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If you have images looping in your mind of children, cold and sitting on concrete floors, sick and begging for their parents, you are not alone. Like most of you, I am horrified and outraged by the reports of #MigrantChildren being held in crowded and unsanitary jails. (THREAD)
For the last ten years, gang violence in the northern triangle of Central America has increased. Children are the most vulnerable to gang violence. Young boys are expected to join the gangs around the time they reach puberty, and girls are chosen as the gang's sexual property.
gang members. If anyone in the family refuses advances by the gangs, they will be murdered. Gang members act with impunity and in many cases, have infiltrated police departments.
The families we see coming from Central America are faced with an impossible choice: stay and be raped, tortured, or murdered, or make the increasingly treacherous journey to safety in the United States, the only nearby country where gangs and cartels are not in control.
Faced with a slow rise in Central American migrants, the Trump Administration has taken various steps that have led us to the current crisis of chaos. Here is a chronological snapshot of actions taken by the Trump administration since early 2018:
1. “Metering” or “turnbacks” – Border patrol rejects asylum seekers who come to the ports of entry asking for protection, leaving them with two choices: remain in Mexico without shelter, food, or water, or enter without inspection.
2. Enacting Zero Tolerance – prosecuting all individuals who choose option 2 and enter without inspection.
3. Family separations – using the zero tolerance prosecutions as an excuse for ripping children from parents, then backpedaling on the policy after public outcry last summer. Many families remain separated from the haphazard way the policy was implemented without tracking.
4. Continuing to separate migrant relatives who are not parents (aunts, uncles, siblings, grandparents, parents of children over 18), adding to the number of “unaccompanied” minors in DHS custody.
5. Implementing hurdles to release of unaccompanied migrant children in DHS custody to a family member. For example, requiring a background check of anyone else living in the home where the child will be residing, and processing those who come forward for deportation proceedings
6. Rather than focusing resources on the efficient and humane processing of migrant children and families, the admin revokes humanitarian resources (like legal representation, soccer, and English lessons) and holds migrant children in
border patrol processing facilities, now notorious for their awful conditions thanks to federal litigation providing oversight to the facilities by Plaintiff’s counsel in the #FloresCase.
7. Seven children have died in DHS custody since last year compared to ZERO in the previous TEN YEARS. #MigrantChildren
This is how you can help these migrant children: (Image: Kristen Gunn) lincolngoldfinch.com/how-non-attorn… 
