The nature and scale of the separations being seen on the Mexican border is nothing like what we have ever seen before anywhere
Natural calamities and war are no longer the only reasons that leave large numbers of children homeless and orphaned. Thanks to a disastrous recent change in US domestic policy, we have created nearly 2,000 unparented children in the past six weeks. Most parents will know the anguish a child feels when left alone even for a while. I am a working mother of a seven-month-old boy, who gets anxious if separated from me for more than even 24 hours. But between April 19 and May 31 in the US, 1,995 children were separated from 1,940 adults at the border to Mexico. In fact, in the six months preceding this period, more than 700 families had also already been separated. While there is no exact data on the age of these children, human rights organisations report that many of them were toddlers and babies.
Their plight is a consequence of a Trump administration crackdown that detains only the adults who are illegally crossing the US borders. These adults are being criminally prosecuted — a change to a long-standing policy of charging the crossing as a misdemeanour offence. Meanwhile, the children travelling with them are being forcefully separated and classed as unaccompanied minors. The separated children are passed on to the US Department of Health and Human Services, that is supposed to transfer them to government detention facilities or foster care, a difficult plan to execute as these are mostly running full house already. The administration has also said that it has selected a site in Texas to shelter the migrant children in canvas tents. In many cases, the children have been returned to their families after the parent was released from detention. Whereas there are still several children being kept apart for undefined periods of time.
Previous to this crackdown, families would usually be detained together in all other parts of the world, including the US. Migrant family separations anywhere have been rare and few. Children would not be separated from their parents, breastfeeding infants would not be torn away from their mothers. And so, the nature and scale of the separations now is nothing like what we have ever seen before anywhere. The situation has aroused a swarm of emotions across the world and social media is abuzz with reactions to what essentially is a consequence of callous policy. And predictably, there are advocates on both sides of the fence.
Those opposing the policy are aghast at the ruthless and cruel treatment meted out to the children. The policy lacks even the full support of the Republicans. For instance, House Speaker Paul Ryan, the Congress’ highest-ranking Republican, said he was not comfortable with the tactics. House Republicans have pitched a draft immigration legislation that would stop the separation of children and parents at the border, such that families would be detained together. The Bill is a compromise between moderates and conservatives, as the proposal has provisions to protect 1.8 million Daca ‘Dreamers’, eliminate the diversity lottery, and add $25bn for border security. Initially, Trump said that he will not sign the Bill — sending tempers soaring on this issue, and then later the White House announced that the President had misspoken and would back both measures.
On the other hand, supporters of the separations argue that every day in the US, hundreds of children are taken from parents who commit crime. They say that now that illegal migrants are being criminally prosecuted, it is therefore only fair and natural to have the same arrangement set up for them too. They support the strong action being taken against anyone who dares to illegally usurp space and opportunity in a country that is not one’s own. There have been some who have taken an extreme stance, spewing venom at the hapless disposition of the children who have been separated from their parents and have no place to live in an alien country. It is possible to find comments on social media that mock and hiss at the separated children, one such even asking for killing these children and donating their organs. Viewed from no matter which side of the fence, the jeering and belittling of these separated children is abhorrent.
The reason why I am penning this disastrous situation in the US in a newspaper distributed in India, is not just to inform, provide details, or give data. Instead my intention is to point out how national boundaries, political institutions, and legal procedures that were created by humans have assumed a position of power that is stronger than humanity itself.
We created systems of governance — be it tribes, kingdoms, or national boundaries safeguarded by democratic institutions — to provide some sort of order that allows each of us to live and let live together. But the situation in the US is an example of how yet again we have become prisoners to the institutions of our own making. So much so that for the sake of governance, we have relinquished our most primordial instinct of nurturing.
Miniya is the author of Indian Instincts: Essays on Freedom and Equality in India, Penguin Random House (2018), and the CEO of Sustain labs Paris, the world’s first sustainability incubator.
Email: miniya@labsparis.com