So You Want Your Kids Back?

We've all heard by now about Trump's policies separating parents and children as they cross the border. It doesn't matter if they're crossing "illegally" or if they're here asking for asylum, which by the way is part of international law as the right of all peoples. Step over the border and kiss  your kids good-bye. It hasn't mattered if they're infants, have Down's Syndrome, or whatever. They're gone.

The next pieces of information that have come across are that Trump has decided it "doesn't look good" (ya think?") and after a month or so, he decided to change his policies. That was quickly followed by testimony before Congress that the government can get into their database and instantly locate any kid in the system.

Problem solved, no?

NO!

Not even close.

It's true that there is a database for adults jailed and awaiting immigration hearings. Not, of course, that there are enough judges in that particular system to make that any kind of a timely process. Nor will Trump add more to the system, claiming he can't tell whom to trust. (Must be that loyalty oath to Himself that's missing, eh?)

It's also true that there is a database with the information on the location of the kids separated from their parents. Sounds like problem solved, doesn't it? But here the Devil is truly in the details.

The database of children does not contain the information on the parent(s) the kids were separated from. Terrific planning, eh? If that's not bad enough, the database of parents does not contain information on their separated children, neither who they are nor where they were sent. Starting to see a complication here?

But wait: there's more. The two databases can not communicate with each other. It's not as simple as, say, different computer programs. It's about the so-called legal protection of the children, keeping their information private. Not just from us. Not just from reporters who might want to check up on the situation. It's "protecting" the parent's lawyers from getting the information on the children!

Those parents in the know, usually because somebody in the same fix has figured out a way to connect with the right advocate to secure assistance, and has shared this information with another parent, still run into problems. The advocates who care enough to be involved in trying to solve this dilemma are way over-stretched. Calls to them by parents reaching out are often put on hold for over 20 minutes. What to us is an inconvenience becomes a roadblock to these parents since their allowed phone time is 15 minutes. It doesn't take a math whiz to see the problem here.  

This, of course, is if the kids even have a lawyer!  Oh, you thought they had to be represented? Well, being the immigration-friendly country we've become under Trump, there's this teensy little policy change. Children under 5 can/do appear in court without representation now.  Because, you know, non-English speaking kids, even pre-verbal kids, can do such a great job of defending themselves from this big steamroller we call an immigration legal system. Right?

You think this was bad enough already, putting kids in "cages", idiots on TV (FOX) describing it as being like summer camp because they have a roof, three squares, sort of, and some fenced-in outside space, perhaps a tent shelter in summer heat with no air conditioning and miniscule cross ventilation, and a cuddly mylar blanket to sleep under? All on top of no Mommy or Daddy, of course. Wheee! You thought this was as bad as it gets?

Well, guess what? If those parents are here claiming their need for asylum and looking for their kids with the meager resources provided, they get offered a "choice". This government will go to the bother of locating their kid/s and reuniting them with their parents on their way out of the country after they've dropped their claim for asylum,  just because it's the only way they are offered to be reunited with their kid/s. And even that doesn't mean they get any kid returned to them, not to mention the correct child returned to them, as they are booted out the door.

"Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore...." Ain't we great, or what?