Shelter separated siblings "to stop them hugging"

[Graham Kennedy]

Source

When Antar Davidson was ordered to separate two brothers and a sister tightly hugging each other, he realized his time as a youth care worker at an Arizona immigrant children’s shelter was coming to an end.

“I was told that they should not be able to hug,” said Davidson, “and (I) basically realized that being in Southwest Key would mean — continuing to remain there, despite the good I was doing — would mean that I had basically come up to doing things I felt were morally wrong.”

Davidson spoke out Monday night and Tuesday morning with CNN about his former job at Southwest Key, a non-profit group that runs 26 immigrant children’s shelters across Texas, Arizona and California.

The former shelter employee explained how the job sharply changed after the Trump administration began its zero-tolerance policy toward illegal immigrant crossings. The new policy has had the immediate effect of separating parents from their children with an unclear process for getting them back together.

Previously, the children coming in to the shelter were better behaved and relatively calm, Davidson said. Overall, these children had been prepared for the journey and knew that they would spend some time in a shelter and then would be reunited with their parents, he explained.

But about six weeks ago, he started to notice more children coming to the shelter who were extremely distressed, erratic and showed signs of trauma.

“Over the past six weeks, they’ve been seeing more and more kids who weren’t prepared for the situation, that were basically lifted from their parents’ arms,” Davidson said. “And as such, they were running around and crying for their mother and basically generally displaying signs of trauma, as any child would who doesn’t know where they are or where their parent is.”

I wish I could say I was surprised.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I'm not, and all the sadder for it. Angry, too.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

This is a window into the heart of the American Conservative. The same Republican congressman and president are targeting the part of the ACA (which they brand "Obabacare" derisively) which guarantees coverage for pre-existing conditions. Trump's dept of Justice under Jeff Sessions is not defending the administration against a lawsuit put forth by 20 Republican state governors designed to blow up that law and throw American healthcare into disarray (apparently a coalition of Democratic state attorneys general have filled the void).

[Vic]

Ya know, if it isn't the right manufacturing crisis after crisis it's the left doing so. Do you know why they do? To CONTROL you. Oh look, it works swimmingly, remember the last time they used children as a foil?

The question should be, "what are they distracting you from now?", but nobody here will ask that question. Why? Because everybody here is firmly ensconced in their little echo chambers not realizing that they just might be locked in.

It becomes quite irritating that you can't make people THINK FOR THEMSELVES! Ah hell, just go back to your Thought Masters so that they can insert some new outrage to yell righteously about.

[Mikey]

Ya know, if it isn't the right manufacturing crisis after crisis it's the left doing so. Do you know why they do? To CONTROL you. Oh look, it works swimmingly, remember the last time they used children as a foil?

The question should be, "what are they distracting you from now?", but nobody here will ask that question. Why? Because everybody here is firmly ensconced in their little echo chambers not realizing that they just might be locked in.

It becomes quite irritating that you can't make people THINK FOR THEMSELVES! Ah hell, just go back to your Thought Masters so that they can insert some new outrage to yell righteously about.

All of which is another “echo chamber,” locked into a rather hackneyed iteration of “Look at the man behind the curtain!” Whether or not you believe that any particular news item is manufactured, or the moon landing was a hoax, or contrails are government weather control, the fact remains that it’s OK to call a spade a spade.

The real issue as I see it is that we are conflating politics with morality. Wrong is wrong, and excusing wrong is wrong, no matter which side does it or what the agenda is. Don’t like illegal immigration? Fine, but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about enforcing it, and there is nothing partisan about calling out our government when they do it in a morally abhorrent manner.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

The real issue as I see it is that we are conflating politics with morality. Wrong is wrong, and excusing wrong is wrong, no matter which side does it or what the agenda is. Don’t like illegal immigration? Fine, but there is a right way and a wrong way to go about enforcing it, and there is nothing partisan about calling out our government when they do it in a morally abhorrent manner.

As much as I see a kernel of truth here, I have to point out that it gets hard to put this in practice because there is no universal view of morality. Take "freedom." Just about everybody will say it's a moral concept but then ask them what it means and things get murky. It turns out there is no universal definition of this thing called "freedom" and definitions vary tremendously, and largely along lines corresponding with political views. Both those on the left and right think their side's agenda is moral (and the others immoral) despite the huge divide between their positions. Even using simpler concepts like fairness (also universally thought moral) doesn't improve things too much, because they can be applied in different ways to serve different overarching views of the world.

I'd certainly like to believe there's a middle ground where society can begin to apply your principle (after all politics aren't always as toxic and divided as they are now) though getting back there is easier said than done. The reason a seemingly abstract topic like politics is argued on like it's deeply personal is because it is in fact tied to deeply personal principles.

[Mikey]

Of course you're right, and I was prepared for someone to ask me who is to say what's right or wrong. Short answer: I am. Anyone has every right to disagree; but my opinion is the only one I have to give, and by definition I believe the rectitude of my own opinion. Otherwise, it wouldn't be my opinion. Further, the are certain things about which my position may technically be an opinion, but about which I will adhere adamantly about the concrete and unassailable de facto factual nature of that tenet: Hitler was bad, Josef Stalin shouldn't have manufactured the Ukrainian famine, white folks shouldn't have interred loyal American nissei in concentration camps, or as the song says, "If you had the luck of the Irish, you'd wish you was English instead." There are many other examples, but you get the idea.

[Vic]

Well, the U.S. has survived worse storms in it's history, I can only hope that the trend continues. There are times that I hope that my time on this planet is done before this country falls to tyranny, left or right.