No path forward for migrant kids

MICROSOFT STAFF PROTEST I.C.E. CONTRACT

NO CLEAR DIRECTION Republican Party divided on controversy of family separation as lawmakers fear backlash over issue in upcoming midterm polls

Trump administration officials have said they have no clear plan on how thousands of children separated from their families at the border will be reunited as outrage and anger grew over the crackdown on illegal migrants that has resulted in infants being held at detention centres.

“We’re still working through the experience of reunifying kids with their parents after adjudication,” said Steven Wagner, an acting assistant secretary at the department of health and human services.

Since the White House announced its “zero tolerance” policy, more than 2,300 children have been taken from their parents at the US-Mexico border. Joaquin Castro, a congressman from Texas, tweeted after a visit to a detention centre that the youngest child he had seen separated from his family was eight months old and had been at the facility for more than a month.

Republican leaders in the House of Representatives are trying to pull together a revised version of a broad immigration bill that will mandate keeping immigrant children in detention indefinitely, but housed with their parents. In the Senate, Republicans are backing a narrower bill that will allow detained families to stay together in custody while expediting hearings and possible deportation proceedings. Trump has said he is “1,000%” behind the rival bills.

Officials set up hotlines and an email contact for parents seeking information about how to find their children but rights activists called for families to be reunited, citing the long-term emotional impacts of such separation. “They should just give the kids back to their parents. This isn’t difficult,” said Lee Gelernt of the American Civil Liberties Union.

American Medical Association CEO James Madara demanded an end to the separations in a letter to the Trump administration. He said childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences created by inhumane treatment often create negative health impacts that can last a lifetime.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow broke down live on air while describing the “tender age” shelters. After trying to get through the first few sentences of a report, she ended her segment by saying, “I’m sorry. I think I’m going to have to hand this off.”

Business leaders condemned the “zero tolerance” policy, with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg saying he is donating money to groups that provide legal advice and translation services for immigrant families at the border.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai tweeted that the stories and images about separated families were “gut-wrenching”. Apple CEO Tim Cook said in an interview the policy is “inhumane” and must stop. In a joint statement, the founders of Airbnb said separating kids from their families is “heartless, cruel, immoral and counter to the American values of belonging”.

Conservative-leaning business lobby groups also weighed in. The Business Roundtable, which represents the CEOs of Walmart, General Motors, Boeing, JPMorgan Chase and Mastercard, called for an immediate end to the policy.

About a dozen protesters heckled homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen about the separation policy as she ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington on Tuesday. The protesters entered MXDC Cocina Mexicana and chanted “Shame!” and “End family separation!”

A video posted on Facebook showed the protesters yelling: “If kids don’t eat in peace, you don’t eat in peace.” Nielsen paid her bill and left after about 15 minutes.

Trump faced the ire of Democratic lawmakers during a visit to the Capitol on Tuesday to discuss immigration with House Republicans. As Trump left the session, a half dozen Democrats confronted him and yelled, “Stop separating our families!”

Pope Francis too criticised the policy, agreeing with US Catholic bishops who called the separations “immoral” and “contrary to our Catholic values”.

SLAVERY*

Before its abolition, children of black slaves were born into slavery and could be sold by owners at will. Families often never saw the children again after they were sent away. To resist, slave families regularly ran away together but faced harsh physical punishment, even death, if caught by slave hunters

NATIVE AMERICAN BOARDING SCHOOLS

In 1890, the US Army slaughtered 150 Native American men, women and children and forced families to send their children to government or church-run boarding schools. The objective was to “kill the Indian in him and save the man”

POVERTY

During the early 1900s, US states sometimes pulled children from poor families and placed them in orphanages. This practice was only overturned in the 1930s, after activists began promoting the idea that children should not be separated from their families. However, Native American and black families were still split up by authorities Illegal border crossers detained by US border patrol agents at the central processing centre in McAllen, Texas.

OTHER COUNTRIES

NAZI GERMANY#

During World War 2, the Nazis abducted Polish children they thought were "Aryan-looking" and moved them to Germany for their "Germanisation" — their indoctrination into becoming culturally German. An estimated 200,000 such children were abducted

AUSTRALIA AND IRELAND**

Through much of the 20th century, unmarried mothers in Australia and Ireland were obliged to give up their children, with an estimated 150,000 “forced adoptions” in Australia between 1950 and 1975. In Ireland, 60,000 kids were separated from their mothers

ARGENTINA**

In the 1970s, the right-wing military government waged a “dirty war” against its political opponents. Hundreds of children born in prison or left orphaned by police operations were placed with adoptive families, and Argentina is still grappling with the scandal In an open letter posted to Microsoft’s internal message board on Tuesday, more than 100 employees protested the software-maker’s work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and asked the company to stop working with the agency, which has been separating migrant parents and their children at the border with Mexico.

“We believe that Microsoft must take an ethical stand, and put children and families above profits,” said the letter, which was addressed to the chief executive, Satya

Nadella. The letter pointed to a $19.4 million contract that Microsoft has with ICE for processing data and artificial intelligence capabilities. Calling the separation of families “inhumane,” the employees added: “As the people who build the technologies that Microsoft profits from, we refuse to be complicit. We are part of a growing movement, comprised of many across the industry who recognize the grave responsibility that those creating powerful technology have to ensure what they build is used for good, and not for harm.”

The letter is part of a wave of tech workers mobilising this week against the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy that has resulted in about 2,000 children being separated from their migrant parents, raising an outcry. NYT

WASHINGTON: