Friends,
The images emerging from this weekend are heartbreaking. They are of children in chains, treated not as human beings but as disposable problems to be erased—yes, including small children.
Over the Labor Day holiday, the Trump administration attempted to secretly repatriate hundreds of unaccompanied Guatemalan minors.
It took the intervention of Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan—woken up at 2:30 AM last Sunday—to halt this illegal deportation. Her emergency order stopped what would have been a middle-of-the-night expulsion of children stripped of their rights. Thanks to the tireless advocacy of the National Immigration Law Center and their defense of what our law itself terms “children of tender age,” they were spared.
As NILC attorney Efren Olivarez reminds us, the vast majority of these children’s cases remain open. They have not received due process. They are still entitled to hearings, to protection, and to the hope of asylum. For the U.S. government to circumvent the law and attempt to disappear these children in the dead of night is not just unlawful—it is unconscionable.
How dare our government heap even more cruelty on young people who have already endured trauma, displacement, and who are now retraumatized?
We must remain vigilant, we must remain outraged, and above all, we must continue to defend the rights and dignity of immigrant children.
I always appreciate Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez' reporting on Democracy Now! Read my earlier September 1 blog for more information.
-Angela Valenzuela
No comments:
Post a Comment