This Look Inside Trump’s ‘Shelter’ For Incarcerated Child Migrants is Harrowing, And We’re Monsters if We Ignore It

Rachel DickerJun 14th, 2018, 1:24 pm
 

Last night, NBC News’ Jacob Soboroff released chilling photos of the inside of one of the shelters for detained child migrants after the zero tolerance policy which has separated hundreds of children from their parents at the southern border.

The particular shelter shown in these photos, called Casa Padre, houses almost 1,500 migrant boys ages 10-17. It is a converted Walmart.

These photos have horrific undertones and they absolutely need to be addressed.

What are we to make of this mural of President Donald Trump with the message (in both English and Spanish so the kids will be sure to understand): “Sometimes by losing a battle you find a way to win the war”? Does it mean that the kids have lost the battle to be with their families to win the war of keeping our country safe? If so, this is racism, pure and simple.

None of these boys, according to Soboroff, have ever been members of MS-13, the immigrant gang Trump and his cronies are so terrified of, and these children were simply looking for asylum in the country which promises it to everyone.

Make no mistake: these are different policies than those under President Barack Obama. According to former Department of Homeland Security official Peter Boogaard, “On the illegal immigration side, [the White House under Trump] shifted dramatically from a policy of focusing on arrest and removal of serious violent criminals to a policy of targeting any individual who is here without legal documentation.”

Indeed, this is a shelter, and the vast majority of the boys here crossed over the border unaccompanied, but for the children separated from their parents, this is a prison in which they have difficulty reaching their families – it can take days, or even weeks, to get them on the telephone, according to the Washington Post.

Now, this is where things get truly heinous. Sure, the shelters want to keep track of these boys (the government seems to have difficulty accounting for the children in their care), but putting barcodes on their wrists and scanning them for meals? This is dehumanizing; this is straight out of a historically treacherous playbook, branding numbers on prisoners. They have names; use them.

Similarly, children are given towels to shower with that show letters corresponding to each boy: A, B, C, D. A child is not Child A. Small expediencies like this belie how those in charge view these kids. They’re letters, numbers, figures. Soboroff reports that they receive two hours of time outside: one hour of structured exercise, one of free play. Then it’s back into the shelter. This can’t be how we want children to grow up in our country, citizen or not.

According to Soboroff, a shelter worker wanted reporters to smile at the kids because “they feel like animals in a cage being looked at.”

That’s because they are.

Stop separating children from their families. Stop putting them into makeshift shelters that used to house jumbo packs of Bagel Bites rather than kids. Treat migrant kids like human beings, not prisoners.

We can’t abide this. Our national morality is badly cracked. If we turn a blind eye to this, it will shatter.

[image via screengrab]

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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