Lost Children

This should be front-page news in all newspapers, not just one unknown source in Arizona. This is unbelievably shameful and deeply immoral:

The Trump administration recently announced a new, get-tough policy that will separate parents from their children if the family is caught crossing the border illegally. It was a big news story. So big it overshadowed the fact that the federal government has lost – yes, lost – 1,475 migrant children in its custody.

I have no doubt that this will all be blamed on Trump and nobody will suffer any consequences.

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25 responses to “Lost Children”

Shakti

May 25, 2018

Of course people blame/credit Trump. This is what Trump voters voted for, don’t forget. They positively relish this shit. But as for consequences, that’s simply not true. The 1475 children are already suffering consequences.

Another story
Alma Jacinto covered her eyes with her hands as tears streamed down her cheeks.

The 36-year-old from Guatemala was led out of the federal courtroom without an answer to the question that brought her to tears: When would she see her boys again?

Jacinto wore a yellow bracelet on her left wrist, which defense lawyers said identifies parents who are arrested with their children and prosecuted in Operation Streamline, a fast-track program for illegal border crossers.

Moments earlier, her public defender asked the magistrate judge when Jacinto would be reunited with her sons, ages 8 and 11. There was no clear answer for Jacinto, who was sentenced to time served on an illegal-entry charge after crossing the border with her sons near Lukeville on May 14.

Parents who cross the border illegally with their children may face criminal charges as federal prosecutors in Tucson follow through on a recent directive from Attorney General Jeff Sessions to prosecute all valid cases, said U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Cosme Lopez.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection started referring families caught crossing illegally for prosecution several weeks ago, Lopez said. Those prosecutions unfold both in Streamline cases and through individual prosecutions.

On Thursday, Efrain Chun Carlos, also from Guatemala, received more information than Jacinto when he asked Magistrate Judge Lynnette C. Kimmins about his child during Streamline proceedings.“I only wanted to ask about the whereabouts of my child in this country,” Chun said.

Kimmins responded she didn’t know where his child was and suggested he ask officials at the facility where he will be detained.

Christopher Lewis, the federal prosecutor at the hearing, told Kimmins that children from countries that are not contiguous to the United States will be placed in foster care with the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

“When they will be reunited, I cannot say because that’s an immigration matter,” Lewis said….

….In an April 6 memorandum to federal prosecutors, Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy for first-time illegal border crossers. On May 7, he said the Department of Homeland Security was referring 100 percent of illegal crossers for criminal prosecution in federal court.

“If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you,” Sessions said. “It’s that simple.”

He included parents who come with their children in his directive.

If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child may be separated from you as required by law,” he said.

Criminal prosecutions of parents illegally crossing with their children have unfolded in Texas for several months, as have separations of families through civil immigration measures along much of the U.S.-Mexico border, according to media reports….
In an interview with National Public Radio, White House Chief of Staff John Kellly said family separation could be a tough deterrent, “a much faster turnaround on asylum seekers.”

The children would be “put into foster care or whatever,” Kelly said in response to criticism that taking a mother from her child is cruel and heartless.

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Stringer Bell

May 25, 2018

“Of course people blame/credit Trump. This is what Trump voters voted for, don’t forget. They positively relish this shit.”

Yup. I didn’t get Clarissa’s point.

Abolish ICE.

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Clarissa

May 25, 2018

Seven million people wrote letters denouncing their friends, neighbors and co-workers as foreign spies at the height of stalinism. None of them ever took any blame for their actions. It was all Stalin’s fault.

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1. Stringer Bell
  
  May 25, 2018
  
  Ok. So if heads don’t roll in ICE over this, can we say that this is exactly what trump wanted and that he is doing exactly what his supporters want him to do?
  
  I see more concern from you over the possibility that Michelle Obama may run for president one day than the reality that trump is the current president.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    May 25, 2018
    
    “So if heads don’t roll in ICE over this, can we say that this is exactly what trump wanted”
    
    Bureaucratic inertia. I’m all in favor of putting the heat on the officials and firing probably jailing them and ranting about Trump is a distraction from that.
    
    In communist countries the periodic re-evaluations and discreditations of former or dead leaders let everyone blow off steam without actually challenging the system.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      May 25, 2018
      
      Yeah, gosh, I grew up with these constant discussions of first Brezhnev, then Andropov, then Chernenko, then Gorbachev, etc where people would ridicule, express outrage, rant, accuse, mock, etc. And nothing would ever change. And once there was a real opportunity for change, those very people resisted it and sabotaged it at every turn.
      
      I’m so immune to these collective obsessions with the adored / detested / ridiculed / worshiped / condemned leader because I’ve seen it play out again and again and again. And our Brezhnev was maybe a little bit worse than Trump. Just a little bit. Like cancer is worse than a cold sore.
      
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    2. Stringer Bell
      
      May 25, 2018
      
      “I’m all in favor of putting the heat on the officials and firing probably jailing them and ranting about Trump is a distraction from that.”
      
      How? How are these things causally related? Who exactly is going to ‘put the heat on the officials’? Random bloggers or people, who, you know, actually decided upon the policy of separating children from their parents? How is exposing the terribleness of the policy a ‘distraction’? Do you think the people in charge will be like yeah we were going to find those kids, but now the the NYTimes has a story out, we’re distracted.
      
      “Those in charge need to be grilled and the children need to be found. ASAP.”
      
      Who’s going to do this, exactly?
      
      ” Put other crap aside.”
      
      There is no ‘other crap’.
      
      Man, these anti-anti-Trumpers have fucking lost it.
      
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      1. cliff arroyo
        
        May 25, 2018
        
        “Random bloggers or people, who, you know, actually decided upon the policy of separating children from their parents? How is exposing the terribleness of the policy a ‘distraction’? ”
        
        Call your elected representatives with the message “Find the kids!”
        Organize protests (single message “Find the kids!”
        Let everybody know about the children (without diluting the message with rants about Trump)
        Retweet/repost/write about the issue in the ways you can
        Recruit public figures
        Raise awareness about the kids
        Flash mobs whenever the fuckers in charge of ICE show up anywhere chanting “Find the kids!”
        
        The key to successful protest is specific demands made to people who have the power to meet them. Anything else is cosplay.
        
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Shakti

May 25, 2018

Some version of this story appeared in The New York Times, and Time

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Evelina Anville

May 25, 2018

According to the linked article, these 1,475 children were “lost” in 2017. This is indeed a gigantic tragedy. But how is this not linked to Trump’s policies? This seems a direct outgrowth of his aggressive immigration policies.

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Clarissa

May 25, 2018

We Resist, Day 1,256,987.

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1. Evelina Anville
  
  May 25, 2018
  
  I don’t think I understand your response. Does this mean you think the lost children from 2017 are not related to Trump’s policies? Or that McCewan is criticizing the wrong things?
  
  This is exactly what the voters with so-called economic anxiety wanted and what Trump essentially promised. And this does mark a more agressive change from our previous (already terrible) immigration policy. I am just confused as to this can possibly not be connected to Trump.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    May 25, 2018
    
    People are using this to fuel their Trump-deathcult addiction.
    
    It’s awful and ICE sounds like a terrible agency even by the very low standards of government agencies, but the focus should be on pressuring them to find the children. Instead they’re blissing out on Trump hatred and nothing improves (just wait for the revolution! oooh Trump farted again! impeach impeach impeach)
    
    Those in charge need to be grilled and the children need to be found. ASAP. Put other crap aside.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      May 25, 2018
      
      It’s very possible to get a lot done if people start posting about this, asking questions, flash-mobbing. If this is the most talked about issue for a week, I’m betting these kids will start getting located pretty fast.
      
      That’s the effort I want to participate in. The effort of “let’s get together and state how much we dislike Trump for the bizillionth time” is not the effort I want to participate in.
      
      I’m not trying to prevent people from participating in it but I got over that particular way of spending time three days after the inauguration.
      
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      1. cliff arroyo
        
        May 25, 2018
        
        “That’s the effort I want to participate in”
        
        But that’s hard and liable to end in heartbreak
        
        “not the effort I want to participate in”
        
        But that effort makes people feel good.
        
        Where in whichever dystopian novel predicted that the masses would be manipulated and kept in their place by pleasure – we just didn’t anticipate what the pleasure would be.
        
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  2. Clarissa
    
    May 25, 2018
    
    I’m sorry, I’m just not interested in expressing outrage over the evilness of Trump. I know it’s a popular pastime but that’s not popular with me.
    
    In the post I wanted to discuss something I consider important. It didn’t work out because it’s like conversations in the midst of World Cup finals. No matter what you bring up, people end up discussing the game. It’s tiresome for those who are not fans but what are you going to do.
    
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Shakti

May 25, 2018

Remember these children and their parents were here legally

From your article:
The Office of Refugee Resettlement reported at the end of 2017 that of the 7,000-plus children placed with sponsored individuals, the agency did not know where 1,475 of them were.

From the ORR website:
The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) provides new populations with the opportunity to achieve their full potential in the United States. Our programs provide people in need with critical resources to assist them in becoming integrated members of American society.

ORR benefits and services are available to eligible persons from the following groups:

Refugees
Asylees
Cuban/Haitian entrants
Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) holders
Amerasians
ORR’s Survivors of Torture program provides rehabilitative, social, and legal services to individuals – regardless of immigration status – who have experienced torture which occurred outside the U.S.

ORR also provides care and placement for unaccompanied children who enter the United States from other countries without an adult guardian.

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Stringer Bell

May 25, 2018

https://twitter.com/PhilipRucker/status/999980883456221184

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David Gendron

May 25, 2018

I wholeheartedly agree with Clarissa here: following “orders” is not an excuse.

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UDR

May 25, 2018

Trump didn’t personally hand select every government employee involved in this process, and from the sounds of it, many of these children were separated from their families before he was elected. The foster care system in the United States is deeply flawed, and people “adopting” children who don’t speak English in order to exploit them was hardly unheard of before Trump was elected.

I’ve known of multiple cases where foster children were severely malnourished and even kept in cages for years before anyone caught on.

The Hart women weren’t Trump supporters, and yet it didn’t save the foster children in their care.

But instead of doing actual difficult research and investigations into the systems in place that repeatedly victimize the most vulnerable in our population, we’re going to hear how this is all because of “Trump and his supporters” and in the next 5 minutes get 12 more stories about porn stars the president has screwed.

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Clarissa

May 25, 2018

Exactly. When Trump’s presidency ends,it’s not like any of these people will magically lose their jobs or the system will instantaneously repair.

Anybody who’s been in touch with the foster system says it’s been broken for a very long time and has been going from bad to worse. We can’t solve every problem on the planet by voting once in a president election. We already had Obama and saw that one person, brilliant and well-intentioned as he might be,won’t single-handedly repair absolutely everything. Or even a whole lot.

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Dreidel

May 25, 2018

UDR is right. This story isn’t “news.” It’s been an on-going American tragedy for decades — at least since I got involved in mental-illness-related cases of horribly treated foster children as a civilian psychiatrist in 1970’s California.

The article that Clarissa references addresses ICE-related cases involving illegal immigrants, but it’s a system-wide problem in state and federal government agencies that are supposed to be protecting children. Among other reasons, it’s due to the lack of government funding for child-protection agencies, resulting in an inadequate number of underpaid social workers and other state/federal employees who are poorly trained, not given much attention to when they do rarely raise issues, and aren’t rewarded for actually protecting children rather than filling the minimal requirements of their job position.

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 25, 2018
  
  And that’s precisely what I wanted to discuss. If people seriously think that Trump getting impeached tomorrow would somehow make these children reappear or prevent these situations from happening in the future – I don’t even know what to say to that.
  
  There will always be situations where children are removed from their parents’ care. Trump or no Trump, that is the reality. What happens to those children and how they are treated is an ongoing issue. It didn’t come into existence last January. Foster care is sometimes a direct pipeline to sex trafficking. And it’s not a new situation.
  
  https://polldaddy.com/js/rating/rating.js
  
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  1. Z
    
    May 26, 2018
    
    Also, CBP under Obama was pretty bad. Trump is cheerleading for this but did not start it. The Ohio egg farm child trafficking scandal was under Obama’s watch, for instance.
    
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