Separating Children from Parents as Policy? Really?
Photo by Will Hedington via Wikimedia Commons
We’ve all seen the images of the migrant children who have been separated from their parents at the border and are living in pens in detention centers. We’ve read reports of their distraught parents, and of various government officials being turned away from the detention facilities. We’ve heard heart-wrenching audio of children sobbing for their parents, and of one young girl reciting a carefully memorized phone number and pleading to make a call to her aunt. And we’ve heard the stories of parents who have been deported without knowing where their children are being held or when they might see them again.
As a nurse, I worry about the acute and long-term health effects that this horrific experience will have on both parents and children.
As a mother, I cannot think about what these parents must be feeling without a knot forming in my stomach and my eyes tearing up—it’s a parent’s worst nightmare.
As a rational person, I cannot understand how any politician could think such actions would make for good policy.
As a citizen, I am grieved to see this unprecedented level of callousness, lack of empathy, and disregard for basic human decency from our government leaders. I’m ashamed […]
