As a parent, the idea of our government separating innocent children from their parents is as Laura Bush wrote, "cruel and immoral." The reason for this horrific atrocity is Jefferson Davis Sessions, our nations attorney general. He had the audacity to quote a bible passage to justify his actions. Many have made comparisons to this time in our lives to the beginning of Hitler's regime or the Japanese internment camps. It horrifies me to think we are willing to sit by and let it happen.
The photo of the two-year-old Honduran child weeping as her mother is frisked by law officers is heartbreaking. The photographer that took it was aware of what was going to happen to that innocent child and those tears of separation were only the beginning of this little girl's anxiety. How our president and other politicians in Washington can compare a parent that chooses to break the laws of our nation, to a parent that is choosing democratic freedom from the country she is fleeing, is absurd and is like comparing apples and elephants.
How did we get here? Who is responsible for caging innocent children? What crime did they commit? Imagine the nightmares these small children are experiencing. Not knowing where they are, where their parents are, and in some cases not understanding the people speaking to them. Seeing men and woman in uniforms and guns is what most of them fled from only to end up locked up in a "Closed Wal-Mart" in a cage.
Many advocates have been to the facilities to find young teenage refugees caring for smaller children, children they never met before. The parallel of the prison camps of past wars is grossly becoming a reality. Problem is, there is no war, there is no reason for this abhorrent act.
In a speech, Mr. Sessions gave at the National Sheriffs Association Conference, he tried to backtrack his earlier statement of his willingness to separate families. He stated there is no law and the policy he is referring to is; immigrants that break the law coming into the country is unlawful. It is confusing to me. If there is no law how do these people break it? Men and women are crossing the borders for asylum. Traveling hundreds of miles to get here only to be told they broke our laws. Yet our country is a nation of immigrants and we have a statue in the New York harbor that calls them to come.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Sessions were unable to prevent the Muslim families from entering our country in 2017 and many people battled their rights to not be detained and were granted their ability to travel here. I don't understand why their battle is any different than the families coming into our country from our Southern borders. Where are the lawyers and civil rights advocates? These people, especially the children have civil and human rights to be treated with respect and not like criminals or animals.
We are lucky to live in a country that lets an individual reap the benefits of his hard work. We all have ancestors that struggled to get here. Fought wars, or atrocities to protect their children. Let's not forget that as we go to the voting booths in November. Remember your great-great-grandfather was not born in this country and he came here for the same reason those people are crossing our Southern borders.
There is a poem titled "Home," by Warsan Shiremust. It is about seeking asylum and this line the poem says it all. "No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land."
photo of the two-year-old Honduran child weeping as her mother is frisked by law officers is heartbreaking.
