When will US brutality against border children end?
Taking children from their parents at our southern border to punish them, to deter families from seeking asylum from violence and unlivable conditions that are pushing families from their homes in Central American nations, is tantamount to kidnapping and a war crime. I am confident that President Donald Trump’s policy will ultimately be condemned by the world, as were the gulags and concentration camps created by the Nazis, the Soviets and other brutal regimes that lost their humanity.
As a former child welfare social worker for Santa Clara County, I had the critical responsibility to assess the safety of children living with their parents. Only in extreme situations, where we feared a child might die or be seriously harmed by remaining in their home, with their parents, would we take the child into protective custody.
Note that I wrote “we” because such a decision could be initiated by the assigned Emergency Response Social Worker, but in consultation with other trained professionals and following a protocol that includes a process that is guided by child welfare laws, legal mandates that respect the rights of the child to live with his/her parents, the rights of the parents to their child, and reviewed by a Child Dependency Superior Court judge who makes the final decision of the case plan for the child and the family.
Every state or county jurisdiction follows similar guidelines, based upon the basic goal of “the best interest of the child.” After a child is taken into protective custody, the social worker writes a petition to the Juvenile Court, clearly stating the conditions of the home, the abuse or neglect by the parent(s), and why it is imperative to remove the child. The petition includes a case plan for the actions that need to occur for family reunification. We do not wish to keep the child, but only to fix the damaging behavior or conditions that endanger the child. Attorneys represent both the parent and the child in court, and expert witnesses are often called to ensure positive outcomes for the child.
Why this cumbersome process? Because children are fragile and must be cared for to the utmost degree. In our business of child welfare, a job that I joyously performed for 30 years, we had a team of dedicated social workers, supervisors, trainers and consultants from other disciplines. After years of such work, I concluded that children are sacred; they do not belong to their parents, but rather are lent by the miracle of birth, for raising them until their own self-actualization, to become who they are destined to be.
The outrageous, despicable practice by Trump’s border agents of taking children, even babies, from desperate parents running from drug gangs, death squads or seeking only to be able to live in peace and provide for their families, must be condemned by all Americans. This policy was initiated by retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, a man who began his “service” by “managing” peasants in Central America and who is now a major investor in the lucrative private camps (prisons) where the charge is $700 per person per day — an incentive to keep the unfortunate victims of the policy.
When will this brutality end? Who will make America compassionate again?