All Families Need to be Reunited

Many children of immigrants stopped at the border have been reunited with their families.  This is 24 hours after the court ordered deadline to reunite the families.  The Department of Homeland Security has failed to meet the deadline for all families.

It would seem to me that when they planned to take children away from their parents they would have also asked, “What happens when they need to be returned?  What happens when we deport the parents, shouldn’t the kids also go with them?”

But, according to an article on ABC on line:

[Asked if deported parents would see their kids again, officials from the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Health and Human Services told reporters they are under "no obligation to bring people who have no lawful status in this country back into this country for reunification."] (1)

Department of Homeland Security feels no obligation to reunite the children with their parents.  If the parents were being deported, they should have found the children of those parents and deported all of them together.

Now, Homeland Security thinks that they have no obligation to reunite them. (I know I keep repeating it, but it needs to be repeated:  No obligation to reunite.)

In any policing action, and this is a policing action, once the accused is arrested or detained, the arresting agency takes responsibility for the safety, health and wellbeing of the detained.  In this case, both the parents and the children are being detained.  The rules of arrest should apply to both the parents and the children.

[It doesn’t matter whether you are a police officer transporting a prisoner from a street arrest scene, a police officer picking up a prisoner for court, a police officer transporting a sick inmate, a detective taking a prisoner out of lock up to a remote site for an interview, or an airport police officer holding a person for transport, you are now responsible for that prisoner’s “care and wellbeing.”] (2)

What, I ask, could be more important to the wellbeing of an individual then their children when detained?  And, it follows, what could be more important to the children who are separated from their families then the wellbeing of being reunified with their families?

The excuse of having no obligation is a cop out.

What is to happen to these children?  Are they to languish in detention forever?  Will they be placed in a home with a family that wants to adopt them?

Family adoptions by care givers in the United States, so says the Supreme Court by not reviewing a case of family reunification, is okay. (3) (How can an Immigrant Mother Loose Her Child in Court?) 

This is kidnapping.  (Kid, being the operative word here, and not in jest).

This is also cultural conversion because the Department of Homeland Security thinks the children staying in the United States and being sent, in some cases, to a Christian organization, to watch over them is better then their home country, home culture and their parents. (4)

Here is what needs to change:

• If families are separated from their children, for any reason, the detaining agency must make plans to reunite the families.  This is to be applied no matter what happens to the parents.

• Separation at the borders must stop.  While there is an executive order that says that families are not to be separated, I believe it is still happening and needs to stop.

• ICE needs to be reorganized, not abolished.

• The legal concept that you have no (or limited) rights at the border, as a citizen, as a legal resident, an immigrant, tourist or any other label, needs to be changed.  While ICE does have the responsibility to render an opinion on the status of the individual, they are merely police.  They are not to be the final judgement of an individual’s right to enter the country.  Only a federal court can make that judgement.

The current administration is overreaching its authority on border security.  Since ICE and the Department of Homeland security can stop, question and arrest anyone within 100 miles of the United States border, this overreaching is providing an authoritarian control over millions of peoples lives and breaking families up.

(1) https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immigration-border-crisis/feds-won-t-say-if-they-will-reunite-kids-deported-n890886

(2) https://www.policeone.com/suspect-transport/articles/1362257--In-your-care-and-custody-When-police-officers-become-corrections-officers/

(3) https://getpocket.com/a/read/2235743716

(4) https://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2018/06/michigan_impacted_by_trump_adm.html

How Can an Immigrant Mother Loose Her Child in Court?

I can provide hundreds of links to the Republican Party that states they are the party of families.  We all know the mantra of the party.


So, how is it possible that immigration, the courts and the adopted parents can allow a five year old child to be kept away from his mother?


What you say?  Read this link.

From the article, "A Missouri judge ruled the boy should stay with the Missouri couple, Melinda and Seth Moser, who took him into their home five years ago while his mother was in federal custody, where she attempted in vain to oppose the adoption proceedings."

Full disclosure here, I am an adopted child.  I was forcible taken from my mother at birth and given to another family.  The reason for the removal of my mother's parental rights were all lies provided by people that didn't want my mother to raise me.  (Yes, I have documents about the case.  I now know who my mother was and she was not as they said she was.)

In this woman's case, because she did not have proper representation at hearings, she lost her rights.

Shame on immigration for not keeping families together.

Shame on the courts for allowing such a thing to happen.

Shame on the adopted family for not supporting keeping families together.

Shame on you President Trump for allowing this to happen.