During the administration of President Donald Trump, over 2,000 immigrant children have been separated from their families.
In 2018, those children were separated from their parents, being placed in foster care or with distant relatives. A half of these parents were deported without their children knowing. It was only brought to light when the federal courts ordered that these children be found and reunited with their parents.
The Council of Foreign Relations has revealed that 70 percent of these children are teenagers, but a large percentage of these children are under 10 years old. In the cases of separation since 2018, six of these children have died while separated from their families.
As of last October, federal lawyers have fought to find the families of over five hundred children. Approximately half of these families were deported to Central America and Mexico without their children – further terrorizing these families during an era in which immigration is villainized. Attorneys have been able to contact the parents of 550 children since 2018. Only thirty of these families currently have a chance of coming to the United States for a reunion, however.
The social activist group Justice in Motion is currently touring Mexico and Central America to search for these children’s parents. With the pandemic, however, social distancing and travel restrictions have further complicated the process. Through Justice in Motion’s work, hundreds of parents have been contacted.
The CFR has also revealed that the families and unaccompanied children arrested by immigration officers in 2019 totals around 475,000. While these children are mostly over 15 years of age, the separation of families is still emotionally taxing and some children are unaware of why it is even happening.
The United Nations defines human rights as rights that are “inherent to all human beings – reglardless of race, sex, nationality, ethinicity, language, or any other status.” These rights include the right to life, freedom from slavery or torture, as well as the right to education and work. It could be argued that these rights are being violated in the cases of these children.
By separating children from their parents (and possibly deporting the parents without informing the children), it could be argued that immigration officers are violating their right to liberty. Liberty can be defined as freedom of control, which is the opposite of how these families are being treated. These families are not being granted the right to life, as some of these children are becoming ill or even dying while separated from their families.
The separated children are on the receiving end of emotional warfare, since they often do not understand why they cannot live with their families in detention camps or in their native country. This can be argued as torture, since it is causing thousands of children emotional and mental anguish. By denying children the right to stay connected to their heritage and family, American immigration officers are forcing assimilation onto these children as they are pushed into the foster care system. This can be likened to the erasure of indigenous cultures in the last 300 years.
These families are being denied the right to education because students in foster care have restricted access to school funding and resources. By putting these children into a corrupt foster system, immigration officers are denying them the same educational opportunities as other American children. This could be compared to the “separate but equal” rule during the 1960s, which is now seen as unconstitutional.
Families who choose to immigrate to the United States do so to give their children a better quality of life. This decision is made so that the future generations can have access to education and rights that they may not have in their native countries. Children should not be punished for being given a chance to have a better life. The way that the American government treats immigrant children is cruel, and quite frankly, violates the international rights of these children.
Photo by Jamia Johnson
