol reports that infants arrive in backpacks, many will no survive.

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    Mary Ann Biermeier, M.Ed.
    Phoenix, Arizona
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  • 7.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-20-2021 11:30 AM
    Here is a site with ideas for responding to the outrage:

    https://www.standup4humanrights.org/migration/en/toolbox.html

    ------------------------------
    Nora Krieger, PhD
    Associate Professor Emerita/Past Chair NJEEPRE
    Bloomfield College/NJ Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia
    Highland Park, NJ
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  • 8.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-21-2021 12:05 PM
    I look forward to reading what the UN website shares. https://www.standup4humanrights.org/migration/en/toolbox.html

    Thank you.

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    Lindsay
    Billings, MT
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  • 9.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-23-2021 12:56 PM
    Actually, lack of outrage, was the post....

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    Lindsay
    Billings, MT
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  • 10.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-20-2021 07:31 AM
    For a long time, I think that the TV news media and print media have been highlighting as much as they can about the situation at the border for young children and teens who are being held. Unfortunately, many people in our country do not see these babies, young children, and teens as "one of us" - humans deserving of our empathy and understanding. They are seen as "the other," just as the folks who left their homes in the 1930s due to the Depression and the dust bowl were seen. When officials in the last administration decided that the folks at the border were not "humans", not like us, then taking children and separating them from their parents became easy and because they were not viewed as human, records of where these young children were sent have been very hard to ascertain.

    Labeling these children as unaccompanied minors or illegal aliens or criminals as has been done in the recent past takes away their humanity.

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    Nora Krieger, PhD
    Associate Professor Emerita/Past Chair NJEEPRE
    Bloomfield College/NJ Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia
    Highland Park, NJ
    ------------------------------



  • 11.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-21-2021 11:58 AM
    "Unfortunately, many people in our country do not see these babies, young children, and teens as "one of us" - humans deserving of our empathy and understanding. They are seen as "the other," just as the folks who left their homes in the 1930s due to the Depression and the dust bowl were seen."

    Those are some blanket statements that people could seriously be offended by. I thought we were trying to stop offending people. You're a Ph.D. Please, share with us where you find the information to support the claims above...I want to learn what I can. But remember, we are addressing current concerns over the lack of outrage considering what is happening to children on their way to, at, and now over the border today.

    (And is there a more equitable name that you suggest we use for children who don't have their parents with them? Unaccompanied Minors means children traveling alone, correct, even in airlines?)

    (And please, if time allows, further clarify how opinion on our current immigration concerns relate to those of Depression-Era movement?)



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    Lindsay
    Billings, MT
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  • 12.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-21-2021 12:28 PM
    I believe the lack of outrage comes from not hearing/seeing the stories behind the migrants and refugees, not understanding what would bring all these children with or without their parents to our border.

    I am sorry if you think I am writing something offensive. I hear your anger at my post and I would like to understand why you are so angry at my suggestion that stories are the way to raise outrage - humanizing their plight, putting a face on the migrants/refugees.

    The media does not share these stories. Their focus is mainly all about walls and in some cases calling these people and their children all kinds of offensive names. I am not going to debate with you where I have heard these offensive references to the migrants and refugees at the border. 

    For me, I keep thinking about what it must take for a parent to send their young or teenage children out by themselves to seek entrance to the USA.

    In my other post, I put a link to an organization that is working on humanizing the experience of refugees throughout the world.

    My comparison to the Depression-era and the Dust Bowl is not about current immigration but about how people can be perceived and treated based on assumptions about an entire group based on the behavior of a few. As for the Depression-era and the Dust Bowl, American citizens left their States because they were starving and unable to grow any crops because there was a severe drought and dust storms that made people sick. If you have read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck or the more recent novel by Kristen Hannah, The Four Winds, you will see how these Americans were viewed as criminals, useless, etc. That treatment reminds me of some of the comments I hear on some media outlets.

    ------------------------------
    Nora Krieger, PhD
    Associate Professor Emerita/Past Chair NJEEPRE
    Bloomfield College/NJ Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia
    Highland Park, NJ
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  • 13.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-21-2021 02:43 PM
    Respectfully, we must do our best not to become offended by this conversation.  This conversation shames us all.  We don't like to feel this way.  Moreover, we cannot possibility have all the correct words to describe what is happening to these children.  Remember nothing can solved if we cannot talk about it.  Focus on solutions. 

    We can agree our systemically, unjust immigration system promotes migration based on all the "goodies" available to these children and their cartel families.  Screening "families" through interviews and blood tests should not be set aside because of the volume of migrants. Or some kind of delusion of violating people's rights.  Many of these children have been kidnapped, what about their rights?  The best policy always focuses on the children.

    HHS runs the Unaccompanied Refugee Minors program. This program provides migrant children with:

    "Programs focus on the safety, education, well-being, and self-sufficiency of minors in their care. Services are based on state child welfare requirements and ORR regulations and policies".

    Programs may provide:

    • Indirect financial support for housing, food, clothing and other necessities
    • Intensive case management services by social workers
    • English language training and education
    • Independent living skill development
    • Educational Training Vouchers
    • Health, dental, and mental health care
    • Job training and career development skills
    • Cultural orientation and social integration
    • Preservation of ethnic and religious heritage
    • Safety planning
    • Coordination of immigration assistance
    • Family tracing and reunification
    Most families living on the edge of poverty, most middle class children, here in America do not have these benefits. There is no nation on the planet that offers all these goodies.  In fact, most nations you must prove you will not use social services, that you have a marketable skill, and can self sustain.  Although we are paying $60 million a week for these programs, it is clear that HHS does not have enough facilities and people to deliver care at this level.

    1. We need to hold HHS accountable.  This is a tremendous investment.  Shine some light on where the money is going.  I believe it is called, "transparency".

    2. We need policy makers to urgently work and finally pass comprehensive immigrant reform.  Many thinktanks and multiple administrations have put forth solutions (see below). Yet Congress is unable to act.  For decades failed to act.  Why?  Demand Congress stops using the lives of these children as a political ploy.  We talk about wanting a fair and just America...  Lets start here.

    3. Prosecute criminal activity.  Not the people trafficked across the border.  Rather, prosecute American businesses, American organized crime, Cartels, Media, politicians and law enforcement on the take.  We don't need more laws, we need to enforce our laws. This is not a banana republic. 

    These shameful practices have gone on too long, at the benefit of the Cartels and organized crime.  

    Finding the right solutions requires asking new questions.  If you ask the right questions, you will create the right solution.  This is the reason organizations really need diversity of thought and experience.  Often the best solutions are presented through the "outliers" - those folks not typically invited to the conversation - people who think and react differently than you.

    There is outrageous levels of funding at Universities and "Thinktanks" to find solutions to mass migrations across the globe.  If you google it, you will be astounded at the number of publications, articles, research papers, statements of intent, on and on.  WHY ARE WE NOT PUTTING RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE? 

    • Center for Immigration Studies: https://cis.org/
    • U.S. Customs & Border Protection - by the numbers: https://www.cbp.gov/sites/default/files/assets/documents/2021-Apr/cbp-snapshot-mar-2021.pdf
    • U.S. Customs & Border Projection - Southwest Border Crossings Multi-Year Comparison: https://www.cbp.gov/newsroom/stats/southwest-land-border-encounters

    • Migration Policy Institute (thinktank): https://www.migrationpolicy.org/about/about-migration-policy-institute

    • Migration Studies at:
    Oxford University
    University of San Diego
    University of Sweden at Linkoping
    London School of Economics and Political Science
    University of London
    University of Spain at Barcelona
    George Mason University
    Harvard


    Are we to believe that all of these entities have no great ideas?  Yep, nothing to see here.  Apparently Congress believes this to be true... immigration is just too tough a nut to crack, blah, blah, blah.   How long will we accept these excuses for Congress not doing their jobs?

    How about Congress spending less time investigating each other?  How about Congress taking up less air time with the talking heads Media? 

    Imagine with all this new found free time Congress could investigate solutions at hand.  I am sure the Immigration PhD's would be happy and pleased to offer their services.  Clearly we have enough House staff members on the payroll:

    House Judiciary Committee on Immigration

    House Judiciary Committee on Immigration and Citizenship

    House Homeland Security Committee on Border Security




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    Mary Ann Biermeier, M.Ed.
    Phoenix, Arizona
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  • 14.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-21-2021 03:27 PM
    I totally agree with you about the will to address this problem. Congress is not focusing on this issue. Yes, they would rather be obstructionists.

    I have been trying to point out that one way to raise awareness and humanize the border situation is to highlight the plight of these children and families. Tell their family stories and keep telling their stories. Send letters to the editor in newspapers, write articles, do whatever will bring attention to the border situation with children and families.

    One group, through the UN (I posted the link), has suggested we highlight the stories of the struggles to escape danger in their home countries and catastrophes like multiple hurricanes in some places.

    I see that you have posted that there is a lot of money available to study the situation. There has to be a will to change policy and to address immigration as a whole. I have not seen a general will - at least not in the reporting about this crisis at the border. It has been many years since politicians have been willing to work together on this tragedy. It did not happen yesterday. And, yes, it is costly.

    Please, can everyone just stop comparing the plight of the children at the border to our own children and families. Could we do better with our own young citizens? Of course, we could and should. This is not a one-up game. One does not preclude working on other issues related to children.

    ------------------------------
    Nora Krieger, PhD
    Associate Professor Emerita/Past Chair NJEEPRE
    Bloomfield College/NJ Educators Exploring the Practices of Reggio Emilia
    Highland Park, NJ
    ------------------------------



  • 15.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-28-2021 08:03 PM

    I am confused.  The last time I read this thread I thought that the discussion was about whether or not preschool children should be required to memorize and say the Pledge of Allegiance each day.  My opinion was that the Pledge was too abstract, and that there are other ways of teaching pride for our country.  My immediate suggestion was to teach the song THIS LAND IS MY LAND by Woody Guthrie.   It is plain and simple and gives visual images of our beautiful country. 

    The second issue was whether or not preschooler should be required to memorize and recite anything.   I am in favor of children learning songs, poems, and etc.  However, they should be age appropriate.  I also suggested that classrooms could make up their own pledge to be good students, kind people or anything that the individual classroom decided was important to them. 

    Now I feel that the discussion has abandoned its main focus and has adopted individual personal agendas.  To be totally clear, I am not dismissing the important discussion of people who are looking for political freedom or a better life as not important subjects.  It is vitally important, but not here.  Whether you say the Pledge or not is a personal right that we citizens should get to choose for ourselves.  And, we have that right because we are all blessed that most of our ancestors chose to come to the United States to live, despite the hardships they had to face.  However, I am not sure how to fix the problem of others wanting to come here.  Ideally, we could just open all our boarders.  But it is important to be able to handle whatever issues you choose to resolve.  If we were a ship and we let everyone come aboard with no plan, then we would all drown.  When you are on an airplane, they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first and then save the rest of your family and fellow passengers.  Panic and disorganization are what kills, not our empathy!

    With that being said, our great country is not perfect.  We have not offered fair and equal education or opportunities to our current citizens.  And, while I would like to take in new people, I would like our political leaders to develop an actual working plan.  And, that this be done as we make sure that we are providing our current citizens their rights and opportunities. 

    I do not have the answers to this important global issue.  But we should stop and remember that allowing citizenship in our country has always been an issue.  Practically every ethnic group has suffered discrimination and hardships trying to come to here.  Nothing has really changed except for the amounts of people needing our assistance.  And, in the past we have turned away many desperate and deserving people.  We have rounded up and placed innocent people into detention camps.  Read your history books.  And, remember that we study history in order to not make the same mistakes over and over. 

    I am not wise enough to help these people.  Maybe we should invest in their countries, or bring some people here for better training and education and then send these people back to their original country with a plan to improve it.   I do not know what should be done, but I do know that whatever we do decide, it must be a conscious, deliberate and thought-out plan that can actually help rather than cause more ciaos. 

    The one thing that I am sure of is that we need to work on respecting others.  That it doesn't matter about skin color, language or cultural differences.  And, this idea of learning that everyone is important can and should be taught in preschool.

     



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    Sylvia Poretsky
    Teacher
    Weinberg Early Learning Center
    Atlanta GA
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  • 16.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-21-2021 03:10 PM
    How about "Children Seeking Reunification" as a better label than "Unaccompanied"? 

    First of all, acknowledging that they are children speaks to their humanity and vulnerability much more than the term "Minors".  I also think that "Unaccompanied", intentionally or not, implies that the parents of these children are "not there", and somehow acting irresponsibly.  "Unaccompanied Minors" is a term that obscures the humanity and the struggles of people approaching/crossing our borders for asylum or to reunify with parents and extended family. I feel comparison to the term as used by the airline industry sort of misses the heart of this discussion.

    Words DO matter, and labels in particular have a way of dehumanizing.  In 2013, the Social Security Administration replaced the term "mental retardation" with "intellectual disability" to reflect the widespread understanding that "mental retardation" has negative connotations, and has become offensive to many people, and often results in misunderstanding about the individuals to which it is applied. So while technically "accurate", the term was felt as damaging to the persons who were labeled.

    I would like to add, that my view of US immigration is informed by my personal relationships with many individuals and families during six years teaching of English as a Second Language in Nevada. Knowing the stories of these brave, hard-working, honest newcomers has given me a very positive view of immigrants. My heart has been touched by the suffering of separated families and the difficulty of having no reasonable path to citizenship. 

    I agree that many people currently enjoy the luxury of not thinking too much about marginalized groups, that we tend to "buy" whatever narrative is put out by the "flavor" of the media we consume.  The current level of violence against minority groups and immigrants definitely signals that fear and hate have been amplified. Educators must rise above these so called, "culture wars" and be a force of change toward a kinder and more tolerant world.

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    Sally Root
    QRIS Coach
    The Children's Cabinet
    Carson City NV
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  • 17.  RE: Cruel Treatment of Children at Our Borders: Where is the Outrage?

    Posted 06-21-2021 12:00 PM
    "For a long time, I think that the TV news media and print media have been highlighting as much as they can about the situation at the border for young children and teens who are being held."

    And can you point us in the direction of these media sources today? Where is the coverage? I just don't see it like -- I think -- we should be seeing it. I have a feeling a lot is being kept from the public, which could explain why there isn't the outrage we had with the previous administration's treatment of people at the border.

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    Lindsay
    Billings, MT
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