Protesters: Kids are pawns
As Trump administration separates kids from parents, activists say what he wants is his wall, border security
The crowd shouted to free the children.
The question that went unanswered was what political deal might be brokered to do it.
Ahead of President Donald Trump’s meeting with congressional Republicans on Tuesday, activists and the simply incensed gathered at a place that has become ground zero in an escalating debate over immigration.
Their message: Children housed in tents outside El Paso have become little more than human bargaining chips.
Although many Republican lawmakers distanced themselves from the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents, the prospect of political movement did not quiet protesters. Rather, it stoked suspicion of deal-making amid the outrage over this impact of a relatively new “zero tolerance” policy on the border.
“They are totally using these children
for political games,” said Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights, ahead of a march estimated to include more than 100 or 200 people under a hot summer sun through part of El Paso to a federal processing center for undocumented immigrants. “He is using this opportunity to use children to trade off for border walls, to trade off for more Border Patrol, more ICE agents.”
Tuesday’s demonstration was the second in three days around this part of West Texas, where the federal government erected an encampment last week to house undocumented children in a vivid manifestation of the recent policy toward immigrants caught without paperwork.
The crowd, while smaller than a march outside the facility in Tornillo, Texas, on Father’s Day, reflected how emotional the issue has become. It drew young parents with their children, grayhaired activists, at least one member of the New Mexico Legislature — Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Las Cruces — union members from the National Nurses Organizing Committee-Texas and priests sweating it out in black attire in the summertime heat.
For a time, the crowd blocked a gate to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office, demonstrators hoisting up letters spelling “CLOSED” while chanting to release children housed in Tornillo and other facilities.
“Our government has declared war on immigrants and is using babies and children as pawns to build the useless border wall,” said Monsignor Arturo Bañuelas, pastor at St. Mark Catholic Church in El Paso.
The federal government has for years placed children who entered the country without parents or guardians into a nationwide network of shelters.
But U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ adoption of the zero tolerance policy on the southern border means virtually all adults who enter the country without permission are to be criminally prosecuted.
Children cannot be sent to federal jail, so parents who are prosecuted are separated from their children.
The federal government has said about 2,000 children were separated from adults between mid-April and late May, and families continue to be split up.
The federal government turns over the children to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement, which says it then sets about finding a sponsor for each child — another parent, adult sibling, relative or “appropriate home.”
That is the agency running the tent encampment at Tornillo, about 40 miles east of El Paso, that can hold up to 360 minors and could expand. Official photos from inside have shown bunk beds, a large cafeteria and a clinic.
Federal officials have said the children housed there so far are unaccompanied teenage boys. But advocates for those children have disputed that — contending some entered the country with their parents but are being treated as unaccompanied minors under the zero tolerance policy.
Either way, a number of political officeholders, including Republicans, have decried the practice.
Others, such as Gov. Susana Martinez, have defended it. Martinez told the Albuquerque Journal last week: “We don’t let people who break the law continue to be out breaking the law simply because they have children.”
And others have maintained that imposing a zero tolerance policy on the border is not mutually exclusive with keeping families together.
“Congressman Pearce is absolutely dedicated to finding a solution where families can be kept together and the broken immigration system can be fixed,” said Kinsey Featherston, press secretary for U.S. Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M., who is running for governor.
The debate over immigration and how to treat those who come to the country illegally is nothing new for this border community. What is different, at least these days, are the sort of policies that have given rise to the facility in Tornillo.
“This is definitely new,” said Virginia Diaz, an El Paso nurse who joined the protest Tuesday.
And she pegged it squarely to the zero tolerance policy.
“It has been a tremendous issue that has come up unexpectedly where there are thousands of parents being separated from their children,” she said.
For Diaz, though, the issue is near to her heart. She works with mothers and children.
“When you separate children from their parents, it brings great trauma to them,” she said.
Meanwhile, about 40 miles away, a top New Mexico lawmaker showed up to see for herself the facility that had drawn international attention.
“It’s very antiseptic-looking in a lot of ways. You just see white tents. You don’t see a lot of movement,” said New Mexico Senate President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces.
Papen was looking for a tour. Some lawmakers got a look inside in recent days. After talking with federal officials, Papen was ultimately turned away with the prospect of visiting some other time.
“I worry about them mentally,” she said of the children inside.
She added: “I think this is a pawn that is being used to get something else done.”