The images are heart-wrenching: toddlers in tears, a chorus of children’s voices wailing for their mothers and fathers, boys sitting forlornly in cages. In April, the Trump administration put into effect a “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that is escalating into a human rights crisis at the United States’ southern border. With the new policy, the administration is prosecuting as many people crossing the border as possible. Many of these migrants cross the border with children. As The Washington Post explains, when the adults are prosecuted, they are taken into Department of Homeland Security (DHS) custody. The children are separated from the adults, their parents, in most cases, and are placed in internment centers or “tender age” shelters since children cannot be detained by DHS. According to The Washington Post: Adding it all up, this means the Trump administration is operating a system in which immigrant families that are apprehended at the border get split up, because children go into a process in which they eventually get placed with sponsors in the country while their parents are prosecuted and potentially deported. Human Rights Council, Spiritual Leaders Call For Policy’s End Journalists have traveled to the detention centers where these children are being held. The images and reporting have sparked outrage around the world. “The Department of Homeland Security facilities do not meet the basic standards for the care of children in residential settings,” the American Academy of Pediatrics stated in a released document. The head of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council called separating these migrant families “unconscionable,’”… [Read full story]
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