Treatment of migrant children goes beyond rule of law

The opioid crisis has taken more lives in Ohio than any other injury, including motor vehicle accidents, since 2007. In 2017, Ohio had the second-highest rate of opioid related deaths in the U.S. These statistics barely scratch the surface as many people are living with the effects of opioid addiction, which are often most keenly felt by the most innocent among us — children.

Ohio newspapers have reported on the opioid crisis tearing families apart, traumatizing addicts’ children and overwhelming the foster care system. Now, imagine if the state decided that since their parents committed crimes, these children could be held in overcrowded cages, without beds or blankets.

Imagine they were sent to private, for-profit facilities where children were left to care for each other without basic necessities like soap and toothpaste. Imagine visitors left complaining about the stench.

I am joined by my colleague, Karen Hall, a foster mother and the director of LL.M. Program in Democratic Governance and Rule of Law at the Pettit College of Law at Ohio Northern University, in expressing our concern that these children are being traumatized. Trauma comes with a lifetime of consequences, including increased risk of chronic illness, inability to form appropriate attachments, mental health challenges and increased risk for adopting unhealthy coping mechanisms, including drug and alcohol abuse.

The punishing conditions these children are experiencing are likely to elongate into life sentences. Nonetheless, given that the foster care system is overwhelmed all across the country, we are not suggesting that migrant children be diverted to the foster care system. Rather, the time has long come for compassionate policy that reunites these children with their families promptly.

For years, Christian groups have lobbied the United Nations to designate the family as the basic unit of society. The protection of children is of such paramount importance that forced removal of children is identified as one element of genocide.

Those holding children in these conditions have relied upon the rule of law as a justification. We need look no further than the words of Martin Luther King Jr. to refute this. He said: “There are two types of laws: just and unjust . ... Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.” The conditions in which these children are being held is degrading, dehumanizing and in direct contradiction to a full understanding of the American conception of the rule of law.

Professor Hall notes that “the American rule of law rests on a higher foundation than merely following laws as passed. We endeavor to uphold the values of the Founding Fathers. Thomas Jefferson wrote of ‘unalienable Rights’ — ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ The conditions the immigrant children are living in are not happy; they are not even safe. Moreover, they directly contradict the American value of recognizing every human being’s inherent dignity.

“America has been a leader in promoting the rule of law abroad. This unconscionable treatment of children is an affront to that legacy.”

Every argument that has been made about the crisis at the southern border can be made in support of such a plan for Ohio’s foster children. The horrid treatment of the children on the border is no more justified than it would be if the children in question were those rendered vulnerable by the opioid crisis.

In a speech King delivered at Ohio Northern more than 50 years ago, he said: “It may be true that morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated . ... (W)hile the law may not change the hearts of men, it does change the habits of men . ... When you begin to change ... habits ... attitudinal changes begin to take place, and they begin to adjust ... to things that they never thought they could adjust to. There is still a need for vigorous legislation ... to deal with many of our social problems.”

While King was calling for legislation to overcome the impediments of slavery and Jim Crow, it is incumbent upon us to call upon our elected officials to bring a swift end to the suffering of children happening on our borders. If we fail to do that, we may well find that we have “adjust(ed) ... to things that (we) never thought (we) could adjust to.”