Back when I separated children from their parents

by | Jun 18, 2018 | Editor's Blog | 8 comments

All the talk of separating children from their parents brought back memories of doing just that. In the early 1990s, before I started my political gig, I worked as a child neglect and abuse investigator. During that time, I removed several children from their homes and saw it happen numerous times. Every time was traumatic. That our government is doing it as policy to deter illegal immigration instead of protecting the safety of children, is outrageous.

When we removed children from homes, we did it because we felt the child was in imminent danger or that the parent lacked the capacity to protect the child’s safety. We would first try to place the children with relatives. If none were available, they went into foster care. While some foster parents were great, others just wanted the paycheck that came along with the child.

Several times, my investigations included foster homes. The damage to the children was painfully evident, especially when we split up siblings because no foster homes were available to keep them together. My cynical and tasteless joke was that we were creating the next generation of criminals.  That cynicism was unfair to the children, some of whom survived and eventually thrived, but the system of breaking up families left lasting damage.

Now we’re doing it as a matter of immigration policy. Seeing the images of children in cages with no adults to comfort them, left me angry and questioning the values of our country. I’m especially disturbed by the people defending the policy. The lack of empathy and understanding and the rush to judgment is contrary to what I grew up believing about the United States.

I was taught that we were the greatest country in the world because of what believed and cherished. While we certainly had our flaws, we strived to be better and to value human life and dignity. We wanted to make the world a better place that encouraged freedom and spread democracy. While we were far from perfect, we had aspirations and people in our government who tried to restrain our worst instincts.

Today, we have people in our government who want the world to know that the ideals we hold dear only apply to those who are US citizens. We’ll humiliate and degrade people who try to breach our borders. They’re not people seeking a better life like our ancestors. They’re criminals who deserve to be locked up and have their families ripped apart.

We’re no longer a beacon of light but an abusive world partner. We’re breaking up families, locking up children, insulting liberal democracies and complimenting brutal dictators. And to too many of our citizens, this is making America great again.

8 Comments

  1. Dana N Courtney

    For a time now I have been revisiting my experiences as a child welfare social worker in two different states and as a house parent in a third state. Painful memories have come the forefront. Much of what you expressed I could have written in my own words. And we wonder about high turnover with child protection staff. Salaries and benefits make a difference in staying in the field, however do not make up for the wear and tear on the body and mind. Never can I remember a child who did not ask to stay with or beg to go back to parents no matter how inadequate the care and sometimes lack of showing parental love. In my experience there was not substitute for the parent or other responsible relative.

    However these days are not about me and my choices. I can not imagine what it is like for the children who are separated by language, culture, geography and more I do not begin to understand. I can hope this time we will remember our past practices and current situation so we will not repeat such pain for children, families and all the rest of us who care about those who do not have choices in their circumstances.

    Thank you for including your experiences and opinions about family policy,

  2. tomcoulson

    A recent Quinnipiatic poll shows that 58% of Republicans support the President’s shameful policy of separating southern border asylum seekers from their children. A spokesman for the poll opined on NPR today (6/20) that this high GOP approval was a function of the degree of polarization of the electorate. He may be right, but what he stated was his opinion, not a fact. I have a different hypothesis: From the first moment of his candidacy for president when he maligned Mexican immigrants, to his subsequent Moslem Ban, to his embrace of Ku Kluxers, Nazis and other scum at Charlottesville, to the disgraceful neglect of post hurricane Puerto Rico, to his reference to s-t hole countries, Donald Trump has gained ownership of America’s overt racists. What part of the 58% approval rate that group takes up is anyone’s guess, but I suspect there are sufficient closet racists in the country to comprise a good part of the rest.

  3. Nortley

    The separation of children from their parents at the border is conclusive proof, if any was needed, that the Republican party’s claim to be the party of “family values” is nothing but a complete and total sham. The Republican party is the most morally bankrupt institution in American, if not the world, and the refusal of its members to even remotely criticize its “dear leader” should send any remaining members it has who have any sense of decency running for the doors. Sadly, they have no members who have a moral compass and the country is in serious decay as a result.

    Remember when Dan Quayle went after a fictional TV character for “mocking the importance of fathers?” Where is Dan and all the other moral guardians of America when a real life person is mocking the importance of parents?

    Oh , right, it’s all a sham. Complete and total hypocrites every last one of them.

    • Arthur Dent

      While I agree that the Republican Party is morally bankrupt, I’m not sure they are the most morally bankrupt. In fact, the word “bankrupt” suggests another candidate for the prize – banks. Some, not all (obviously) of these institutions worldwide invested in a series of derivatives on worthless credit that wiped out billions in savings for people all over the world and virtually none of the victimes received any recompense or apology. For your approval, I submit the global banks that did this to people and probably led to hundreds of murder-suicides of the newly homeless “investors” in real estate and “securities” as another possible candidate for the most morally bankrupt. But the people who say nothing while the removal of children from their families are certainly strong contenders for the crown!

  4. Troy

    It’s really odd and sad that Trumpicans support this at 85-90% of all Trumpican voters. Yet, if we were talking about abortion and the rights of a fetus, the Trumpican screams could be heard all the way to Mars.

    The dysfunction and inconsistency is astounding. You’ve got protection as an unborn embryo from Trumpican voters and the fundamentalist faith community. By law and by Supreme Court decree. But if you’re oppressed and trying to escape being enslaved or murdered, and you’re trying to escape it on your own two feet holding your parents’ hand, well, you’re not much better than a criminal and caged. You have no rights or voice, nor are you entitled to any sort of protection.

    Based on the accommodations, I’m wondering if Trumpicans think they are even human. I doubt it since dehumanizing another makes this all too easy. I can’t wait to see what stage two entails with the Trumpican theology.

  5. Scott

    Southwest Key is a private prison entity angling for more money to be made as this draconian policy of border blackmail, is continued. MVM is another after contracts to imprison children and their parents. MVM is a mercenary company. General Dynamics is also at it, on it after money for their shareholders presumably.

    These companies must be seeing money and more money to be made from prisons for the poor. Starting with the poor of nations US Foreign Policy generates is a canny move since from there it won’t be too hard to just imprison the poor generated through US Domestic policies. It is as easy as during the Grant Administration to buy the government. The privatization policies as applied to domestic unfortunates will mean more poor to prey upon.

    Trump polices, across the board are about privatization. A nation with a thriving for profit prison industry here finds opportunities for expanding their businesses.

    Once the Wall is built and all the poor starving at the doors are choked off from flowing across the borders the for profit prison industry will have grown and built more infrastructure. For those who commit victimless crimes they will become victims of the for profit prison industry. The nation will become more of a mercenary militarized place.

    The Wall will help keep Americans in to be rounded up and imprisoned for new victimless crimes and civil violations. Something will have to be done to enable greater profits from prisons.

    For a dystopian image of the future America try Paulette Jiles “Lighthouse Island”. Otherwise there is just reality as during the US Civil War and Reconstruction. Then again there were the Indian Wars. There was Prohibition and the Capone control of Chicago. Let me see here, which ugly past of the US is more to be its present and future?

  6. Jay Ligon

    Donald is snatching kids at the border and putting them in cages, 20 to a cage. How many cages will Donald need to fill to make America Great Again?

    Trumpism brings long-term pain wherever it is applied. Trumpism is, in essence, is a spree of sadism by bullies and crooks and the application of abuse. Child abuse now on display on a large scale now stands alongside the abuse of women, abuse of the press, abuse of office and abuse of trust in the form of constant dishonesty flowing from the White House.

    While Donald stands like Godzilla over the poor who are fleeing the burning building of political and economic repression in Central and South America, he kneels before other godless monsters in the East – doing the bidding of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. What strange god rules American values today? What tortured logic and what darkness of the soul has invaded the Republican Party? They do not resemble Americans. They do not represent a nation of free and brave people. They do not behave like Christians or moral animals. They pretend that lies are truths.

    What crimes have been committed by infants and toddlers? They held their mothers’ hands when they arrived at the gates of hell. They were then lost in the bureaucratic labyrinth of Homeland Security.

    Donald is an American disgrace and a criminal of international renown, but his fellow Republicans are his co-conspirators.

    • Norma Munn

      Jay, sadly accurate on all counts.

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